Author: Barbara Rodriguez, The 19th

Barbara Rodriguez is The 19th's statehouses reporter. She most recently worked at the Des Moines Register, where she covered health care, politics and state government. Before that, Barbara was the Iowa statehouse reporter for The Associated Press, where she worked for a decade.

Threats Against Michigan Women Leaders Highlight Ongoing Concerns Over Political Violence

The Department of Justice has recently charged two men with making threats whose targets included Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and Attorney General Dana Nessel.

“Sometimes threats are enough. People don’t have to commit direct violence for there to be a real chilling environment on civic participation and these essential parts of our democracy.”

‘Where Is Nancy?’: How Threats Against Women in Power Are Tied to Threats Against Democracy

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House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who is second in line to the presidency, has long been the focus of negative political ads and campaign rhetoric. But the attacks have become more layered with threats of violence and misogyny, and social media has allowed them to spread more easily.

“It’s about people saying, ‘We want to keep women from getting to a position of power.’ And in the long term, it will have a deeply chilling effect.”

What Tishaura Jones’s Mayoral Win Says About the Political Power Of Black Women

What Tishaura Jones’s Mayoral Win Says About the Political Power Of Black Women

Tishaura Jones was elected Tuesday as the first Black woman mayor of St. Louis, the latest in a recent surge of Black women running for and being voted into positions of power in major U.S. cities.

“The phenomenon of Black women winning mayoral seats isn’t happening in a vacuum. There’s this real surge of Black women and women of color more broadly in city-level elected offices across the country.”

Law Enforcement Officers Keep Arresting Black Women Elected Officials

Law Enforcement Officers Keep Arresting Black Women Elected Officials

“Black women’s bodies are a site for state-sponsored violence.”

A growth in Black women’s representation in statehouses and other levels of government in recent years has increased their political power. Black women elected officials often are the ones who challenge policies over issues like police killings, racist monuments and voting restrictions.

It has also led to increasingly visible resistance, with several Black women being arrested or facing criminal charges in the midst of their work in statehouses or in their communities.