Racial, Ethnic Diversity in Congress

As a former member, I’m always interested in the demographic make-up of the Congress. The recently sworn in 117th Congress is the most racially and ethnically diverse in history. About a quarter of voting members (23%) of the House of Representatives and Senate are racial or ethnic minorities. According to the Pew Research Center, this is the sixth Congress to break the diversity record set by the one before it.

Overall, 124 lawmakers today identify as Black, Hispanic, Asian/Pacific Islander or Native American. This represents a 97% increase over the 107th Congress of 2001-03, which had 63 minority members.

Among today’s senators and representatives, the overwhelming majority of racial and ethnic minority members are Democrats (83%), while 17% are Republicans. This represents a shift from the last Congress, when just 10% of non-White lawmakers were Republicans.

But even with these gains, the Congress still does not reflect the general overall makeup of the U.S. population. For example, non-Hispanic White Americans account for 77% of members in the new Congress, considerably larger than their 60% share of the U.S. population. In 1981, during my service in Congress, 94% of members of the overall Congress were White, compared with 80% of the U.S. population. This included all members of the House and Senate.

The House of Representatives, however, was designed by the founders to be “the peoples’ house.” For the past fifty years its membership has been based on the principle of one person, one vote as required by a Supreme Court decision. As a result, the House has been more diverse, its membership reflecting close to the actual makeup of America’s voters. For example, 13% of House members today are about equal to the share of Black Americans while Native Americans now make up about 1% of both the House and the general population.

However, the share of Hispanics in the U.S. population (19%) is about twice as high as it is in the House (9%). Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders together account for 6% of the national population but only 3% of House members.

Less representative of a diverse America, is the U.S. Senate. Eleven senators are a racial or ethnic minority, up from nine in the 116th Congress. Six senators are Hispanic, two are Asian and three are Black.
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Photo Credit: Members of the 117th Congress Sworn In. Caption: The 117th Congress is the most diverse Congress in history, with a record amount of gender and racial diversity. Photo by Franmarie Metzler.