“If it’s Sunday, it’s more men wearing dark suits.” By Erika Lovely for Politico – So far, none of the five major Sunday morning television news shows has embraced that as a promotional slogan. But women’s advocates — armed with new data showing that the shows are a bastion of male power — say it would be an apt description for the lot of them.

Even as women have vaulted to be House speaker and hold a host of other influential positions on Capitol Hill, female lawmakers continue to be under-represented as guests on the Sunday shows.

According to research by American University’s Women & Politics Institute, female lawmakers have composed 13.5 percent of the total Sunday show appearances by all representatives and senators this year.

The suggestion that the Sunday shows are less hospitable to women has prompted a debate over who’s to blame among network producers, Capitol Hill political operatives and women’s advocates.

Some academic researchers and press secretaries for women in Congress say the network bookers have a men-in-suits mind-set that leads to familiar faces appearing over and over — and vital women’s voices being muffled on Sunday shows that historically are an important platform of Washington power.

The shows’ producers bridle at the criticism, saying that, despite their strong interest in booking more women, the shows must be topical and reflect the reality that men still hold more of the most influential and newsmaking positions in Congress.

And they say some congressional women — Nancy Pelosi chief among them — do not help the cause by making themselves so difficult to book. Most producers say they try to recruit female lawmakers nearly every weekend but receive a steady stream of rejection slips.

“I’ve probably asked her 25 times. She is just unwilling to do it,” Betsy Fischer, executive producer of NBC’s “Meet the Press,” said of Pelosi. “Literally, I have our booker e-mail her every Monday, but she’s not available. She does not seem to be making herself accessible.”

Other Sunday show producers agreed that some leading female politicians need to make a more concerted effort to make themselves available when the shows call, which the producers assert is often.

The implication is that female politicians — struggling to balance home, work and travel commitments in the same way many female business executives must — don’t lunge as frantically for the spotlight as many publicity-starved male politicians do.

To read the full Politico story by Erika Lovely, click here.