Women and Politics

(AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)

All eyes have been on Republican Senator Olympia Snowe (Maine). Her vote on the health care bill in the Senate Finance Committee has been highly anticipated, speculated, and courted. As the only women Republican on the Committee, she was the wild card.

After rejecting Sen. Orrin Hatchs’ attack on women’s reproductive health choices, Sen. Snowe then voted in favor of the Committee’s bill, which was approved in a 14-9 vote yesterday. Although many consider her to be the “canary in a coal mine” to determine bipartisan support, others are warning that her Committee vote won’t necessarily translate into support of the next bill.

From here, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid will have to meld and combine the bills from different Senate committees, while House Speaker Nancy Pelosi will continue doing the same with House committee bills.

So what does Sen. Snowe’s bipartisan vote really mean - how will women in Congress play a role in this historic legislation?

Here are the current stats on women in Congress:

• 17 women serve in the Senate - 17% of 100 seats
  • 13 Democrat, 4 Republican
• 73 women serve in the House - 17% of 435 seats
  • 56 Democrat, 17 Republican

In sum, women only hold 17% of all seats in Congress. So Republican or Democrat, we don’t really have much of a say in the fate of health care reform.

Did Olympia Snowe vote against her party because she’s a woman? Will other women in Congress be more likely to vote across party lines or support a public option simply because of their gender? If they are, and if comprehensive health care reform fails, it will be an unfortunate example of how desperately we need more women in public office.