Legislature has fewer women this year

The 84th General Assembly that convenes today will see a slight decline in the number of women representing Iowans compared with two years ago.

There will be fewer 20-somethings, too, and the number of lawmakers who have hit the 50 mark is fewer.

Retirees, businesspeople and farmers will be in plentiful supply.

To be sure, the biggest change in this year's session will be the number of Republicans walking the halls.

The GOP will add 16 members to their number in the House, enough to capture the majority. At least five more Republicans will join the state Senate, with one race in the upper chamber yet to be decided.

A Polk County Senate district will be decided Jan. 18.

More than anything else, it's that partisan shift resulting from the Nov. 2 election that will drive the debate over the next four months.

The demographic makeup of Iowa's lawmakers - their ages, genders and occupations - doesn't go unnoticed.

At least with respect to women, the decline, however small, is yet another sign of the need to step up recruiting, said the leader of a new organization aimed at boosting gender equity in the Legislature.

“We've got to get women thinking, ‘Yes, women can do this job,' and you don't have to wait until you have your master's degree, your law degree and your mother in the perfect nursing home,” said Maggie Tinsman, a former state senator from Bettendorf.

Tinsman is founder of a bipartisan group, formed in the fall, that has a goal of having equal numbers men and women in the Statehouse and Iowa's congressional delegation by 2020. To start, the group wants 20 new women on the ballot in 2012.

The Iowa Legislature will count 32 women this year, the smallest number since 2005. In 2009, there were 34 women.

The decline from two years ago mirrors a nationwide trend, according to preliminary figures from the National Conference of State Legislatures. It reported last week that the share of women in state legislatures across the country is falling from 25 percent to 24 percent.

In Iowa, women now hold 21 percent of the seats.

The number of African-Americans, meanwhile, also has declined slightly, from six to five, over the past two years. All are in the House.

“The opportunity definitely exists out there. That's not the problem,” said state Rep. Phyllis Thede, D-Bettendorf, an African-American going into her second term. “We've got to do some serious recruitment.”

She added there also should be a push to add Hispanic lawmakers.

The state will see a native of Bosnia added to the state Legislature with the election in November of Anesa Kajtazovic of Waterloo. House Democrats said she's the first Bosnian-American to be elected to the Legislature.

Kajtazovic immigrated with her parents in 1997 and became a citizen in 2004.

Sen. Swati Dandekar, D-Marion, who immigrated from India, returns to the Senate.

In terms of age, Iowa's legislative body will have fewer people younger than 30 than it did just two years ago, when there were seven 20-somethings. Now, there will be five.

At the same time, there will be four more members who are younger than 50 than there were in 2009 and five fewer who are older than that.

The average age of the Iowa legislator this year is 52.8.

The oldest, at 81, is Sen. Jack Kibbie, D-Emmetsburg. Kajtazovic is the youngest, at 24.

Chris Hall, a House Democrat from Sioux City, is the second youngest at 25. He previously worked at the Capitol as a staffer. Now, he's eager to be the one casting votes.

“I'm certainly mindful of representing the voice of young people,” he said last week.

Farmers, retirees and those working in the business field are the most prevalent among the occupations listed by Iowa's lawmakers.

Retirees totaled 27 of the 149 legislators who will take their seats today, while 30 list farming as their occupation, full- or part-time. There are 28 people who work in various business fields and another 17 in education.

Iowa lawmakers also are an educated lot, relative to the rest of the state. Ninety-nine legislators have college or advanced degrees, about two-thirds of the total.

Only 29 of the 149 are single. The rest are married, and 129 lawmakers have children in their families. Twenty have no children.