President Donald Trump signs a pardon for Alice Johnson, who was serving a life sentence on drug-related charges, on Aug. 28, 2020, in Washington. (Evan Vucci/AP)
Despite a burst of pardons and commutations in his last hours in office, Donald Trump used his executive clemency power less frequently than nearly every other president since the turn of the 20th century, according to a Pew Research Center analysis of U.S. Justice Department data.
Trump granted 237 acts of clemency during his four years in the White House, including 143 pardons and 94 commutations. Only two other presidents since 1900 – George W. and George H.W. Bush – granted fewer acts of clemency than Trump.
His predecessor, Barack Obama, granted clemency 1,927 times over the course of eight years in office, the highest total of any president going back to Harry Truman. Obama’s total was skewed heavily toward commutations (1,715) instead of pardons (212).
Kamala Harris is sworn in as vice president by Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor on Jan. 20, 2021, in Washington as Harris’ husband, Doug Emhoff, and Joe Biden look on. (Alex Wong/Getty Images)
Twelve years after Barack Obama made history as the first Black U.S. president, a Black woman was sworn in as vice president of the United States following the election of Joe Biden. Kamala Harris, who is of mixed Jamaican and Indian heritage, is the first Black American, first person of Asian descent and first woman to hold the second-highest office in the country. Harris’ election represented another advance in the slow but steady progress Black Americans have made in recent decades in gaining a greater foothold in political leadership, particularly in the U.S. House of Representatives and in the Cabinets of recent presidents. But they have lagged in the Senate and in governorships.
Many Black Americans view political representation as a potential catalyst for increased racial equality, according to a June 2020 Pew Research Center survey. Four-in-ten Black adults said that working to get more Black people elected to office would be a very effective tactic for groups striving to help Black Americans achieve equality. White adults were less likely to view this as an effective way to bring about increased racial equality (23% said it would be very effective).
Data from the past several decades reveals the upward yet uneven trajectory of Black political leadership in America. In 1965, there were no Black U.S. senators or governors, and only five members of the House of Representatives were Black. As of 2021, there is greater representation in some areas – 57 House members in the new Congress are Black (not including nonvoting delegates and commissioners), putting the share of Black House members (13%) about on par with the share of the overall U.S. population that is Black. But in other areas, there has been little change: There are three Black senators – the same number as in 2019 – and no Black governors.
The first Black U.S. senator, Hiram R. Revels, a Republican from Mississippi, was chosen by his state’s Legislature to fill an empty seat. He served for a year, from 1870 to 1871. In total, 11 Black Americans have served in the Senate, including three currently in office. This is the same number as in the previous Congress, since Harris moved from the Senate to the White House and Raphael Warnock, a Democrat, became the first Black senator from Georgia. Until 2013, no two Black senators had been in office at the same time.
The share of Black members in a presidential Cabinet was at or above parity with the population during the Clinton and George W. Bush administrations and Obama’s second term, and this will be the case if all of Biden’s nominees are approved. But there was only one Black Cabinet secretary during the Trump administration, and the same was true during Obama’s first term.
The current 117th Congress includes 57 Black representatives, a record high and a large increase since 1965. Only two of these 57 representatives are Republicans. Two nonvoting delegates, representing the District of Columbia and the U.S. Virgin Islands, are Black. Only five representatives were Black in 1965, and all were Democrats.
Black U.S. House members, 1965-2021
Date
Number of U.S. representatives who are Black
1965
5
1967
5
1969
9
1971
13
1973
16
1975
16
1977
15
1979
15
1981
17
1983
20
1985
20
1987
22
1989
23
1991
26
1993
39
1995
39
1997
37
1999
37
2001
36
2003
37
2005
40
2007
40
2009
39
2011
42
2013
41
2015
44
2017
47
2019
53
2021
57
Note: Shows the number of Black representatives at the outset of each term of Congress. The data does not include nonvoting delegates or commissioners.
The highest level of Black representation in a presidential Cabinet occurred during Bill Clinton’s first term, when four out of 15 Cabinet appointees were Black. Since then, the share of the Cabinet that is Black has fluctuated. In Obama’s first term and Donald Trump’s presidency, only one Cabinet member was Black, but under George W. Bush’s first term and Obama’s second, the share of the Cabinet that was Black exceeded the Black share of the overall U.S. population. If Biden’s slate of nominees is confirmed by the Senate, his Cabinet will include three Black members – Harris as vice president, Lloyd Austin as the first Black secretary of defense, and Marcia Fudge as secretary of housing and urban development.
Black U.S. Cabinet members
Administration
% of Cabinet members who are Black
Johnson
8%
Nixon, term 1
0%
Nixon, term 2
0%
Ford
8%
Carter
7%
Reagan, term 1
7%
Reagan, term 2
7%
G.H.W. Bush
7%
Clinton, term 1
27%
Clinton, term 2
20%
G.W. Bush, term 1
19%
G.W. Bush, term 2
13%
Obama, term 1
6%
Obama, term 2
25%
Trump
6%
Biden, nominees
19%
Note: Percentage for Biden’s Cabinet is based on his nominees as of Jan. 22, 2021, before the confirmation process was finalized. All other percentages are based on the maximum number of Black Cabinet members serving concurrently in a given administration out of the total number of Cabinet members in that administration. In this analysis, the Cabinet includes the vice president and heads of federal agencies; it does not include Cabinet-level officials. The number of Cabinet positions has changed over time.
There are no Black governors in office today, and there have been none since Deval Patrick retired in 2015. In fact, there have been only four in U.S. history. Pinckney Pinchback served as a governor of Louisiana for 35 days in the 1870s following Henry Clay Warmoth’s impeachment. Virginia, Massachusetts and New York each had a Black governor during the 1990s and 2000s – Douglas Wilder, Deval Patrick and David Paterson, respectively. The latter two were the first to serve simultaneously, from 2008 to 2010. Three Black candidates – including two seeking to become the first Black female governor – are part of a crowded field vying to be elected governor of Virginia in November 2021.
Note: This is an update of a post originally published June 28, 2016, and previously updated on Jan. 18, 2019.
Online harassment is often subjective when it comes to how people perceive the unpleasant or offensive behaviors that they encounter. Indeed, a notable share of Americans who have personally been targets of troubling online behaviors would not label their experience as “online harassment,” according to a new Pew Research Center report.
The Center’s survey conducted last September measured online harassment by asking respondents if they had personally experienced any of the following: offensive name-calling, purposeful embarrassment, stalking, physical threats, sexual harassment and sustained harassment. But in order to get a better understanding of how subjective this concept is, targets of these behaviors were asked if they considered their most recent incident to be “online harassment.”
Post-general election meetings of Congress, which have become routine in recent decades, are commonly known as “lame-duck” sessions. The unflattering descriptor alludes to the senators and representatives who have lost reelection or whose terms are almost up but can still help make laws for a few more weeks.
Lame-duck sessions historically were used to wrap up pending business, and more recently to cut last-minute budget deals. But none in the nearly five decades for which data is available has been as legislatively productive as the lame-duck session of the 116th Congress, which wrapped up on Jan. 3.
More than four-in-ten bills that became law out of the 116th Congress (151 of 344, or 44%) were passed in the final two months of its two-year term. That’s the highest share of lame-duck legislation since at least the 93rd Congress of 1973-74, the first years of our analysis. Among the bills enacted during the recent lame-duck session was a $900 billion economic relief bill that had been the subject of a congressional standoff for months leading up to Election Day.
Although about one-in-five U.S. adults are Catholic and Catholicism has long been one of the nation’s largest religious groups, John F. Kennedy was the only Catholic president until Biden was sworn in on Jan. 20. Aside from Biden, only one other Catholic, John Kerry, has been a presidential nominee on a major party ticket since Kennedy’s assassination in 1963.
Donald Trump’s final job approval rating as president was 29% in a Pew Research Center poll released last week, the lowest of his presidency and a 9 percentage point drop since August, when 38% of U.S. adults approved. The decrease stood out because even some of the momentous events of the past four years did not affect Trump’s approval rating very much.
So it was difficult to predict how the events of Jan. 6 – when rioters rampaged through the U.S. Capitol – might affect the public’s view of Trump in the Center’s survey, which was conducted in the days afterward. The 9-point fall in approval was the largest change between two Pew Research Center polls since Trump took office.
Most of the decline occurred among Republicans, the majority of whom were strongly supportive of Trump. How can we know that the change reflected a real shift in public opinion and was not an artifact of the poll itself, such as the possibility that some Republicans were less willing to be surveyed because of the events of Jan. 6?
Following the passage of a second stimulus package in December in response to the impact of the coronavirus outbreak, 79% of U.S. adults say another economic assistance package will be necessary. Just 20% say another package will not be needed.
The level of support for an additional package today is nearly identical to the share of Americans (80%) who said more coronavirus aid was needed in the weeks leading up to passage of a $900 billion stimulus bill late last year, according to a new Pew Research Center survey.
While majorities of both Republicans and Democrats say they think another economic assistance package will be necessary, Republicans are less likely to say this.
The violent storming of the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 by a mob of supporters of President Donald Trump has generated considerable attention overseas, as well as concerns about the health of American democracy. Even before the riot, however, many people in three key allies of the United States – Germany, France and the United Kingdom – were worried about the American political system.
Large majorities in all three countries said in a fall 2020 Pew Research Center survey that the U.S. system needs either major changes or to be completely reformed. The view was especially common in Germany, where 55% said major changes are necessary and an additional 18% said the system should be completely reformed. The share of people who said major changes to the U.S. system are necessary was slightly lower in France (45%) and the UK (40%).
Few people in the three nations said no changes to the U.S. system are needed.
Social media activity by members of Congress changed in notable ways following the Jan. 6 rioting at the U.S. Capitol by supporters of President Donald Trump, according to a new Pew Research Center analysis of lawmakers’ Facebook and Twitter posts in the days after the breach.
Below is a closer look at how members’ posts – as well as their followers’ reactions to those posts – changed between Jan. 6 and Jan. 10, 2021. The analysis is part of a larger body of research that the Center has conducted in recent years into the way members of Congress use social media. This analysis is based on public posts from lawmakers’ official, campaign and personal accounts, and includes freshman members of the 117th Congress unless otherwise noted.
Democratic members of the U.S. House of Representatives are sworn in by Speaker Nancy Pelosi during the first session of the 117th Congress on Jan. 3, 2021. (Erin Scott/POOL/AFP via Getty Images)
Women make up just over a quarter of all members of the 117th Congress – the highest percentage in U.S. history and a considerable increase from where things stood even a decade ago.
Counting both the House of Representatives and the Senate, 144 of 539 seats – or 27% – are held by women. That represents a 50% increase from the 96 women who were serving in the 112th Congress a decade ago, though it remains far below the female share of the overall U.S. population. A record 120 women are serving in the newly elected House, accounting for 27% of the total. In the Senate, women hold 24 of 100 seats, one fewer than the record number of seats they held in the last Congress.
This analysis counts voting as well as nonvoting members of Congress. Figures for the 117th Congress exclude two House seats that were vacant as of early January. It also excludes Sens. Kamala Harris, who is expected to resign her seat ahead of her inauguration as vice president on Jan. 20, and Kelly Loeffler, who lost a runoff election in Georgia earlier this month. Both are set to be replaced by men.
