The Maryland General Assembly is one of the most diverse state legislatures in the country, a Banner analysis of a nationwide database of state legislators has found.

The data on race and gender for every state lawmaker in the United States from 2023 to 2024 shows Maryland’s General Assembly is 34% Black — the highest percentage of Black lawmakers in any state legislature. Maryland’s is the only state legislative body higher than 30%.

Based on the Simpson’s Diversity Index, a common metric used to measure diversity, Maryland ranks third for the most diverse group of state lawmakers, trailing only California and New York.

Maryland also has more female lawmakers than nearly any other state, according to the data from Duke University researchers. There are 82 women in the General Assembly, a higher raw total than all but two states — New Hampshire and Maine. New Hampshire has more than 400 total legislators, by far the largest state legislature in the country. Maryland falls down the order when calculating women as a share of all legislators. Nearly 44% of Maryland’s state lawmakers are women, the ninth highest percentage in the nation.

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The state’s diversity is only present in one party. None of Maryland’s 64 Black lawmakers are Republicans. That’s not uncommon. There are only 30 Black Republican state lawmakers nationwide, less than 1% of all GOP lawmakers. Maryland’s Republican party has fewer women than the party does nationally. There are only eight female Republican lawmakers in Maryland — less than 10%. Nationally, 20% of Republican lawmakers are women.

Maryland Democrats, on the other hand, are more diverse than the national average. In Maryland, Black Democrats outnumber white Democrats and women outnumber men. Nationwide, 48% of Democratic state lawmakers are women, and 23% are Black. Maryland is one of eight states where the Democratic party is both majority Black and majority female. Those states are Nevada, Arizona, Florida, Georgia, New Mexico, North Carolina and Illinois.

Maryland is about 30% Black, according to data from the U.S. Census Bureau. Only Deep South states Mississippi, Louisiana and Georgia had a higher percentage, and while those states were among the highest for Black lawmakers, they all trailed Maryland.

The 2023-24 State Legislators Dataset from Duke also includes information on educational attainment and previous occupations for most lawmakers in the nation. You can search for your Maryland lawmaker in the table below.

Ramsey Archibald

ramsey.archibald@thebaltimorebanner.com

Ramsey Archibald

Ramsey Archibald is an award-winning data journalist originally from Birmingham, Alabama.

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