In 1998, Four Latin Republicans were elected to the California legislature. As a press secretary for a republican legislative leader, I summoned a press conference requiring the end of a discriminatory policy: the fully democratic Latin-democratic legislative caucus should stop insisting on political monoculture and allowing Republicans to join.
Twenty-five years later, the Latin-Californian legislative caucus still excludes the Republicans. Unlike states like Arizona and Texas, whose Latin Caucus are bipartite, the Californian Latin Republicans remain excluded from an ethnic caucus which claims to represent them.
This particularity reflects the history of Latin political empowerment in the state. When the Caucus was founded in 1973 by the late member of the Los Angeles Assembly Richard Alatorre and others, it seemed inconceivable that any consecutive number of Latin republicans could be elected to serve Sacramento. This has proven to be exact for decades.
But now, as the right change of Latin voters has swept a record number of Latin republican legislators in the Capitol – there are now nine who have formed their own caucus – the debate has been resurrected. This time, it seems different – because Latin voters and identity are different.
Today’s Latinos do not have the defined ethnic and racial perspective of previous generations. The new Latin American voters are harmful of American origin, mainly English-speaking and more likely to consider themselves “generally American” than to associate themselves with their country of origin. And they are more likely than members of any other ethnic group not to be affiliated with a political party. Latinos are becoming more and more populist and less supporters.
Over the years since I was a member of the staff with shiny eyes and the twenties, I have come to doubt the practice of a Latin Bipartite Caucus, which now seems to be a lost opportunity of the latest generation. A Latin -Latino Caucus from California Bipartisan could have focused on common objectives such as improving public education, increased college attendance rates and diploma rates, which makes housing more affordable and preserving the ascending mobility of the Californians of the working class – which should also have to be Sacramento priorities. Instead, by almost all social and economic metrics, Latinos are worse now lotis than they were a generation despite the exponential growth of the Latin American representation.
This failure took place at an increasingly puffed partisanry era. Today, a bipartite caucus is not more likely to reach a large and productive consensus than our bipartite legislature. A really representative Latin caucus seems incompatible with the two major parties.
Each party certainly has a legitimate claim to represent the aspects of the Latin American community. Democrats are much more in line with Latinos on immigration reform, access to health care and reproductive rights (despite what you may have heard of the cultural conservatism of Latinos). Republicans are much more in line with Latinos on border security, crime and housing construction and economic opportunities.
But the proof that none of the parties has used on the heart and mind of Latin voters is overwhelming. Democrats have no more demand for the Latin identity than the Republicans, and the idea that the establishment of supporters of the two camps in the same ethnic tent could lead to common points on question button matters such as reproductive rights or mass deportations is nonsense.
For what? Because Latin politicians on both sides are much more interested in their partisan identity than to defend the priorities of the Latin American community they claim to represent.
Otherwise, Latin American democratic politicians would be greater defenders difficult measures on crime such as the recently adopted proposal 36, that Latin voters massively supported. They would be much more fierce supporters to reverse extreme environmental and regulatory measures such as California Environmental Quality Act, which has helped transform the affordability of housing into a generational crisis for state Latinos, among others. And they would do a better job to keep the government for democratic predominance of the state responsible for the failure of Latinos on a range of questions.
Republican Latin politicians, on the other hand, would have the courage to openly denounce the manifest calls of President Trump to racism. They would also be more favorable to reproductive rights, investment in health care and a way to citizenship for the millions of immigrants our economy desperately needs.
But expecting Latin politicians to put their communities before their parties seem to ask too much these days. Ironically, Latin American politicians have matured to the point of being like other politicians: more focused on power and partisanry than on the resolution of the problems of a community that has been clearly on its priorities for decades. Perhaps an ethnic caucus cannot effectively serve the largest ethnic group in California because the idea suggests that Latinos are the kind of terribly under-represented minority that we are no longer.
At the same time, Latin voters are more moderate, independent and focused on daily economic problems than any other ethnic group in the state. California and the country need politicians to look more like them.
While our society becomes more diversified, Californians are less interested in our racial and ethnic differences than by their common economic difficulties. Portfolio problems replace identity problems.
If Latin American legislators were also concerned about these questions as Latin voters have been for many years, they would work through the aisle to resolve them without the need for caucus, bipartite or other. The incessant need of both parties to fight against cultural problems has ended economic mobility. We don’t need a Bipartite Latin Caucus to get things done; We need a bipartite legislature solving economic problems that disproportionately affect Latinos.
This is the great opportunity for the emerging generation of Latin American legislators: assume leadership in both parties and better operate the entire legislature. Latin politicians on both sides of the aisle must begin to direct the parties instead of following them.
Mike Madrid is a political consultant and the author of “The Latino Century: How America’s the greatest minority changes democracy”.
California Daily Newspapers
