Election Update - Kilroy Wins Ohio's 15th District Race

The results for this race were finally announced this past weekend; Mary Jo Kilroy will represent Ohio's 15th House District when Congress convenes after the first of the year. She will join Marcia Fudge, who won the race to fill the seat left vacant by the untimely death of Stephanie Tubbs Jones earlier this year.

According to the Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers, 75 women will serve in the U.S. House of Representatives, and 17 will serve in the U.S. Senate - 19% of the total 535 seats available (not including non-voting delegates). Those results would rank the U.S. 63rd among the 188 legislative bodies evaluated by the InterParliamentary Union for the percentage of seats held by women (based on October 2008 totals).

Also interesting to note:

• the Senate in New Hampshire is the first where women hold the majority - 13 of 24 seats. One take on it: it's an almost volunteer position with poor pay in New Hampshire - $100 a year plus gas money - the lowest in the nation in 2005.
  
• in contrast, South Carolina became the all state in the nation with an all-male Senate. (In 2005, South Carolina paid its legislators $10,400 annually according to a report by the Council of State Governments)