New Mexico has a female-majority Legislature for the first time. So, will they govern differently than the men who’ve come before them?

Now that New Mexico has a majority-female state Legislature for the first time, experts will be watching to see what, if anything, is different because of this broken barrier. Indeed, several Western states are leading the nation in female representation. As someone who has written and studied female representation for over a decade, I’m excited to see up close what difference these women in New Mexico might make.

When I wrote my book “Broad Influence, How Women Are Changing the Way America Works,” it grew out of a TIME Magazine story I did about the women of the Senate coming together during the 2013 government shutdown to restart the negotiations to reopen the government when none of the men would talk to each other. The book looked at what happens when women reach a tipping point, a critical mass, of somewhere between 20% to 30% of representation — whether it was a legislative body like the U.S. House or Senate, a corporate board, or a Navy ship.

At the time, hopes for equal representation in Washington seemed remote. Indeed, women still only make up just 25% of the U.S. Senate and just under 30% of the U.S. House. So, I was delighted to discover that with 11 additional women joining the ranks of state legislators, New Mexico in 2025 will see a female-majority Legislature with 60 of 112 seats in the Roundhouse to be held by women. That breaks down to 44 of the 70 members in the state House of Representatives — or 63% — and 16 of the 42 seats in the Senate — or 38%.

Women, I found in my years of book research, demonstrably change the way we govern when they reach critical mass, up to 30% depending on how many leaders are elected. So, arguably, the difference should already have been felt in the New Mexico Legislature since women reached 30% in 2018. But, I wondered, would having a majority make a difference? So, we asked the ladies and some experts what they thought.

Issues

When U.S. group courts reached a critical mass of women, statistics showed they tended to hear more cases concerning discrimination. Former U.S. Sen. Barbara Mikulski, a Maryland Democrat, used to lament that when she entered the Senate in 1987, funding for breast cancer research was less than $1 million annually; she grew that to more than $500 million annually by the time she retired in 2017.

The next session in New Mexico may also look at issues important to women in a different way.

“Women bring our own unique life experiences with us into public office, like all public servants. More women in government means more leaders who know what it’s like to balance work and family and who bring real understanding of issues that families care about most, like the economy and public education,” says Rep. Reena Szczepanski, a Democrat who represents District 47 and is the incoming House majority leader. “Our Legislature is now more reflective of the state we serve, and the diversity of opinion and life experience has helped us enormously.”

Sarah Silva, the incoming Democrat representing House District 53, says she hopes the Legislature will move to “protect vulnerable populations in a Trump Administration.” She’s particularly concerned with pocketbook issues.

“Inflation, paying rent on time, what a Social Security check covers: all these things that women are used to doing because that’s how we run our households, how we budget for our families long term,” she tells the Journal. “So, I think many women across lines and family structures do play to those strengths.”

Rep. Andrea Reeb, a Republican who represents District 64, hopes that women will help protect girls in an era of transgender women looking to compete in sports.

“The primary difference between the way that women and men govern is that we — lady legislators — are asked to explain how our biological differences will impact our governing,” she says. “Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad we’re talking about biology — it’s past time. For far too long, the one-party-ruled Legislature has ignored the biological differences between men and women in sports and other areas. I hope to see a female majority take action to protect female-only spaces and defend hard-earned female accomplishments.”

Bipartisan collaboration

Women also tend to be more collaborative and seek consensus rather than emphasizing differences, studies show. In the “PTA strategy of governing,” as soccer mom-turned-politician Patty Murray, a Washington Democrat and president pro tempore of the U.S. Senate, often called it, women divvy up the work and eschew credit to get things done. Though in this era of hyperpartisan politics, some female politicians are moving away from that tradition, it still mostly holds to this day with women often leading bipartisan efforts — especially in the New Mexico Legislature, where of the 60 women elected to serve , 46 are Democrats and 14 are Republicans.

“These life experiences are part of why research shows that women in elected office are often more responsive to constituents, place a high value on collaboration, and find ways to engineer solutions in situations where others may have trouble finding common ground,” says Szczepanski. “I think you can expect a real commitment to problem-solving and collaboration to deliver for our communities.”

Echoes Silva: “Collaboration and negotiation — wrestling with toxic leadership and choices we make moving away from force and coercion.”

And while the current configuration of the state Legislature doesn’t yet truly represent New Mexico’s diverse state, progress is being made, says Senate Finance Committee Sen. Crystal Brantley, R-Elephant Butte. “There’s work to be done, but I’m excited to see the old ‘patron’ system take another blow.”

Why women here versus other sectors?

Typically, government is an easier place for women to enter the workforce than the private sector. It has strong unions and protections for when women take family leave. It’s not as well paid, and therefore less competitive than in the private sector. And women like the mission of government: If they’re going to have to leave their kids, it may as well be for something to make the world a better place.

And in more than 30 states, like New Mexico, it’s a part-time job. “In New Mexico, since we are not a professional legislative body but a citizen legislature, it makes some sense that there would be a lot of women in politics,” says Nicole Tobiassen, the Republican state senator-elect for District 21.

But there is also something to be said about the southwest region. “New Mexico will be just the third state to achieve a female-majority after Nevada and Arizona and is projected to be joined by Colorado in this milestone in their next sessions,” says Kelly Dittmar, director of research at Rutgers University’s Center for American Women and Politics, which tracks women in public office. “This achievement demonstrates that women are not only running but also winning office at higher numbers and that they are normalizing their presence in political institutions.”

While more than 60% of Nevada’s Legislature is female, New Mexico also has female executive leadership with four of the seven statewide elected offices held by women, including the gubernatorial seat. “Since we have had so few states with majority women in the legislature and few with women in executive leadership, the New Mexico experience will also give a chance to see what having a critical mass of women in government means for issue priorities and if it impacts the ability to build consensus in polarized times,” says Michele Swers, a political science professor at Georgetown University who has written several books about women in politics.

Executive leadership may indeed be important, says Dittmar. Her Eagleton Center studied Nevada and found that even though women had reached a majority in the state Legislature, they still lacked in leadership roles and struggled to have their voices heard.

So, to that end, New Mexico, with its majority female Legislature and executive leadership, will be closely watched by experts to see what, if any, difference the women make.

CORRECTION: This story has been updated to reflect that Sarah Silva is the incoming Democrat representing House District 53.