There will be more women than men in the Alaska House of Representatives for the first time in its history when the Legislature convenes in January, according to final unofficial election results released Wednesday. Twenty-one women will serve in the 40-member Alaska House, assuming that — as expected — the winners in the unofficial tally are certified at the end of the month.
Rep. Genevieve Mina, D-Anchorage, said it’s great to see women better represented in state government. It’s a self-reinforcing trend, she said: the more women are elected, the more likely women are to get involved.
“It’s really exciting,” she said. “This is what it looks like to have genuine gender parity and representation in our government and politics.”
It’s the first time either the state House or Senate will be majority-woman, according to records maintained by the Center for American Women and Politics, part of the Eagleton Institute of Politics at Rutgers University. A review of legislative rosters dating back to the first state Legislature in 1959 confirms the milestone.
Mina says she expects the record number of women in the House to drive conversations about things like child care, education and family policy.
“Just having that empathy and experience with children and knowing those hardships, I think, makes a huge difference in trying to figure out what policies we can tweak to make our government and our state more welcoming for parents, for families and for children,” Mina said.
Five of the Alaska Senate’s 20 seats will be held by women in the next Legislature, the same number as last session. The one woman senator up for election this year, Kelly Merrick, R-Eagle River, won reelection. That makes the total number of female lawmakers 26, or 43% of total seats in the state Capitol, which is also a record, according to CAWP. The previous high, 23, was set in 2019.
Six women were newly elected to the Alaska House this year, according to unofficial results: Carolyn Hall, D-Anchorage, Jubilee Underwood, R-Wasilla, Elexie Moore, R-Wasilla, Rebecca Schwanke, R-Tazlina, Nellie Unangiq Jimmie, D-Tooksook Bay, and Robyn Niayuq Burke, D-Utqiagvik.
Fourteen women won reelection and will return to the House: Rebecca Himschoot, I-Sitka, Andi Story, D-Juneau, Sara Hannan, D-Juneau, Louise Stutes, R-Kodiak, Sarah Vance, R-Homer, Julie Coulombe, R-Anchorage, Alyse Galvin, D-Anchorage, Genevieve Mina, D-Anchorage, Donna Mears, D-Anchorage, Jamie Allard, R-Eagle River, DeLena Johnson, R-Palmer, Cathy Tilton, R-Wasilla, Maxine Dibert, D-Fairbanks and Ashley Carrick, D-Fairbanks.
And one female former lawmaker is making a comeback: Mia Costello, R-Anchorage.
Sen. Cathy Giessel, R-Anchorage, said she’s planning to start a “Women of the Alaska Legislature” caucus in the coming term. Too often, she said, male-dominated committees and leadership teams discount the input of their female colleagues.
“My goal with this caucus is, of course, to talk about, probably, some women’s issues — pay parity, child care, things like that — but also to be a place where women legislators can feel encouraged and can be mentored,” she said.
Giessel said she’s expecting the large number of women to make the Legislature as a whole more productive. She pointed to research from MIT that found that teams with a greater number of women outperformed male-dominated groups.
As for why the number of women in the Legislature has grown, Giessel points to the state’s open, nonpartisan primary system.
“There’s no blessing from a political party required,” she said. “That alone is empowering, I think, for women considering entering public policy.”
Alaska’s record-high number of female lawmakers matches a trend seen across the country.
A record number of women will serve in state legislatures across the country next year. Women will hold a third of the more than 2,400 seats in statehouses nationwide, according to the Center for American Women and Politics. That eclipses the record set just this year.
In addition to the Alaska House, just seven state legislative chambers are majority-female or at gender parity in the U.S., according to CAWP.
Eric Stone covers state government, tracking the Alaska Legislature, state policy and its impact on all Alaskans. Reach him at estone@alaskapublic.org and follow him on X at @eriwinsto. Read more about Eric here.
