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falling, if we had been fighting for this for so many years?”
16
Awareness of a broader
pattern of decline fueled efforts to adopt quotas at home.
[Insert Figure 1 here]
By the middle of 2001, each of the three main parties—the PRI, the PRD and the
PAN—had adopted some kind of quota provision for women in its internal party statutes,
but their interests relative to a national-level law differed significantly. Female leaders of
the PRI and the PRD supported a quota law as a way to ensure that gender quotas would
be enforced. Many male PRI leaders supported the law because it would reduce the
candidate quota from 50% to 30%. High-ranking PAN officials vehemently opposed a
quota law. How did quota supporters manage to overcome the PAN’s resistance?
The Role of the Supreme Court in the Quota Debate
While changes in internal party rules are part of the story, non-elective branches
of government can also play an important role in the adoption of gender quota laws. In
Mexico, quota law opponents took the issue to the courts, claiming that gender quotas
were unconstitutional on the grounds of equal protection. The Mexican Supreme Court
upheld this challenge to the quota law provision of a state-level electoral law, a decision
that undermined the opposition to quotas and proved critical in the effort to pass a
national law.
On November 16, 2001, the state legislature of Coahuila passed a gender quota
law as part of a set of reforms to the state’s electoral law. Coahuila is one of thirteen
Mexican states have added quota provisions to their electoral laws, all in the past three
years (since 2000).
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The Coahuila law requires the parties to promote gender equity, and
establishes a quota of no more than 70% of either gender for candidates for the single-
Convention