From Inclusion to Influence: Latino Representation in Congress and Latino Political Incorporation in America

656 75 3MB

English Pages [173]

Report DMCA / Copyright

DOWNLOAD FILE

Polecaj historie

From Inclusion to Influence: Latino Representation in Congress and Latino Political Incorporation in America

  • Author / Uploaded
  • coll.

Citation preview

Page vi → Page vii →

Acknowledgments This project, and its evolution, have defined my early years as an academic. It began with a casual conversation in Keith Gaddie’s office at the University of Oklahoma in the months leading up to my 2006–7 congressional fellowship with the American Political Science Association (APSA). I would be conducting dissertation research in Congress, probably the most thoroughly researched institution in the world. The topic of Latino representatives in Congress offered a rare opportunity to break new ground in legislative research, we decided, and seemed to be of increasing interest in political circles. I would begin with a relatively straightforward research question: Do Latino representatives provide better substantive representation to Latinos than do other representatives in the U.S. Congress? As a white person from rural South Dakota, I was not the obvious scholar to conduct this study. I had traveled alone quite a bit in Mexico but had virtually no experience with Latino communities in the United States. I would not be offering an insider’s perspective. I was therefore very fortunate to find a helpful and welcoming staff in the office of Congressman Charles A. Gonzalez, where I spent a year working as a fellow in various capacities. Leo Munoz, Angela Manso, Roseann Maldonado, Julie Hart, Rosemary Garza and numerous others provided great friendships, valuable insights, and introductions to staffers in offices of most members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus (CHC) and other offices as well. Representative Gonzalez took a personal interest in my research, assisting my efforts to secure interviews with his colleagues, allowing me to assist his liaison to the CHC, and trusting me with work that provided insight into my research. Without my experience as an APSA fellow in his office and the cooperation of many staffers and U.S. representatives outside his office who welcomed me to their policy discussions and took time to answer my questions during interviews, this project would not have been possible. My research on the project is no less indebted to the many advisers, colleagues, and research assistants who have contributed to my data collection and analysis since my time in Washington. Gary Copeland, Cindy Simon Rosenthal, Charles Kenney, Glen Krutz, and Grady Wray, the members of my dissertation committee at OU, helped me to become a better researcher, writer, and thinker as I advanced this project. Fellow graduate students, particularly William Ellis, were always available as sounding boards (and critics). At UTSA, my colleagues and administrators supported me, and many graduate students, including Roberto Carlos, Chika Yamamoto, and Caleb Saenz, helped me as I continued to expand the project to include new data. Numerous colleagues from across the discipline—many of them journal editors, anonymous reviewers (including those identified by the University of Michigan to review this manuscript), and conference discussants—helped me to refine my thinking about Latino representatives and their impact. My English professor parents, Jerry and Norma, who brought me up in a political household and with solidly democratic values, closely read every chapter of my manuscript and have as much to do with my concern for the ideas explored in this book as they do my ability to communicate them. Finally, I am thankful to (and for) my wonderful spouse, Lizzy. We were together when this project began. She supported me at a distance when I was in Washington for a year. And she has been with me at every step since as our path led to San Antonio. This book still bears a strong resemblance to study I planned in the fall of 2006. But it has also evolved both theoretically and empirically as it matured, and I matured as a scholar along with it. For these personal successes, I am indebted to those I thank here.

Page 1 →

Introduction How Do Latino Representatives Matter? On the second day of the 110th Congress, January 10, 2007, members of the newly elected Democratic majority converged on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives to debate and pass the first minimum wage increase in nearly a decade. H.R. 2, the Fair Minimum Wage Act of 2007, was one of the “six for ’06” policy proposals that united Democrats in a sweeping nationwide victory during the 2006 elections and returned them to majority status in both houses of Congress for the first time in twelve years. With bipartisan support, the measure passed overwhelmingly, 315–116. Not one Democrat opposed the measure, and the new Speaker, Nancy Pelosi, hailed the passage of H.R. 2 as a “victory for America’s families” (2007). Amid the excitement in the Capitol that morning, tucked away in the Speaker’s attic pressroom, several members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus (CHC) gathered for a press conference.1 Like the Speaker and other Democratic colleagues, they emphasized the importance to working families of increasing the minimum wage. Yet beyond restating the party’s talking points—the time elapsed since the last minimum wage increase (nearly a decade), relative losses of purchasing power since the last increase (the existing wage of $5.15 per hour had lost nearly a quarter of its value), the aggregate number of Americans projected to benefit from the measure (more than 75 million)—the Latino representatives at the press conference contributed something extra, new, and different to the debate (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics 2008). They spoke of the ways low wages affected Page 2 →Latino families. They emphasized the disproportionate importance of raising the minimum wage for the Latino community, since the percentage of Latinos working for minimum wage was higher than it was for other groups. Most articulated their arguments in Spanish as well as in English. Later that day, the CHC reserved time on the House floor to debate H.R. 2 as a group.2 Representative Albio Sires (D-NJ) expressed his pride “to be a member of Congress at a time when I can helpВ .В .В . the almost 2.8 million Hispanic workers whose quality of life will be greatly improved by this legislation.” “We need this bill,” argued CHC chair Joe Baca (D-CA), “because 40 percent of minimum wage workers are the sole bread winners in their families. Nineteen percent of minimum wage earners are Hispanic Americans.” Representative Hilda Solis (D-CA) asserted the importance of a minimum wage increase to minority women by pointing out that although “African American women and Latinas only make up 23 percent of the workforceВ .В .В . they represent 33 percent of the women only receiving minimum wage.” Representative Grace Napolitano (D-CA) addressed Congress in both Spanish and English. Echoing Representative Solis, Napolitano stated, “MГЎs de uno punto cuarto millГіn de mujeres que trabajan seran las beneficiarias de cual son hispanas y afroamericanas del salario de 5.15 a 7.25 por hora.В .В .В . 1.4 million working women will be main beneficiaries for an increase from $5.15 to eventually $7.25 per hour in 2 years, of which 33 percent are African American and Hispanic female workers.” Delegate Luis FortuГ±o of Puerto Rico, a Republican, rose in support of his party’s alternative to H.R. 2, the Working Families Wage and Access to Health Care Act, expressing his concern that the bill under consideration, while seeking a long-awaited increase in the federal minimum wage, does nothing to offset the impact on small businesses and their workers. This is particularly important for Hispanics in the United States who, according to a recent report released by the U.S. Census Bureau, are opening businesses at a rate that is three times as fast as the national average. Latino concerns raised during the 2007 minimum wage debate exemplify the broader challenges that Latinos face in contemporary American politics. Now the country’s second-largest demographic group, one in six Americans is Latino. That proportion is projected to increase to one in four before 2050 (Passel and Cohn 2008). But in spite of growing numbers Page 3 →and increasing attention from politicians and the media, Latinos remain political outsiders. Latino voices remain muted, their concerns poorly understood, their priorities largely absent from policy agendas, their interests often unrecognized or ignored. Latinos control disproportionately few

resources and work for lower-than-average wages. Significant educational and health disparities separate Latinos from most other Americans. Latinos continue to encounter widespread discrimination. Conservative state legislatures in Texas, Florida, and elsewhere have passed restrictive voting laws that disproportionately burden Latino voters. Lengthy legislative inaction on issues such as the minimum wage, immigration, and Latino access to health care and education exemplifies a broad pattern of policy neglect. As these problems grow along with the expanding Latino demographic, finding ways to ensure that Latinos gain inclusion and exercise proportionate influence in politics are critical tasks for improving the lives and prospects of Latinos as a group. Latino inclusion and influence are constituent parts of a broader goal that is important not only to Latinos as a group but also to the continued vitality of American democracy. That goal is Latino political incorporation. The 2007 House debate over the minimum wage also helps to illustrate the unique impact of Latino representatives in Congress. Although the representation of Latino wage concerns was not the sole province of Latino members of Congress that day—both Representatives Charles Rangel (D-NY) and Sheila Jackson-Lee (D-TX) mentioned Latino concerns during debate on the House floor—Latino representatives clearly took the lead. Numerous advocacy groups, policymakers, and scholars embrace the idea that Latino representatives enhance the substantive representation Latinos receive in Congress. Some observers argue that the role minority legislators, including Latinos, play in representing marginalized groups makes them “irreplaceable” because the legislative support these representatives provide goes beyond what might be expected based on their electoral interests or partisan commitments alone (Juenke and Preuhs 2012). Such scholarly arguments echo longheld assumptions of minority advocacy and voting rights organizations such as the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials (NALEO). NALEO implicitly associates the election of Latinos with policy reforms in the areas of voting, immigration, and education, issues the group considers essential to the objective of “full Latino participation in the American political process” (NALEO at-a-Glance 2013). Page 4 →These great expectations for Latino representatives raise interesting questions about their roles in Congress and American politics more generally. Exactly how or when does a representative’s Latino ethnicity shape legislative behavior in ways that enhance Latino representation? What impact can observers reasonably expect Latino representatives to have on the policymaking process? How consequential is the impact of Latino representatives when we consider what Latinos need in terms of representation? Ultimately, what value should we place on Latino representatives in Congress? This book is about the impact of Latino representatives in Congress and the vital role they play in the evolving American political system. It is first and foremost about the ways in which representative ethnicity—that is, being a Latino representative—shapes representative action. Substantial research suggests that the descriptive representation of Latinos by a Latino representative should enhance or improve the quality of substantive representation Latinos receive—mostly because Latino representatives are expected to represent Latinos more actively, effectively, or reliably. Although a growing body of research examines the behavioral effects of Latinos in Congress and other legislatures, important questions remain about how Latino representatives matter. Indeed, scholars have yet to provide anything close to a holistic accounting of Latinos’ impacts as representatives. Moving toward a fuller understanding of how Latino representatives affect the representation of Latinos in Congress is therefore a primary objective of this study. In addition, this book is also about why Latino representatives matter. It is about situating Latino representatives within the American political system and appreciating the critical roles they play in the broader process of Latino political incorporation. In other words, this study is about more than illustrating the differences that separate Latino and non-Latino representatives when it comes to Latino representation in Congress. It is also about better understanding the great consequences of those actions for the struggle of America’s largest minority group for political inclusion and influence. Addressing questions about Latino representatives’ roles in Congress and in the broader political system is important for practical as well as scholarly reasons. To date, evidence that Latino representatives behave differently from non-Latino representatives has not quelled debate over whether they offer a clear or even partial solution to problems associated Page 5 →with Latino underrepresentation. Indeed, some scholars suggest that

electing Latinos may actually reduce support for Latino interests in Congress because the majority-minority districting schemes likely to produce successful Latino candidacies also tend to reduce the overall number of Democrats elected. The practical implications of this scholarly debate are clear: a thorough understanding of the roles Latino representatives play in Congress is necessary before strategies to achieve Latino political incorporation can be effectively formulated. The major empirical contribution of this study is structured by four sets of analyses that examine the impact of Latino representatives at different stages of the representative process. This framework is designed to capture the diversity of responsiveness subsumed within the larger concept of representation as well as the synergy that links together different kinds of representative behaviors. The four stages examined include representatives’ efforts to connect with constituents and responsive behaviors in processes of political and policy agenda setting, debate, and decision making. The data examined come from several recent Congresses and include indicators of Latino representation from congressional websites, press releases, staff hiring, bill sponsorship, committee hearings, floor speeches, “dear colleague” letters, legislative voting, and case studies. Data from interviews with representatives, congressional staffers, and advocacy organization officials, along with my observations as a 2007 American Political Science Association Congressional Fellow in the office of Representative Charles A. GonzГЎlez (D-TX), supplement the findings from these analyses. The results of this study identify common ground between competing arguments about whether Latino representatives enhance Latino representation and help to augment scholarly understandings of the roles and limitations of Latino representatives as critical actors in processes of both Latino representation and Latino political incorporation. A key takeaway from these findings is that while Latino representatives are not the only answer to problems of deficient Latino representation, skepticism about their importance is based on overly narrow conceptualizations of what matters when it comes to improving the effectiveness of Latino representation. Because reshaping Congress in ways that better enable the institution to respond to Latino interests and concerns is an important part of enhancing the congressional representation of Latinos, Latino representatives cannot be dismissed as irrelevant. On the contrary, Latino representatives often appear essential to this objective. Their importance to the broader objectivePage 6 → of Latino political incorporation is, if anything, greater. Simply put, progress toward Latino political incorporation in America is in many ways tied to and dependent on the Latino representatives in the U.S. Congress.

Looking Ahead This study is divided into two parts. The first part outlines the role of Latino representatives in the political system. The second part analyzes their impacts in behaviors that occur throughout the representative process. Chapter 1 develops the conceptual, theoretical, and practical arguments that buttress the analyses. I begin with a discussion that situates Latino interests and Latino representation within the broader process of Latino political incorporation. Next, I address theoretical debates and empirical evidence that relate Latino descriptive representation to the substantive representation of Latinos and illustrate important limitations of the most popular empirical approaches used to address these topics—specifically, those that examine voting patterns to illustrate the similarities and differences in Latino and non-Latino representatives’ support for Latino interests. To do this, I build on previous research with an analysis that considers three decades of Poole and Rosenthal DWNOMINATE scores and National Hispanic Leadership Agenda voting scores from the 105th through 108th Congresses as dependent variables. As has long been the case, evidence that Latino representatives enhance Latino representation in legislative voting behavior is not definitive. But more important, such evidence also fails to capture the most conceptually relevant indicators of Latino representation—those that effectively facilitate Latino political incorporation. Chapter 1 concludes with a plan to approach empirical research on the impact of Latino representatives by examining the relationship throughout the representative process and with careful attention to behaviors that promote Latino political inclusion and influence. To set the stage for the analyses that follow, chapter 2 provides a historical overview of the study’s major subject population, Latino members of the U.S. House of Representatives. In this chapter, I discuss the major

factors associated with electing Latinos to Congress, the positions of institutional influence Latino members of Congress have held, and the CHC’s organization and activities. These elements illustrate important limitations of Latino descriptive representation—that is, the physical representation of Page 7 →Latinos—as well as the potential for increasing numbers of Latino representatives in Congress generally and in positions of institutional influence. Just as important, they provide important context for evaluating Latino representatives’ impact on various aspects of responsiveness to Latinos. Chapters 3–6 present the major empirical analyses of this study. Each provides multivariate statistical comparisons of Latino and non-Latino representatives focused on a battery of indicators related to Latino representation. I begin in chapter 3 with indicators related to relationships between representatives and their Latino constituencies. The theoretical basis for the focus of this chapter rests largely on observational research of representatives’ “home styles” and the linkages they cultivate with groups in their districts (Fenno 1978). I focus primarily on statistical data related to representatives’ efforts to reach out to Latino constituents through the press and on the World Wide Web as well as their hiring of Latinos to staff their personal offices. Insights from these analyses are supplemented by interview and observational data obtained on Capitol Hill and in San Antonio, Texas–area congressional districts. Chapters 4–6 examine policy responsiveness to Latinos in three critical functions: agenda setting, debate, and decision making. Each analysis focuses on both the behaviors of individual representatives as legislators and the collective efforts of Latino representatives to influence legislative and political processes. Analyses in these chapters also employ data from interviews with representatives and staffers to illustrate how Latino representatives influence legislative agendas, contribute to political deliberation, and shape policy decisions. Chapter 4 examines efforts to garner agenda space and issue attention for Latino priorities. While representatives may influence the congressional agenda in many ways, I focus on two key indicators. The first, bill sponsorship, is a widely analyzed behavior in representation research and illustrates Latino representatives’ role in placing policies that reflect both Latino priorities and preferences before the legislature. Using original data from the 109th and 110th Congresses, this analysis illustrates how Latino representatives helped to shape the legislative agenda with regard to Latino-interest policy proposals. The second agenda-setting behavior relates more to directing attention to specific issues in Congress rather than to providing policy alternatives that represent Latinos. Specifically, I focus on the behaviors of committee chairs, whose power to control the agenda for congressional hearings Page 8 →permits them to influence what issues receive committee attention. Using data from the Policy Agendas Project and congressional hearing transcripts, this analysis compares efforts of Latino and non-Latino committee chairs to bring attention to Latino issues via hearings. In chapter 5, I turn to Latino representation in political debate. My primary analysis focuses on Latino representation in speeches representatives deliver on the House floor. Using original data coded from speeches delivered to the 109th House by all representatives with district constituencies that were at least 20 percent Latino, this analysis examines both the representation of Latino interests in the topics and positions representatives chose to address and the representation of Latino perspectives—that is, articulations of the effects of issues and policies on Latinos, arguments framed from a Latino point of view, or illustration of positions via Latino experiences. To establish that the deliberative contributions supplied by Latino representatives on the House floor are valid indicators of their broader debate behaviors, I supplement the statistical analysis with qualitative examples drawn from “dear colleague” letters circulated during the same period that illustrate that as in speeches, Latino representation in policy debate is shaped in interesting and important ways by the communications of Latino representatives. Chapter 6 examines Latino representation in congressional decision making. This chapter examines several cases to illustrate the importance of Latino representatives acting both individually and collectively to influence legislative outcomes in Congress. My analysis suggests that legislative influence is frequently difficult to trace. Because legislative influence is often achieved by preventing policy change or by integrating policy proposals into

legislation sponsored by others, illustrating how such influence occurs requires piecing together evidence that spans months, years, or even decades. By taking the long view, it becomes evident that Latino representatives have often been central to important decisions that represented Latino interests, even when their immediate effects are relatively concealed. Because influence over decisions results from sustained efforts, it is often difficult to neatly separate it from actions that shaped prevoting stages of the legislative process. So the findings of this chapter also illustrate the integrative nature of Latino representation as one where efforts to ensure Latino inclusion in agenda setting or debate shape subsequent decisions. Finally, while individuals can play critical roles in processes of decision making, this chapter illustrates that collective efforts are at least as Page 9 →important if not more important to understanding the impact of Latino representatives at this stage of the representative process. Chapter 7 summarizes and discusses the empirical findings of the study and reiterates the importance of Latino representatives to promoting Latino political incorporation in the United States. The evidence, which generally points in a common direction, suggests that Latino representatives enhance Latino representation at every stage of the representative process. While the impact of their contributions is clearly greater with regard to some representative functions than others, the larger conclusion to be drawn from the analysis is that Latino representatives substantially improve relationships between Latino constituencies and their representatives and Latino representation in processes of political and policy agenda setting, debate, and decision making. In the absence of Latino representatives, Latino representation in these critical functions would almost certainly suffer. Because Latino representatives influence Latino representation throughout the representative process and add dimensions of responsiveness that reshape the status quo in the legislative process, in public debate, and back home in their districts, Latino representatives are for many purposes essential to Latino representation. Beyond these immediate impacts on representation, Latino representatives’ actions also promise to facilitate Latino inclusion and influence, two vital aspects of Latino political incorporation.

Page 10 → Page 11 →

Part 1 Latino Representatives in the American Political System

Page 12 → Page 13 →

Chapter 1 Latino Political Incorporation and Latino Representation Political incorporation is an appropriate if unconventional topic with which to begin a study of Latino representation. It is appropriate because the objective of representation is political incorporation more than any single, issue-specific interest. It is what representation is for. Only when a group is politically incorporated in the representative dimension—that is, consistently included and proportionally influential on every issue in which it has a stake and in every aspect of the policymaking process—can we say that the group is well represented. And just as political incorporation constitutes the ultimate objective of representation, representation provides a key ingredient or mechanism that animates political incorporation. Political incorporation in republican democracy is unthinkable without effective representation. Political incorporation is an unconventional topic with which to begin a study of Latino representation in part because most studies of representation confine the implications of their analyses to isolated indicators of representative behavior and to the interests of groups as they relate to specific issues. Such studies tend to assume that the discrete relationships they analyze relate to the broader station or status of a group within a political system but stop short of making those linkages explicit. Likewise, most studies of political incorporation acknowledge a role for representation but focus more on a group’s political capacities, usually related to participatory inputs or socioeconomic and policy outcomes. Less developed are our understandings of how those capacities are achieved and what role representation plays in the process. Page 14 → This chapter situates Latino representation within the process of Latino political incorporation and theorizes the role played by Latino representatives in both processes. Much of the focus is placed on developing theoretical support for the empirical focus of this study: the relationship between descriptive representation by Latino representatives and substantive representation of Latinos in Congress. But beyond understanding whether Latino representatives enhance the substantive representation of Latinos, it is important to improve understandings about how and why their actions matter. By viewing the relationship between Latino descriptive and substantive representation as an integral component in a broader process of Latino political incorporation, the importance of that relationship can be more fully appreciated. This chapter therefore begins by outlining a basic process of political incorporation, with special emphasis on the role of representation in that process. The chapter then reviews and critiques theoretical and empirical debates about whether and how Latino representatives affect the substantive representation of Latinos, identifies limitations to research approaches that fail to account for behaviors that effectively contribute to Latino political incorporation, and develops a plan for analyzing and understanding the impact of Latino representatives.

Twin Challenges: Latino Political Incorporation and Latino Representation Concerns that Latinos are underrepresented in American politics carry with them the important underlying assumption that Latinos share distinctive political affinities in terms of their interests and political perspectives. Given the diversity of the Latino1 community, this is no small assumption. Latino diversity is cultural, regional,2 and related to immigration experiences and citizenship3 and socioeconomic status. Although nearly two-thirds of Latinos in the United States have Mexican heritage, Latinos trace their roots back to more than twenty countries.4 The proportions of Latino populations that are foreign-born and the legal experiences of different Latino immigrant populations vary substantially across Latino subgroups. Latino populations descended from Mexico, Cuba, Puerto Rico, Central America, and other places have historically settled in different geographical regions of the United States. In spite of Latinos’ diversity, substantial evidence shows that they share Page 15 →interests along key

dimensions of political inclusion and influence, economic opportunity, and societal equality—all key aspects or indicators of political incorporation. These dimensions are evident in research that identifies Latino interests in both issue-specific and more general terms. Stella Rouse argues that a number of issues, including education, health care, housing, government assistance, and immigration, are not only priorities for Latino communities and Latino leaders but also largely distinct from the priorities of whites. In addition to objective measures of Latino achievement and political influence, the distinctiveness of Latino issue priorities helps to define a Latino political agenda (2013, 45–46). F. Chris GarcГ-a and Gabriel Sanchez observe that much of what they term the “Hispanic Agenda” relates to improving the overall “quality of life” for Latinos (2008, 81). Latinos have long experienced discrimination and exclusion in ways that Anglos have not, and Latinos lag behind nonLatinos on most socioeconomic indicators.5 Given these deficits, Latinos clearly share interests related to political inclusion, influence, and improved socioeconomic status (80–82). Although some specific issues, like immigration, are increasingly identified with Latino interests, in reality Latino interests exist in many policy areas. As one Latina member of Congress told me, “Every issue is a Hispanic issue. War, education, housing, Medicare—every issue is a Hispanic issue” (Representative U 2007). Her statement reflects the attitude that in these and other areas, the needs and concerns of the Latino community are disproportionately unaddressed. Sometimes, as with language issues in education or voting, Latino interests are relatively unique, since the Latino community includes a disproportionately large population that is not proficient in English. Latino immigration interests similarly reflect the fact that a majority of foreign-born individuals in the United States are Latinos and that many Latinos have familial if not personal immigration experiences. Other Latino interests are more straightforwardly related to the socioeconomic deficits faced by the Latino community, like needs for greater opportunities in education, improved health care services, and access to quality housing, although even with regard to these interests, Latino concerns often appear related to language issues. On these and other Latino-interest issues, Latinos often find themselves on the outside looking in, underrepresented, and unequal to more privileged groups. As is the case for most groups, Latino political attitudes do not reflect unanimity. For example, majorities of Cuban Americans historically have Page 16 →backed Republican candidates, while solid majorities of Latinos from most other backgrounds have tended to support Democrats. But surveys of Latinos do confirm broad consensus on a range of experiences, values, and attitudes associated with patterns of Latino social and economic disadvantages. For example, Latino experiences with discrimination and perceptions that discrimination is a problem are widespread. In 2010, 61 percent of Hispanics surveyed by the Pew Hispanic Center considered discrimination a “major problem” preventing Latino success in the United States. Respondents identified immigration and minority status as the primary factors leading to discrimination. And more than a third of Latino respondents reported that they, a family member, or a friend had experienced racial or ethnic discrimination in the past five years (Mark H. Lopez, Morin, and Taylor 2010). Latinos also tend to lack strong feelings of political efficacy, suggesting that the population perceives not only discrimination but also relative powerlessness. According to the 2006 Pew Hispanic Center National Survey of Latinos, 58 percent of Latino respondents agreed with the statement that “political leaders do not care much about what people like me think.” Only 37 percent of Latino respondents disagreed with the statement (Suro and Escobar 2006). Major dimensions of Latino agreement exist in other areas. For example, Latinos express generally favorable attitudes toward expanding government services. According to a 2012 Pew Hispanic Center report, three-quarters of Latinos surveyed supported a “bigger government providing more services” (Taylor et al. 2012). Rouse’s research, which found strong support among Latinos for increased government spending in areas of public education, public assistance, environmental protection, public safety, and child care, echoes and clarifies this attitude (2013, 26–27). Latinos also express surprising agreement with regard to language issues. According to the 2012 Pew report, 87 percent of Latino respondents felt that learning English was necessary to the success of Hispanic immigrants, yet 95 percent of respondents also indicated that it was important for future generations of Hispanics to speak Spanish (Taylor et al. 2012). These statistics indicate a striking level of unanimity among Latinos with regard to the value of bilingualism, which they generally see as an advantage. Although Latinos possess individual interests and preferences, the disproportionately unmet needs of Latinos in

regard to issues affecting their equal treatment and socioeconomic status, their widespread perceptions of discrimination and exclusion from the political process, and their broadly Page 17 →shared values on issues such as language and the role of government make it clear that Latinos do share common interests. Latino interests and concerns also seem to remain largely peripheral to and unincorporated in the political process. Achieving incorporation, then, constitutes the overarching political objective for Latinos and summarizes the purpose of Latino representation. And just as Latino political incorporation constitutes the fundamental objective of Latino representation, Latino political incorporation encapsulates the fundamental Latino interests that require enhanced representation.

Theorizing Latino Political Incorporation Latino political incorporation can largely be understood as a function of two analytical dimensions: political inclusion and political influence. Although this parsimonious conceptualization sidesteps many of the complexities in a nuanced literature, the themes of inclusion and influence nonetheless appear in various forms throughout scholarly research on political incorporation. Browning, Marshall, and Tabb, for example, argue that political incorporation is “responsiveness of a system to [a group’s] interest of inclusion and substantial authority and influence” (1984, 25). Hochschild et al. define political incorporation as “having the capacity for sustained claims making about the allocation of symbolic or material public goods,” a status which turns fundamentally on political inclusion and influence (2013, 16). Briggs (2013) argues that political incorporation relates to the tandem characteristics of group membership and group influence in politics and society. These and other definitions generally imply that political incorporation is in many respects about a group’s belonging and power within a political system—what I summarize as inclusion and influence. The process of political incorporation occurs across multiple political dimensions, including political participation by individuals, representation, and policy outcomes (see fig. 1.1). My focus on these descriptive dimensions echoes similar conceptualizations in research on Latino political incorporation. For example, Fraga and Ramirez argue that a group’s political incorporation can be examined in electoral participation, representation, and policy-based dimensions (2003, 304). Building on work by Dahl (1961), Jones-Correa’s (2013) understanding of political incorporation suggestsPage 18 → that citizenship, participation, representation, and policy all constitute important dimensions of the concept. Hochschild and Mollenkopf (2009) similarly argue that political incorporation occurs in multiple dimensions or at multiple levels that account for political participation by individuals, groups, and representatives as well as account for the political system’s responsiveness to this participation. Fig. 1.1. Political and Analytical Dimensions of Latino Political Incorporation The analytical dimensions of political inclusion and political influence can be used to assess political incorporation in each political dimension (political participation, representation, and policy outcomes). In political participation, for example, inclusion refers to the extent to which group members possess the ability to participate in politics relative to members of privileged groups. It increases as the weight of barriers to participation (institutional, socioeconomic, or otherwise) on members of marginalized groups diminish relative to their impacts on members of more privileged groups. Influence in political participation increases as group mobilization is regularized, yielding political power proportionate to a group’s numbers. Groups’ capacities for political participation relate both to inclusion and influence at the ballot box and to inclusion and influence in activities designed to access and to pressure elected and appointed officials between elections. Rodolfo Rosales’s (2000) research on the political history of San Antonio, Texas, provides a vivid illustration of Latino political incorporation in the dimension of political participation. In San Antonio and other Page 19 →American cities, Latino electorates have gradually achieved greater inclusion and influence. But as Rosales points out, to the extent that increasing Latino political participation fails to penetrate existing power structures, Latino inclusion often remains illusory and Latino political incorporation is incomplete.6 Inclusion and influence in dimensions of representation and policy outcomes thus also appear essential to the broader objective of Latino political incorporation.

In representation, inclusion refers to a group’s presence, legitimacy, and acceptance in the representative process. This may be physical, as in the descriptive representation of groups by legislators who are members of those groups. It must be substantive. Inclusion in substantive representation increases as a group’s perspectives and interests occupy a presence in the representative process that is proportionate to a group’s stake in issues it prioritizes, and those perspectives and interests gain acceptance and legitimacy in the eyes of privileged group members—what Gary Segura calls “receiving” communities (2013, 259). Influence in representation refers to a group’s ability to shape political and policymaking processes. Ideally, groups should exercise power that is proportionate to their numbers in shaping processes of agenda setting, debate, and decision making. Inclusion in policy outcomes is evident to the extent that policies address a group’s priorities. Influence in policy outcomes is evident to the extent that policies reflect a group’s preferences. The result of increased political incorporation in terms of policy outcomes is the enhanced political, social, or economic condition of group members and their growing equality with members of relatively privileged groups. This analytical approach reflects elements of a number of strategies that scholars have used to assess political incorporation and that are largely encompassed by the ideas of political inclusion and influence. Fraga and Ramirez, for example, propose assessing incorporation by focusing primarily on instrumental characteristics of processes and of group capacities. Within each of the three descriptive dimensions of political incorporation they propose (electoral participation, representation, and policy benefit), they suggest three analytical dimensions related to access, opportunity, and institutionalization (2003, 305). In the dimension of electoral participation, access is related to the extent to which a group is a potential component of the electorate, opportunity is related to acquisition of the franchise, and institutionalization is related to regularized, collective group voting behavior that influences electoral outcomes. In the representation Page 20 →dimension, access is related to the availability of open and competitive seats where a group has a reasonable chance of winning, opportunity relates to the election of a proportionate number of candidates supported by the group, and institutionalization occurs when group members occupy a proportionate number of seats in legislatures. Finally, access occurs with regard to policy benefit when issues of concern to a group are addressed with greater frequency and consistency by legislatures, opportunity occurs to the extent that legislative outputs seriously consider a group’s interests, and institutionalization occurs to the extent that groups experience an improvement in their material well being (306). Segura points out that attitudinal characteristics, in addition to those that relate to resources or capacities, are also important in assessing political incorporation. Therefore, in addition to possessing slack resources to dedicate to politics (which assumes some level of group socioeconomic security), he argues, “greater incorporation implies that a larger share of the group sees itself as an integral part of the polity and judges politics as a useful endeavor to secure desirable social outcomes,” and “greater incorporation means that a larger share of the receiving community sees the group as full-fledged members of the society whose claims on social and political outcomes are legitimate” (2013, 255). In other words, the political incorporation of a group is a function not only of its resources or capacities but also of the attitudes of its members and the existing political system’s response to that group’s efforts to legitimize itself and fully participate as constituent of the polity. Political inclusion and influence largely capture both the instrumental and attitudinal components of political incorporation articulated by these authors. Traditional models of political incorporation suggest a process that proceeds from political participation through representation and ultimately to policy outcomes (Dahl 1961; Fraga and Ramirez 2003; Jones-Correa 2013). Although these dimensions are clearly connected, contemporary scholars point out that models of political incorporation should be nonlinear and nonteleological. As Jones-Correa writes, “One state [or dimension of political incorporation] does not necessarily have to lead to another, nor do they lead to a final endpoint” (2013, 176). Instead, scholars emphasize that political incorporation is a process, that analyses of political incorporation account for context and feedback loops, and that reversals or nonincorporation are possible within any or all conceptual dimensions (Fraga Page 21 →and Ramirez 2003; Hochschild and Mollenkopf 2009; JonesCorrea 2013; Segura 2013). Figure 1.2 displays this multidimensional model in its basic form, including possible relationships between its dimensions. Fig. 1.2. Basic Model of Political Incorporation

As figure 1.2 illustrates, political incorporation in the dimension of political participation affects political incorporation in the dimension of representation. Much of this relationship should occur as marginalized groups elect descriptive representatives and otherwise elicit responsiveness to their interests from legislators and other officials based on electoral incentives. However, representation can also reinforce political incorporation in the dimension of political participation. For example, when marginalized groups achieve physical inclusion in the dimension of representation by nominating legislative candidates from their group and electing descriptive representatives, the symbolic power of these achievements may stimulate further political participation and mobilization (Barreto 2007). Along the same lines, descriptive representation may facilitate relationships of trust between representatives and their constituents, effectively including members of minority groups in politics and empowering them to connect more with their government (Tate 2003). Effective substantive representation, which occurs when a group’s priorities and preferences penetrate the representative process, may also empower group members to mobilize and participate. And finally, to the extent that representatives defend and promote a group’s ability to participate by supporting policies that maximize political inclusiveness, representation may have instrumental effects on political incorporation in the dimension of participation. Page 22 → Political incorporation in representation may at times facilitate incorporation in the dimension of political participation but is essential to facilitating incorporation in policy outcomes and the socioeconomic results of public policy. Put simply, for groups to achieve greater equality in terms of policy outputs and the socioeconomic outcomes such policies effect, they will likely have to achieve substantial inclusion and influence throughout the policymaking process. As groups achieve inclusion in processes of agenda setting, debate, and decision making through effective representation, their interests and perspectives achieve recognition and acceptance as legitimate political claims. With the acquisition of proportionate influence in these processes comes the ability to shape the content of policy outputs. Both factors dramatically impact whether public policies respond to a group’s interests and therefore shape political incorporation in terms of policy outcomes. Finally, the achievement of increased political incorporation in terms of policy outcomes feeds back into the dimension of political participation. Extensive research associates political participation with socioeconomic indicators, suggesting that as marginalized groups achieve greater levels of equality with more privileged groups in the areas of income, wealth, and education, their capacities to both participate and mobilize increase (Verba, Schlozman, and Brady 1995). By the same token, a lack of political incorporation in the dimension of policy outcomes is likely to delay the development of political incorporation in dimensions of political participation and by extension representation.

Situating Latino Representation in the Process of Latino Political Incorporation Like political incorporation, representation is a complex concept. It is comprised of a descriptive dimension related to they physical representation of groups, such as Latinos, as well as a substantive dimension related to actions on behalf of interests (Pitkin 1967). It is defined by multiple forms of responsiveness, including service, symbolic, and policy responsiveness (Eulau and Karps 1977). And it is observable in a diverse set of representative behaviors that occur at multiple stages of a representative process. Latino representation—and its role in the process of Latino political incorporation—cannot be fully understood without attention to these complexities. Fig. 1.3. Latino Political Incorporation in the Representative Process Page 23 → This section presents a framework for understanding Latino representation as a process that proceeds through four stages: from connecting Latino constituents with government though stages of agenda setting, debate, and decision making. At each stage of the process, representation helps to shape Latino political incorporation. Especially in earlier stages of the process, the impact of Latino representation is most directly associated with Latino political inclusion and more indirectly associated with enabling Latino political influence. But in the latter stages of the process, particularly during the decision-making stage, Latino representation is increasingly relevant to Latino

political influence. As figure 1.3 illustrates, when Latinos achieve effective representation throughout the representative process, it is evidenced by actions that move Latinos steadily from political inclusion to influence. Latino representation in Congress begins at home in congressional districts, with efforts to cultivate a representative-constituency relationship with Latinos and connect Latinos with their government. Richard Fenno’s concept of representative “home styles” is useful for understanding Latino representation in this dimension: Latino representation involves representatives actively courting support among their Latino constituents through various forms of outreach. Suzanne Dovi’s (2002) emphasis on building strong mutual relationships as a criterion for assessing which descriptive representatives are “preferable” also comports with the notion that such Page 24 →linkages are important to understanding the quality of substantive representation. The presence or absence of an effective Latino “home style” is important because whether and how representatives reach out to, build trust with, and address the constituency service needs of Latino constituents may have a profound effect on Latino inclusion. One method by which representatives connect with Latino constituents is by communicating in ways that demonstrate they understand and advocate Latino priorities and policy positions. Because such messages are thoroughly infused with policy, such communications might accurately be viewed as providing policy responsiveness to Latinos. Policy responsiveness refers to efforts that influence public policy outputs in ways that benefit the constituency being represented (Eulau and Karps 1977, 241). But because such communications are more clearly oriented toward establishing and maintaining connections with Latino constituents, they may be more appropriately categorized as providing symbolic responsiveness. Symbolic responsiveness involves representative actions that inspire trust and cultivate support among constituents (Eulau and Karps 1977, 241). At least three dimensions of communication appear important when attempting to evaluate representation in the remarks of representatives: the subject matter to which representatives bring attention, the positions representatives articulate, and the reasons or explanations representatives provide to justify policy priorities and preferences. The simple act of addressing an issue in a public statement helps to bring attention to that issue—to prioritize it. When representatives prioritize issues such as bilingual ballots or immigration initiatives such as the DREAM Act in their messages to constituents, they signal to Latino constituents with the empowering subtext that Latino priorities matter. Position taking on matters of public policy is also important to cultivating support among constituents. When representatives state their support or opposition to a proposal, they endorse a particular group’s interest. Not unlike voting yea or nay on a legislative proposal, position taking in public communications is an important indicator of interest representation. When representatives publicly articulate positions on matters of policy that reflect Latino preferences, they build trust and support among Latino constituents along the lines of policy congruence. Finally, communications reveal important information about how representatives view issues and constituencies and perhaps more importantly lend important reasons or justifications for their points of view that can Page 25 →help others to better understand those positions. This often occurs through the representation of a group’s perspective. Perspectives illustrate the relationship between groups and issues and are represented in at least three ways: by articulating how a policy or issue impacts a group; by framing arguments to emphasize aspects of an issue that are of particular concern to a group; or by using experiences to illustrate what specific policies or issues mean to a group (Walsh 2002). When representatives represent Latino perspectives in their public policy discussions by emphasizing how policies impact Latinos, framing discussions to emphasize Latino concerns, or drawing on Latino experiences to illustrate what policy debates mean, they send the message that they understand Latinos and the challenges they face while also helping the public and their colleagues to better understand Latino interests and concerns. In addition to communicating with constituents in ways that represent Latino priorities, interests, and perspectives, representatives also can build relationships with Latino constituents by providing service responsiveness. Service responsiveness “involves efforts of the representative to secure particularized benefits for individuals or

groups in a constituency,” usually in the form of access to existing services (Eulau and Karps 1977, 241). Service responsiveness often takes the form of congressional casework, whereby offices assist specific constituents in navigating complex federal bureaucracies to access federal benefits or favorable treatment by agencies. Large numbers of poor, Spanish-dominant, and foreign-born individuals in the Latino community suggest some measures of service responsiveness that may be especially relevant to Latinos. For example, representatives may facilitate communication with Latino constituents by communicating in Spanish or by visiting Latino neighborhoods to meet with constituents. Or, they may hire Latino or Spanish-speaking staffers who can more easily understand the concerns of Latino constituents and who make Latino constituents feel at ease (Grose, Mangum, and Martin 2007; W. C. Wilson 2013). Such efforts build relationships with Latino constituents through service responsiveness by making representatives more accessible to Latinos, increasing their abilities to address the concerns of individuals in the Latino community, and empowering Latinos to become more active participants in politics and government. Another way to think about the efforts of representatives to forge relationships in the constituencies they represent is to recognize that these behaviors reflect the extent to which and ways in which representatives keep Page 26 →in touch with those they represent. The circles in which representatives move send powerful symbolic signals about their perceptions of constituents. Representatives generally earn good reputations by embracing the people for whom they purport to stand rather than by cloistering themselves in the company of the well-heeled. An important aspect of Latino representation is therefore observable in the efforts representatives make to be with and among Latinos—to spend time in their neighborhoods, at their workplaces, and at their social events. Combined with communication patterns that reinforce policy and symbolic responsiveness to Latinos, and the provision of service responsiveness that addresses the needs of Latino communities, the physical efforts of representatives to connect with Latino constituencies help to shape a pattern of representation that is Latino-inclusive. Within the broader process of Latino political incorporation, such actions yield important insight into whether representation reinforces or neglects movement toward Latino inclusion and influence in the dimension of political participation. Latino representation in the agenda-setting, debate, and decision-making stages of the representative process may also provide symbolic responsiveness to the extent that such actions help to cultivate trust and support among Latinos. So such representation can help to reinforce Latino political incorporation in the dimension of participation by empowering and inspiring Latinos. At these latter stages of the representative process, however, Latino representation is clearly most pertinent to policy responsiveness and to incorporating Latino interests into the policymaking process. Because the Latino population has historically been marginalized, their political incorporation into the policymaking process first requires that Latino priorities become a part of the congressional policy conversation through the efforts of representatives to place Latino priorities on the agenda. Scholars note that the lack of Latino input at developmental stages of the policy process constitutes a significant obstacle to Latino policy influence. Latinos are among those, Rodney Hero argues, who have typically been “recipients of policies made by others, ” making their status in American society more akin to that of subjects than of citizens (1992). When proposals that reflect the priorities and preferences of Latinos are not offered or given legislative attention, policy responsiveness to Latinos is unlikely. But when representatives take the initiative to place Latino priorities and preferences on the policy agenda and bring attention to these issues, they Page 27 →directly impact Latino political inclusion. Actions such as sponsoring bills and holding hearings to focus attention on Latino interests and perspectives are also essential to Latino influence in congressional policymaking, not because they ensure it but because they make it possible. Latino representation in agenda setting, then, is a critical step in enabling Latino political incorporation. Representatives’ contributions to political and policy debates also impact Latino political incorporation in policymaking. In the ideal representative democracy, deliberation is a process of dialogue and discussion between representatives that illuminates the diversity of social interests and concerns as they relate to policy proposals and that results in better informed, more societally representative policy outputs (Young 2000). While the reality of most political debate falls short of the deliberative ideal on many fronts, it remains critical to the direction and success of policy reform efforts. Realistic portrayals of representation in debate illustrate the extent to which a

representative set of viewpoints is articulated in public (and perhaps private) debates over the meaning of policy problems and solutions. Debate helps participants understand whose interests are at stake and how diverse groups view problems and proposals. While representation in debate is certainly about symbolic responsiveness to the extent that it builds trust and support among constituents, it is foremost about policy responsiveness because other policymakers and their staffers are the primary audience for such communications. One useful way to analyze Latino representation in debate is to examine the content of communication that occurs in legislative debates and other exchanges between legislators. Similar to assessing representation in communications directed toward constituents, the priorities, preferences, and perspectives represented in legislative communications reveal important information about responsiveness to specific groups or interests. Taking specific positions on issues that disproportionately affect Latinos demarcates political cleavages and demonstrates legislative support for Latino-interest policy proposals. Outspoken support for comprehensive immigration reform that provides a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrations offers a case in point. As I discuss in greater depth in chapter 5, consistent immigration messaging by members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus over the past several Congresses has effectively identified Latino immigration preferences with a specific comprehensive immigration reform platform in the eyes of colleagues and other political observers Page 28 →and has made Latino concerns related to citizenship and family reunification a critical part of a debate that was previously dominated by national security and economic concerns. Representing Latino perspectives on problems and policy proposals is also essential to ensuring that Latinos are part of the discussion when it comes to formulating public policy, especially in contexts where Latino interests are “uncrystallized,” because this can facilitate broader recognition and understanding of policy issues as Latinos view them and assist the incorporation of Latino interests into the policy process (Mansbridge 1999). Returning to the example of comprehensive immigration reform, representatives may represent such perspectives by explaining their positions with arguments that emphasize the struggles immigrants face in the United States, the reasons immigrants come to the United States, or the importance of keeping immigrant families together. Such contributions introduce the interests of Latino families into a conversation that might otherwise be dominated by national security or macroeconomic concerns. Efforts to shape decisions according to a group’s preferences are perhaps the most widely recognized set of behaviors associated with substantive representation. Such efforts are most often measured using data from legislative votes about whether to adopt policy proposals. Such measures clearly are essential to understanding where representatives ultimately stand on the proposals that emerge from the legislative process and the consistency with which a group can count on their support. When representatives vote as their Latino constituents would vote, they represent the interests of their Latino constituents in public policy. But representatives’ efforts to shape legislative decisions go far beyond casting votes. In addition to reacting to proposals that are placed before them, legislators’ efforts to influence legislative decisions can involve substantial collective action. For example, when legislators build legislative coalitions to pressure party leadership to block certain amendments from being offered, to bring legislation to the floor that would not otherwise garner congressional attention, or to encourage a committee chair to endorse language that might have been left out of a committee report, they exercise influence over decisions that extends beyond their individual voting strengths. The relative consequence of Latino representation in individual and collective efforts to shape legislative decisions is in many ways reflected by the impacts of these behaviors on the process of Latino political incorporation.Page 29 → When representatives act individually to shape outcomes favorable to Latinos through legislative votes, they provide nominal inclusion to Latinos. But because such actions are indistinguishable from those of other representatives who may take an identical action for different reasons, legislative voting constitutes an extremely limited tool for promoting Latino political incorporation. Much more effective are collective efforts to shape legislative outputs. Coalitional behavior on behalf of Latinos at the stage of policy decision making not only helps promote Latino inclusion by clearly identifying Latinos as an interested constituency but also can yield substantial Latino influence under certain circumstances.

The most effective coalitions are those that find themselves in positions to exercise either positive control over policy decisions by providing the critical votes that result in passage or negative control over policy decisions by virtue of their collective ability to withhold support for a proposed policy. In the contemporary U.S. House of Representatives, such powers are often related to whether or the extent to which coalitions find themselves within the party that controls the legislative majority. When a coalition occupies a substantial majority-party presence, it enjoys greater ability to influence the content of or hold hostage policy proposals put forth by party leadership. But even when efforts to build legislative coalitions fall short of positive or negative control over legislative decisions, they are not meaningless. Constructing resilient coalitions that endure from policy decision to policy decision and issue to issue can, over time, stake out the key Latino priorities and preferences, facilitate broader legislative consideration of Latino issues, and bolster the Latino-interest agenda-setting and deliberative efforts of individual members. Through these sustained, collective efforts, representatives can most effectively promote Latino political inclusion and enable Latino political influence. The best examples of coalitional behavior that represents Latinos come from the activities of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus. Although the organization usually has lacked the numbers necessary to make it formidable in terms of agenda control, it has sometimes increased Latino influence in legislative decisions beyond the voting power of its small membership. In addition to individual efforts to influence legislative decisions in Congress, it therefore is important to consider the collective efforts undertaken by the organization to fully understand Latino representation in congressional decision making. As the following chapters illustrate, Latino representation is thus about more than a dyadic relationship between representativesPage 30 → and Latino constituents in their districts. It is also about collective and synergistic efforts whereby representatives work together to represent Latinos nationwide. To summarize, the representation framework presented here emphasizes responsive behaviors that facilitate Latino political incorporation throughout a representative process. It begins with efforts to connect with Latino constituents and continues throughout stages of policy agenda setting, debate and decision making. While Latino inclusion and Latino influence are affected by responsive behaviors throughout the representative process, representatives have their most direct impacts on inclusion. Their impact on Latino influence is more indirect, relying in part on reactions or cooperation from others in the political system. As the process moves through stages of constituency connections, agenda setting, debate, and decision making, Latino representation and the behaviors that contribute to it are more and more about Latino influence and less and less centrally concerned with promoting Latino inclusion. Presumably, any representative could behave in ways that facilitate Latino political incorporation. The next section examines whether Latino representatives should be expected to so more effectively than their non-Latino colleagues and how answers to this question can be most effectively pursued.

Latino Representatives and Latino Representation Descriptive representation is often associated with political incorporation in the dimension of representation. For example, Fraga and Ramirez point to the election of Latinos and the proportion of Latinos in legislative majorities and positions of legislative influence as measures of Latino political incorporation in representation (2003, 306). Their measurements echo observations by Browning, Marshall, and Tabb that descriptive representation, particularly within dominant political coalitions, constitutes a useful indicator of political incorporation (1984, 24–25). A major limitation of existing research on Latino political incorporation is that the impact of descriptive representatives on matters of public policy has largely been assumed. As the model of political incorporation presented here articulates, substantive representation throughout the representative process, more than descriptive representation per se, animates Page 31 →representation as a critical dimension of political incorporation. To understand the importance of Latino representatives to Latino political incorporation, then, requires a thorough understanding of the relationship between Latino descriptive representation and the substantive representation of Latinos. Debate over the impact of Latino representatives on Latino representation is situated within a broader scholarly literature that examines the relationship between the descriptive representation of groups by group members and

the substantive representation of groups, whereby representatives act in ways designed to advance a group’s interests (Pitkin 1967). Although debates over the relationship as it relates to marginalized ethnic, racial, or gender groups such as Latinos have occurred primarily since the civil rights movement, questions about the extent to which personal characteristics and experience contribute to representative behavior and the extent to which representative assemblies should reflect societal characteristics and experience predate the U.S. Constitution. Among the Antifederalist concerns about the proposed U.S. constitutional system, particularly regarding the legislative branch, was that it would fail to provide a government that reflected societal diversity. Writing in opposition to the constitutional plan, the Antifederalist known as Brutus asserted, The very term, representative, implies that the person or body chosen for this purpose, should resemble those who appoint them—a representation of the people of America, if it be a true one, must be like the people.В .В .В . [T]hose who are placed instead of the people should possess their sentiments and feelings, and be governed by their interests, or, in other words, should bear the strongest resemblance of those in whose room they are substituted.В .В .В . In this assembly, the farmer, merchant, mecanick, and other various orders of people, ought to be represented according to their respective weight and numbers. (Storing 1985, 124–25) Antifederalist concerns about descriptive representation reflected the assumption that the abilities and desires of legislators to act on behalf of diverse interests relates fundamentally to their personal characteristics. As Brutus lamented, Page 32 → In reality there will be no part of the people represented, but the rich, even in that branch of the legislature, which is called the democratic. The well born, and highest orders in life, as they term themselves, will be ignorant of the sentiments of the middling class of citizens, strangers to their ability, wants, and difficulties, and void of sympathy, and fellow feeling. (Storing 1985, 126) The sentiment that personal characteristics shape representative ability and behavior remains popular among advocates for underrepresented groups more than two centuries later. For example, groups such as the National Association of Latino and Elected Officials (NALEO) herald the descriptive representation of Latinos as a key mechanism for promoting Latino inclusion, opportunity, and empowerment (NALEO at-a-Glance 2013). As a top NALEO official explained in an interview, This is a representative democracy. Representative democracy means that people are represented by folks who look like them and have their similar experiences. If you don’t see that [diversity], you’re going to continue operating the legislature in the same way things have been operating forever, because there are a whole host of idiosyncrasies and cultural dynamics that need to be taken into consideration when you’re making legislation and when you’re participating in a legislative body. You’re not seeing the whole community and what our issues really are and where we stand on certain issues.В .В .В . If you don’t see color [in the legislature], you don’t see me. (Interview, March 6, 2007) Building on historical Antifederalist concerns that a lack of descriptive representation results in a legislature that is largely aloof from the interests and concerns of many groups in society, this viewpoint illustrates the further importance of descriptive representation to representative government in a dynamic society. Without a representative body that physically reflects changing societal diversity, Congress may be incapable of incorporating new interests, concerns, and points of view. Most contemporary arguments for descriptive representation revolve around the notion that life experiences shape representative behaviors. Barry Burden, for example, argues that personal experiences stemming from many sources, including but not limited to social positioningPage 33 → based on characteristics like race and ethnicity, are important to understanding what representatives do. Experiences are important, he argues, because “they

help a representative distill information, guide a member’s decision making, and motivate action, just as they do for everyday people. Although legislators must be responsive to their districts, party leaders, and other actors in the polityВ .В .В . they also heed their own internal cues” (2007, 14). In short, representative behavior is shaped by the experiences of individual representatives in addition to electoral concerns and other factors. Politically salient experiences tend to accompany the social positioning of certain racial or ethnic groups, providing the basis for political affinities based on group experiences and perspectives and behavioral motivation for descriptive representatives (Williams 1998; Young 2000). According to Melissa Williams, Groupings do have a social significance which stands independently of the meanings their members voluntarily attach to them. In particular, they define the contours of important patterns of social, political, and economic inequality, and thus help to determine the life prospects and to constrain the life choices of most of their members.В .В .В . [W]hat members of such groups share is the experience of marginalization and the distinctive perspective on matters of public policy that comes of that experience. (1998, 6) These salient shared experiences and the perspectives derived from them provide an important theoretical link between descriptive representation and substantive representation (Williams 1998; Young 2000). As Williams asserts in building her case for descriptive representation, Even though the experiences and perspectives of marginalized group members are themselves diverse, the social positions of group members are sufficiently similar that there are good reasons to believe the members of marginalized groups, on average, are more likely to represent the concerns and interests of citizens from those groups than are nonmembers. (1998, 6) In spite of their diversity, then, Latinos arguably stand to benefit from descriptive representation based on the expectation that experiences shared Page 34 →by representatives and constituents will lead to greater and more effective activism on behalf of Latinos by Latino representatives. A number of scholars argue not only that descriptive representatives possess greater abilities to represent minority constituencies based on the experiences they share with other group members but also that “group consciousness” and associated feelings of “linked fate” underlie the relationship between descriptive and substantive representation (Dawson 1994). Marginalized groups such as Latinos, these theories suggest, are set apart by the feelings that policies affect group members in systematic ways and that individual experiences are tied to and shaped by group experiences (Dawson 1994; GarcГ-a Bedolla 2009; Gurin, Hatchett, and Jackson 1989; Hero 1992; Tate 2003; Welch and Hibbing 1984). Descriptive representatives therefore act for minorities based on a commitment to group interests derived from group consciousness and feelings of linked fate with group members (Fenno 2003; Minta 2011; Swain 1993). For example, Michael Minta argues that in spite of their substantial diversity, “there is a strong reason to expect that ethnic group consciousness may play a role in predicting Latino policy preferences” (2011, 22). He suggests that group consciousness related to common experiences with discrimination, segregation, and colonization unites many Latinos and likely explains consistencies observed in Latino attitudes across numerous policy issues as well as commitments by Latino legislators to advance the collective interests of Latinos (24). The experiential differences that set Latino representatives apart from other representatives may be more essential for some representative purposes than for others. Jane Mansbridge (1999) argues that descriptive representatives act in ways that enhance representation in at least two critical contexts. First, she suggests that descriptive representation can improve vertical communication and relationships between constituencies and representatives in contexts where marginalized constituencies mistrust government. Minority groups, including Latinos, often mistrust government, viewing the political system as unresponsive or illegitimate as a consequence of a history of political discrimination, exclusion, and marginalization, a point illustrated by the statistics regarding low rates of political efficacy among Latinos. Descriptive representatives help to alleviate mistrust by facilitating communication and trust with marginalized constituencies (Mansbridge 1999, 641).

Suzanne Dovi’s observation that representatives who build “strong mutualPage 35 → relationships” with the groups they represent descriptively are “preferable” (2002, 729) complements Mansbridge’s emphasis on the importance of dialogue and exchange between representatives and constituents to the substantive representation of marginalized groups. If one takes seriously arguments that representation is largely built on (and observable in) linkages between representatives and their constituents, then descriptive representatives should enhance the substantive representation of minority groups by maintaining stronger relationships and more effective communication with minority constituencies (Fenno 2003; Dovi 2002). Katherine Tate’s (2003) research suggesting that minority constituents’ attitudes toward their representatives and comfort in communicating with them are influenced by the representatives’ racial characteristics underscores the argument that descriptive representation enhances linkages, or the quality of relationships, between representatives and their constituents. To the extent that representatives build such relationships and facilitate connections between Latinos and government, we might also view their actions as efforts to include Latinos and to empower them as political participants in ways that yield greater influence. Descriptive representatives also appear important in contexts of “uncrystallized” interests—that is, cases where the interests and perspectives of marginalized constituencies are poorly recognized or understood (Mansbridge 1999, 628). In these contexts, descriptive representatives bring to the policy process perspectives that facilitate understanding and enhance the overall level of shared social knowledge among policymakers. The contributions Latino representatives make in a plethora of public forums—in communications with constituents and the press, in horizontal communications with other legislators, during committee hearings, on the House floor, and other forums where deliberation intertwines with policymaking—presumably inject Latino perspectives into policy debates, place new Latino interests and concerns on the agenda, and ultimately facilitate Latino incorporation in the policymaking process. The idea that descriptive representatives enhance substantive representation primarily in certain contexts where responsiveness or relationships are deficient suggests that the value of descriptive representatives rests largely on their role in reshaping existing status quos in the representative process. If Latino representatives affect Latino representation, they should do so by reshaping relationships with Latino constituencies in ways that include and empower them and by altering aspects of the policymaking Page 36 →process to more effectively include and respond to Latino interests and concerns. These observations also indicate something important about how Latino representation should be analyzed. To fully grasp the impact of Latino representatives, analyses must explore indicators that shed light on whether and how Latino representatives influence responsiveness throughout the representative process. Within each stage of the process, emphasis should be placed contributions that reshape the political relationship between Latinos and Congress and that reshape the policymaking process by facilitating meaningful Latino political inclusion and influence.

Critics and Skeptics of Descriptive Representation Perhaps the most obvious rebuttal to arguments linking descriptive and substantive representation is that descriptive representation alone is insufficient to produce substantive representation. “Standing for” constituents in the physical or descriptive sense is passive, according to Hannah Pitkin, and is not the same as “acting for” them (1967, 61). The idea of representing in the descriptive sense refers to what representatives are like rather than what they have been authorized to do or what they can be held accountable for (61). Therefore, descriptive representation does not imply “acting with authority, or acting before being held to account, or any kind of acting at all” except perhaps to give information about the represented to legislative assemblies (61). In short, the assumption that descriptive representation automatically begets substantive representation is a dubious one. Scholars who observe that physical characteristics such as ethnicity do not guarantee authentic representation of group interests and that not “just any woman, black, or Latino” will do when it comes to representing these groups echo Pitkin’s skepticism about the sufficiency of descriptive representation to produce substantive representation (Guinier 1994; Dovi 2002). Dovi’s argument that the value of descriptive representation—what might be called its authenticity—rests largely on whether descriptive representatives maintain “strong mutual relationships to dispossessed subgroups” reflects this point (2002, 741). If such

relationships are not maintained, then the authenticity and value of descriptive representation are suspect. Lani Guinier similarly acknowledges that authentic descriptive representation “reflects the group consciousness, group history, and group Page 37 →perspective of a disadvantaged and stigmatized minority” but argues that its usefulness as both an empowerment tool and a route to representation for minority communities is limited by the fact that a representative’s physical characteristics obscure underlying obligations, many of which are strongly shaped by electoral considerations that are unrelated to minority group interests (1994, 58). The flip side of concerns that descriptive representatives sometimes fail to provide authentic substantive representation is the view that demands for descriptive representation falsely imply that societal groups are endowed with “essential” qualities and that only descriptive representatives therefore can represent societal groups. As Mansbridge suggests regarding other marginalized groups, “Insisting that women represent women or Blacks represent BlacksВ .В .В . implies an essential quality of womenness or Blackness that all members of that group share” (1999, 637). Far from being a monolithic group, Latinos illustrate the problems with this assumption by possessing many—at times competing—material interests and by expressing diverse preferences across a range of issues (F. Chris GarcГ-a and Sanchez 2008). Insistence on descriptive representation not only denies real in-group diversity but also implies that “members of that group cannot adequately represent others” (Mansbridge 1999, 637). Taken to their logical extreme, arguments for descriptive representation do violence to the notion that the representation of a diverse constituency by a single representative is possible. In addition to being insufficient to produce substantive representation or inaccurately implying essential group characteristics, descriptive representation may also be unnecessary, at least for some representative purposes. For example, while she identifies important contexts where descriptive representatives can reshape substantive representation, Mansbridge argues that in some cases, “reelection incentives and other forms of accountability can make descriptive representation unnecessary,” particularly with regard to activities such as legislative voting decisions (1999, 635). Richard Fenno similarly argues regarding black representation that “white Representatives, if they wish, can easily vote the policy preferences of their black constituents,” and he implies that they will do so if it is electorally expedient (2003, 260). Arguments and evidence rejecting a relationship between descriptive and substantive representation have led a number of scholars to question whether efforts to increase descriptive representation paradoxically Page 38 →diminish the representation of marginalized groups. David Lublin argues that the primary mechanism used to promote descriptive representation, majority-minority districting strategies, “wastes” minority votes by packing minority voters into noncompetitive districts (1997b, 100). As minority voters exercise electoral influence in fewer districts, fewer representatives (generally Democrats) who are sympathetic to minority interests are elected to Congress. The result is less minority group influence over legislative decisions. A good example that illustrates Lublin’s argument comes from recent redistricting battles in Texas. The Texas congressional delegation included 17 Democrats and 15 Republicans during the 108th Congress, after the 2002 election cycle. In 2004, the new Republican majority in the state legislature redrew district lines to increase the number of Republicans elected to Congress. After elections under the redrawn map, the Texas delegation to the 109th Congress included 21 Republicans and 11 Democrats. To evade legal challenges under the Voting Rights Act, the plan employed majority-minority districting strategies to ensure that all six districts that had previously elected Latino representatives would be likely to return their incumbents to Washington. The plan also increased the number of districts likely to elect African American candidates from two to three. The Republican map performed almost exactly as planned. Texas Latinos maintained their descriptive representation in Congress, while the descriptive representation of African Americans in Texas increased by one seat. Meanwhile, the new map assisted Republican efforts to maintain their narrow majority in the House of Representatives by increasing the size of the Texas GOP delegation by 40 percent.

Theorizing Latino Representation Skepticism about the impact of Latino representatives on the substantive representation of Latinos highlights the

fact that Latino representation is shaped by far more than the ethnicity of representatives. The electoral incentives representatives face by virtue of the constituencies in their districts, for example, are a critical consideration. Political parties may play important roles in shaping some aspects of Latino representation. And other representative characteristics such as race or gender may also shape responsiveness to Latinos. Recognizing that Latino representation is affectedPage 39 → by many variables means that theorizing its causes requires a multivariate approach. Following the well-developed theory that representatives are motivated primarily by their interest in reelection and that they therefore act to satisfy the demands of a reliable electoral constituency in their districts, it seems likely that efforts to represent Latinos increase with the size and electoral clout of Latino populations in congressional districts. Representatives who see Latinos as part of their reelection constituency should be expected to provide greater responsiveness to Latinos than representatives who do not similarly rely on Latino supporters. My earlier research, which demonstrates that Latino representation in bill sponsorship behaviors is positively and significantly associated with the size of Latino constituencies, supports this idea (W. C. Wilson 2010). Research on patterns of ideological voting in state legislatures similarly suggests that constituency demands stand alongside descriptive representation as a factor shaping patterns of legislative decision making (Juenke and Preuhs 2012). Latino representation may also be influenced by variables related to political party and ideology. Latino-interest positions are often associated with liberal attitudes. Therefore, efforts to represent Latino interests may be associated with the ideology of congressional districts as well as the ideological attitudes and party affiliations of representatives. Especially in an era of increasing partisanship and ideological homogeneity within parties, efforts to represent Latinos should be far more visible in the actions of Democrats than those of Republicans. The strongly partisan environment is likely to be especially influential with regard to representatives’ efforts to shape the congressional agenda and legislative decisions. Previous research demonstrates that support for Latino interests in legislative voting is related to the party affiliations of representatives as well as to the ideological attitudes of district constituencies (Hero and Tolbert 1995; Knoll 2009). Demographic factors such as race as well as the racial or gender characteristics of representatives might also influence responsiveness to Latinos. Latinos’ interest in certain social welfare programs and civil rights issues sometimes give them common cause with blacks and women. If African American or women constituents demand action on such policies and black and women representatives are more active on such issues, consistent with theories linking descriptive and substantive representation, then factors associated with race and gender might be related to Latino representation. Rouse’s research supports that theory by suggesting that many Latino Page 40 →issues are “cross-cutting” and affect multiple groups (2013, 24). Research also demonstrates that women representatives are more supportive of social welfare programs (Swers 2002) and that the race of representatives impacts advocacy on certain civil rights or social welfare programs that affect both blacks and Latinos, lending credence to these assumptions (Canon 1999; Lublin 1997b). Latino representation clearly does not occur in a vacuum. Constituency and personal characteristics may play complementary roles in shaping Latino representation. But if this is the case, then exactly what roles do Latino representatives play in the substantive representation of Latinos? And how important or consequential are their impacts? The strengths and limitations of research approaches taken by both skeptics and advocates of Latino descriptive representation help to chart the course for answering these questions.

Representation without Incorporation? The Limited Value of Voting Patterns as Indicators of Latino Representation Legislative voting is almost certainly the most discussed legislative behavior in scholarly studies of representation. Research on Latino representation is no exception. Amenable to observation and quantification, roll call voting records are widely recognized by congressional representatives as consequential to their political fortunes. Representatives fret about missing votes for fear that voters will equate absences with dereliction of duty. Representatives seek to burnish their credentials with key constituencies and interest groups by establishing themselves as reliable supporters or opponents of specific legislative agendas. Interest groups often identify key

votes for representatives by informing them that such votes will be “scored” for or against them. Above all, representatives desire to avoid making the wrong choices on high-profile votes that can be used as litmus tests by the electorate as they run for reelection. Such considerations generally relate more closely to decisions that affect individuals’ political fortunes than to public policy outputs. While votes have obvious political implications for individual representatives, they may also reveal useful information about patterns of representation in Congress. Political scientists have long used interest group voting indexes to test hypotheses about representative behavior. Voting scores Page 41 →developed by groups such as Americans for Democratic Action (ADA), the American Conservative Union (ACU), the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights (LCCR), the National Rifle Association (NRA), and others typically use a conventional 0–100 scale, where 0 indicates complete opposition and 100 indicates complete agreement with the group’s policy preferences. For a lengthy period during the middle of the twentieth century, support for a conservative coalition (CC) of southern Democrats and Republicans was also a useful measurement for understanding ideological voting patterns in Congress. While the ADA and ACU attempted to capture broad-based patterns of ideological voting, issue organizations like the LCCR and NRA focused on narrower sets of votes related to their priority issues. Research on patterns of Latino representation has sometimes examined voting scores developed by the Southwest Voter Research Institute (SWVRI), an organization that promotes Latino political participation, and the National Hispanic Leadership Agenda (NHLA), a consortium of leading Latino advocacy organizations. Political scientists have also developed their own sophisticated voting indexes. The most widely used in literature on Congress are variations of the Dynamic Nominal Three-Step Estimation (D-NOMINATE) voting scores developed by Keith Poole and Howard Rosenthal (1997). These data consist of two-dimensional dynamic coordinates of ideological conservatism for every U.S. representative for each Congress and can be directly compared across Congresses. The ideological scale of these coordinates ranges from в€’1 to 1, where smaller numbers indicate greater liberalism and larger numbers greater conservatism. Much of what we know empirically about Latino representation comes from studies of roll call voting. A substantial body of research examines whether Latino representatives vote differently—presumably more liberally or in ways that are more supportive of Latino preferences—than their colleagues. Although research produces some mixed conclusions regarding the effect of representative ethnicity, some recent studies provide evidence that Latino state representatives not only vote differently from their non-Latino colleagues but are “irreplaceable” by non-Latino legislators (Juenke and Preuhs 2012). With regard to examinations of ideological voting patterns, Welch and Hibbing (1984) examined the effects of Latino constituencies and Latino U.S. representatives on CC scores and found that Hispanic lawmakers vote more liberally than non-Hispanic lawmakers. Analyses using DW-NOMINATE data also suggest that Latino Page 42 →representatives are more liberal than non-Latinos (Casellas 2007). However, significant heterogeneity in the ideological voting patterns of Latino representatives related to their personal attributes raises questions about whether studies inappropriately essentialize Latino representatives’ voting behaviors when they are in fact ideologically nonmonolithic (Rocca, Sanchez, and Uscinski 2008). Efforts to gauge support for Latino interests in voting patterns produce interesting findings but also signal a need for further exploration. Analyses by Hero and Tolbert (1995) and by Kerr and Miller (1997) demonstrate modest differences between Latino and non-Latino representatives in their support for policy preferences identified by the SWVRI. However, these analyses resulted in disagreement between the sets of authors regarding the significance of the differences for the substantive representation of Latinos. Analyses of scores developed by the NHLA are also inconclusive. Knoll failed to find evidence that Latino representatives were more supportive of NHLA priorities than non-Latino representatives during the 108th Congress, but earlier studies identified greater NHLA support among Latino Democrats than among non-Latino Democrats (Huerta and Santos 2006; Knoll 2009; Santos and Huerta 2001). Recent research at the state legislative level lends support to the idea that Latino representatives do indeed impact patterns of legislative voting above and beyond the characteristics of their districts (Juenke and Preuhs 2012). Additional research by Rodney Hero and Robert Preuhs examines whether Latino representatives employ the

same ideological cues as their non-Latino colleagues when voting on issues of heightened importance to Latinos. Using NHLA scores as a dependent variable, Hero and Preuhs show that at least during some Congresses, the relationship between legislator ideology (as measured by NOMINATE scores) and support for NHLA positions differed significantly between Latino and non-Latino members of Congress (Preuhs and Hero 2011). If support for NHLA positions were merely a function of a representative’s general ideology, then there would have been no significant differences. Latino representatives thus appear to be drawing on a set of cues that differ from those followed by non-Latinos when casting votes on Latino-interest issues. Overall, this brief review suggests some support for the argument that Latino representatives differ from their colleagues by voting more liberally or reliably in support of Latino interests.7 Much of what we know about the impact of Latino representatives on Page 43 →voting patterns comes from data with a very limited scope, particularly at the congressional level. Before completing an assessment of the strengths and limitations of this approach to studying Latino representation, it is therefore useful to provide a brief analysis that expands the temporal scope of the data. To accomplish this task, the following analysis examines three different voting indexes. The first, DW-NOMINATE scores (a D-NOMINATE variant), are the gold standard for understanding ideological patterns of voting. The second and third indexes, provided by the LCCR and NHLA, gauge legislative support for civil rights and Latino interests with greater specificity. DW-NOMINATE and LCCR data examined here cover three decades of voting activity (1983–2012). Because the NHLA compiled voting scores only from the 105th through 108th Congresses, this measure captures voting behavior between 1997 and 2004. Combined, the analyses of these indicators provide extensive insight into the impact of ethnicity on patterns of congressional roll call voting. Using a relatively simple model, I examine the effects of being a Latino Representative, Republican, Black Representative, or Female Representative as representative characteristics that may shape patterns of voting. I also control for important constituency characteristics including Percent Latino Population and District Conservatism, as gauged by the percentage of the two-party congressional voter support for Democrats.8 The first set of analyses presented is cross-sectional and controls for random effects across Congresses. The second set of results represents the results of disaggregated analyses for data from each individual Congress. As results of the cross-sectional analyses in table 1.1 demonstrate, Latino representatives’ voting patterns differed significantly from their non-Latino colleagues’ voting patterns on two of the three measures used to assess the behavior. Specifically, the findings indicate that Latinos voted more liberally than non-Latinos (as indicated by DW-NOMINATE scores) and were more supportive of civil rights initiatives (as indicated by LCCR scores) than their non-Latino colleagues. However, and perhaps somewhat surprisingly, they did not differ significantly from their colleagues with regard to NHLA scores. Like previous research on the relationship between representative ethnicity and roll call voting patterns, these findings fail to produce consistent evidence of a relationship between the two. Responsiveness to Latino populations also appeared to play a limited role in shaping voting patterns as captured by these three indexes. While Latino populations in congressional districts were positively and Page 44 →significantly related to NHLA voting scores, they were unrelated to DW-NOMINATE or to LCCR scores. As was the case with representative ethnicity, the lack of consistent relationships between the ethnic characteristics of constituencies and voting indexes casts some doubt on the strength of these independent variables for explaining patterns of voting. Not surprisingly, political party affiliation stood out as an explanatory variable above others in the model. Being a Republican was significantly associated with more conservative voting patterns, less support for LCCR positions, and less support for NHLA positions. The size of the coefficients for this variable in each analysis shows that the magnitude of the partisan effect was much greater than the other variables modeled. Two other representative characteristics—the race and gender of representatives—predicted voting patterns consistently across indicators. Both female and black representatives voted more liberally and were more supportive of both LCCR and NHLA positions in the cross-sectional analyses than were their white or male

colleagues. Finally, patterns of party Page 45 →support in congressional districts significantly predicted ideological voting patterns but did not share a significant relationship with voting on LCCR or NHLA priorities. Table 1.1. Latino Representatives and Voting Patterns in the House of Representatives, Selected Congresses DW-NOMINATE LCCR NHLA в€’0.074*** 8.419*** 0.726 Latino Representative (0.011) (1.192) (2.696) Percent Latino Population Republican

0.000 (0.000) 0.771***

(0.007) −0.182*** Black Representative (0.009) −0.068*** Female Representative (0.007) 0.046*** District Conservatism (0.014) Constant −0.327*** (0.006) Number of Observations 6,530 R-Square 0.854 Wald Chi-Square 39,208 Years Analyzed 1983–2012 Number of Congresses 15

0.059 13.861*** (0.039) (3.909) −64.203*** −62.319*** (0.744) (1.254) 6.139*** 9.303*** (0.929) (1.509) 6.996*** 2.637* (0.735) (1.160) −0.913 −4.357 (1.542) (2.494) 83.670*** 78.726*** (0.892) (1.079) 6,496 1,744 0.766 0.816 21,621 7,724 1983–2012 1997–2004 15 4

Note: * p < 0.05 ** p < 0.01 *** p < 0.001. Standard errors in parentheses. Random effects calculated for individual Congresses. To get a better idea about the consistency of the relationships between representative and constituency characteristics and voting patterns, I disaggregated the data to conduct 34 separate analyses specific to each of the Congresses for which data were obtained (15 analyses of voting patterns indicated by both DW-NOMINATE and LCCR scores and 4 analyses of voting patterns indicated by NHLA scores). Abbreviated results of these analyses appear in table 1.2, which illustrates the level and direction of significance for each independent variable in predicting each voting index during each Congress analyzed. As the results show, Latino Representative significantly predicted voting scores during only 4 of 15 Congresses. Representative ethnicity was significantly associated with DW-NOMINATE scores during the 108th Congress, NHLA scores during the 105th Congress, and LCCR scores during the 110th and 111th Congresses. This means that during the vast majority of the Congresses analyzed, there was no evidence of significant differences between the voting patterns of Latino and non-Latino representatives. The impact of Latino population on patterns of voting was also quite limited in the disaggregated analyses. The variable was significantly associated with ideological voting during two Congresses in the mid-1980s, with support for LCCR priorities during five Congresses, and with support for NHLA priorities during the 107th Congress. These patterns appear to comport with the broader cross-sectional analysis with regard to the conclusion that Latino constituencies also have had relatively inconsistent influences on congressional voting patterns. Representative race and gender shared much more consistent relationships with voting patterns across the Congresses analyzed than did representative or constituency ethnicity. Black representatives voted more liberally

than their colleagues during every Congress examined except for the 112th. They were more supportive of LCCR priorities from the 101st through 106th Congresses and were more supportive of NHLA priorities during each of the four Congresses scored by that index. Curiously, black representatives were actually significantly less supportive of LCCR priorities during the 110th Congress, all else being equal. Like black representatives, female representatives voted more liberally than their colleagues during every Congress analyzed except for the 112th. Page 47 →They were more supportive of LCCR priorities than their colleagues during every Congress from the 98th through 109th except the 99th. And they were more supportive of NHLA priorities than their male colleagues during the 105th Congress. Page 46 → Table 1.2. Latino Representation and Voting Patterns by Congress (98th–112th) and across Congresses (1983–2012) Index 98th 99th 100th 101st 102nd 103rd 104th 105th Latino Rep. DW-NOM. LCCR NHLA + Latino Pop. DW-NOM. + + LCCR * + * NHLA Republican DW-NOM. * * * * * * * * LCCR * * * * * * * * NHLA * Black Rep. DW-NOM. * * * * * * * * LCCR * * * * * NHLA * Woman Rep. DW-NOM. + * * * * * * * LCCR * * * * * * * NHLA * GOP Vote DW-NOM. # LCCR # # # * NHLA Index

106th 107th 108th 109th 110th 111th 112th All

Latino Rep. DW-NOM. LCCR NHLA Latino Pop. DW-NOM. LCCR NHLA Republican DW-NOM. * LCCR * NHLA * Black Rep. DW-NOM. * LCCR *

+ *

* + * * * *

* *

*

* * * * *

* *

* *

* *

*

* #

*

* *

* * * * * *

NHLA

*

*

*

Woman Rep. DW-NOM. + LCCR * NHLA GOP Vote DW-NOM.

* +

* *

LCCR NHLA

* + *

* * +

*

*

*

*

*

*

*

*

*

*

* * * *

Note: + p < 0.10; * p < 0.05. # indicates significance in nonhypothesized direction (two-tailed significance tests). Patterns of partisan support in the congressional districts shared a curious relationship with voting patterns characterized by an apparent role reversal over time. Higher Republican vote percentages were associated with greater support for LCCR positions in the 98th through 100th Congresses and more liberal patterns of voting during the 99th Congress. But by the late 1990s and early 2000s, higher GOP vote percentages were consistently associated with more conservative voting patterns and less support for LCCR and NHLA priorities. The changing relationships between the parties on civil rights issues during the period and a gradual disappearance of “liberal” Republicans from the party rank and file, along with the growing liberalization and realignment of the Democratic rank and file, offer compelling explanations for these trends. Political party was the only variable considered that reached significance as a predictor of voting patterns for each index examined and during each Congress examined. Not surprisingly, being a Republican was consistently associated with more conservative voting patterns and less support for both LCCR and NHLA positions. The fact that representatives I spoke with rarely if ever mentioned the act of voting when they discussed prevailing in support of or opposition to policy proposals is somewhat ironic given the substantial attention legislative votes receive in the literature on Latino representation. Voting may obviously play an important role when it comes to policy decisions, but this is not always the case. For example, legislation may be stopped before it reaches a vote. Such nondecisions, for practical purposes, may be every bit as important as decisions that alter the policy status quo. When voting does occur, it is often a perfunctory activity that merely ratifies relatively clear and established collective preferences on specific policy proposals. These observations suggest that researchers must view voting patterns with caution and take care to avoid overstating or misinterpreting their meaning in relation to the broader concept of representation. Because voting offers a relatively thin glimpse of the dynamics that ultimately shape policy decisions, scholars have long questioned its use as a stand-alone indicator of substantive representation (Eulau and Karps 1977). Voting patterns reveal the dichotomous choice of representatives on Page 48 →a specific policy proposal but do not illustrate representatives’ true policy preferences or reveal the reasons for legislator preferences. Furthermore, especially when using measures of ideological voting to analyze representation, one must make a theoretical leap to claim that representation of a certain group, like Latinos, conforms to a conventional liberal and conservative ideological spectrum. In research on black representation, building this link often relies on the consistency between the “objective” or socioeconomic needs of African American communities and the ideological break between conservatives and liberals in their support for social welfare programs (Swain 1993). However, as Carol Swain points out, objective interests provide only part of the picture: “A strand of social conservatism runs through black America,” complicating the picture of black interests (1993, 11). Using ideological voting measures to analyze Latino representation, therefore, must be done carefully, especially given the great diversity of the population. Studies that examine smaller sets of votes generated by Latino-interest groups methodologically sidestep the problem of conflating ideological positions with Latino interests (Casellas 2007; Hero and Tolbert 1995; Huerta and Santos 2006; Kerr and Miller 1997). They do so by truncating the “interesting” population of votes and focusing on support for Latino-interest issues. This means that only a handful of votes that address Latino issues are examined. Even studies that focus on support for particular sets of issues remain susceptible to interpretation

problems. The primary criticism of such studies (one also leveled against studies of ideological voting indexes) is that they reveal little information about the vast majority of behaviors that lead up to roll call decisions and structure the choices with which legislators are presented. Perhaps the most important conceptual shortcoming of using legislative votes as an indicator of Latino representation is that they do not speak effectively to the idea of Latino political incorporation. Regardless of the consistency with which Latino representatives impact legislative voting patterns (which apparently is not very much), such indicators reveal far more about preference congruence than about a representative’s impacts on Latino inclusion and influence. More than any other, this limitation highlights the importance of examining more conceptually relevant representative behaviors. Page 49 →

Beyond Voting: Integrating Latino Representation and Political Incorporation Insight into the broader relationship between descriptive and substantive representation in Congress, especially in behaviors more associated with representatives’ legislative initiatives and contributions, remains limited. Still, a number of studies illustrate that considering Latino representation in light of its role within the larger process of Latino political incorporation is an approach with promise. A growing number of studies on women’s representation and black representation in Congress explore behaviors that occur “upstream” in the legislative process, including bill sponsorship and cosponsorship (Canon 1999; Swers 2002; Tamerius 1995; Wolbrecht 2002), congressional speeches (Canon 1999; Gamble 2005; Tamerius 1995; Walsh 2002), district activities and constituency service (Canon 1999; Fenno 2003; Grose, Mangum, and Martin 2007; Swain 1993), and committee membership and participation (Canon 1999; Gamble 2005; Swers 2002). Not only do these studies tend to produce more consistent findings with regard to the impact of descriptive representation, they do so using indicators that span the representative process and speak to concerns about political incorporation with conceptual validity. Research examining Latino representation has also begun to explore the impact of descriptive representatives in behaviors that facilitate political incorporation. These studies find that Latino representatives sponsor fewer bills than other members of Congress, that bill sponsorship by Latino representatives is conditioned by the partisan control of Congress (Rocca and Sanchez 2008), that Latino representatives sponsor more Latino-interest bills than other representatives (W. C. Wilson 2010), and that Latino representatives are more active in oversight hearings that deal with topics of concern to Latinos (Minta 2011). Collectively, these studies focus research on the descriptive representation of Latinos on behaviors that reveal more about representatives’ initiatives to shape legislative agendas and about the intensity of representatives’ legislative preferences (Hall 1996). Overall, research on Latino representatives in Congress yields a relatively scattered and disconnected image of their impact on responsiveness to Latinos and falls short of providing a holistic view of the relationship between Latino descriptive and substantive representation. Empirical research reveals far more about patterns of support for Latino interests in Page 50 →behaviors such as legislative voting than it does about other aspects of responsiveness to Latinos that occur at other stages of the representative process. For some purposes—most prominently, support for Latino interests in voting patterns—factors such as political party appear more important than representative ethnicity. For others, like sponsorship of Latino-interest bills, committee participation, and certain aspects of Latino outreach on congressional websites (W. C. Wilson 2009), Latino representatives appear to significantly impact Latino representation. Generally missing from the accumulated evidence is extensive research that portrays the potential of Latino representatives to shift the status quo with regard to the relationship between Latinos and their representatives or with regard to the presence and influence of Latino concerns and interests in the policymaking process. Nor do previous studies sufficiently illustrate the relationship throughout the representative process. Gathering a more holistic analysis of the relationship between Latino representatives and Latino representation is important to advancing the debate over the importance of Latino representatives.

Page 51 →

Chapter 2 Latino Descriptive Representation in the U.S. Congress November 6, 2012 was a big day for Latinos in Congress. As votes were tallied in congressional races across the country, it became clear that Latinos would occupy a record 34 seats1 in the 113th Congress: 31 in the U.S. House of Representatives and 3 in the U.S. Senate. Importantly, the election signaled a gradual increase in electoral viability not just for Latino Democrats but also for Latino Republicans. A record 8 Latino Republicans had been elected to the 112th Congress. Freshman representatives Francisco Canseco (R-TX) and David Rivera (R-FL) lost their reelection bids to Latino Democrats, but Ted Cruz (R-TX) joined Marco Rubio (R-FL) in the U.S. Senate, and David Valadao (R-CA), joined the five remaining Latino Republicans in the House, suggesting that the ability of Latino Republicans to win elective office outside the Cuban American neighborhoods of South Florida is increasing. While the 2012 election was a historical high-water mark for Latinos in Congress, it still fell far short of yielding proportional representation. Latinos comprised 16.3 percent of the U.S. population according to the 2010 Census but occupied only 6.5 percent of the 535 seats in the 113th Congress. For most of U.S. history, Latinos were not just underrepresented in Congress but were essentially absent. No Latino U.S. senators served during the nineteenth century, and no more than one Latino U.S. senator served in any given Congress during the twentieth century. Although at least one Latino has served in Congress at all times since 1931, Latinos have enjoyed a consistent presence in the House of Representatives only since 1943. Before the elections of Senators Mel Martinez (R-FL) and Ken SalazarPage 52 → (D-CO) in 2004, there had been no Latino U.S. senator for a quarter century. As table 2.1 illustrates, the numbers of Latino representatives and senators in Congress remained in the single digits until 1983, though the past three decades have witnessed slow, sometimes halting, growth. Congress had 20 Latinos in 1997 and 30 in 2005, but those numbers declined temporarily after arriving at each of those milestones. The descriptive representation of Latinos in Congress is consequential, even essential, to the substantive representation of Latinos because of the roles these representatives play in the process of Latino political incorporation. But before weighing the evidence and drawing conclusions about Latino representatives’ impacts in Congress, it is important to first understand the dynamics by which Latinos candidates have won congressional seats, the institutional positions they have occupied as congressional representatives, their efforts to organize collectively to advance Latino policy interests, and the ways in which these factors shape their collective potential as a political force. The electoral conditions that lead to representation by Latino members of Congress provide important background information for understanding where Latino representatives have come from—and where they have not. In other words, electoral dynamics provide some expectations with regard to demands for Latino representation and for the relationships between both Latino and non-Latino representatives and Latino constituencies. The institutional positions occupied by Latino representatives lend insight into the opportunities and constraints they face as policymakers. Committees come with their own policy jurisdictions and shape and constrain representatives’ policy agendas. Leadership positions come with privileged abilities to shape larger congressional policy agendas. The distribution of Latinos across various types of committees and in leadership can help us understand what Latino representatives have and have not done to represent Latinos and can lend insight into the reasons for these patterns of behavior. Examining collective efforts of Latino members of Congress to represent Latinos reveals that Latino representation is more than the sum of individual efforts. It is also a synergistic enterprise. For nearly four decades, most Latino members of Congress have belonged to organizations—most prominently the Congressional Hispanic Caucus (CHC)—that are associated with Latino ethnic identity. More than a mere social club, the CHC has been an important forum and frequent player in policymaking efforts Page 53 →that represent

important Latino interests. The CHC’s history, purpose, organization, and activities, therefore, appear important to the larger objective of understanding Latino representation in Congress. Together, the electoral dynamics, institutional positioning, and collective organizing that characterize Latino descriptive representation help to illustrate both the limits and possibilities of Latino inclusion and influence in Congress. These crucial factors provide the context for understanding the relationship between Latino representatives and the substantive representation of Latinos. And they situate Latino representatives as actors within the broader process of Latino political incorporation. Like the analyses in later chapters, most of the discussion of Latino representatives in this chapter focuses on Latino members of the U.S. House. Simply put, too few Latinos have served in the U.S. Senate to undertake a serious comparative analysis, so Latino representation in the upper chamber is primarily a subject for future research. In addition, the bulk of this chapter focuses on Latino representation over the past three decades, a period during which Latinos in Congress became organized and gained an increasingly critical mass for advancing Latino interest policies.

Electing Latinos to Congress The recent increase in the number of Latinos in Congress, especially in the House of Representatives, has resulted from the confluence of several factors. Most noteworthy have been the elimination of legal barriers to voter participation, dramatic population growth, and districting schemes that have encouraged the election of a limited number of Latino representatives by comfortable margins. Legal barriers severely impeded Latino political participation and candidacy prior to the civil rights movement. For example, in Texas and other states, poll taxes kept many Latinos from voting, and Latino candidates were sometimes forced to use precious campaign funds to pay these fees so that their supporters could cast ballots.2 The courts’ determination that such impediments to voting were unconstitutional marked an important step forward for Latino voting and for Latino political candidacies. The rapid growth in the Latino population since the 1970s resulted in increased Latino electoral clout. In a number of major metropolitan areas, Latinos have become plurality and even majority populations during the past 40 years, significantly increasing the political power of the group at the local level. Table 2.2 displays data on the 10 U.S. counties with the largest Latino populations in 1980, 1990, 2000, and 2010. Among the compelling trends evident in these statistics are the dramatic growth in the sizes of the largest Latino population centers, the dramatic growth of Latino populations in California, the decreased prominence of New York as a Latino population center, and the relatively modest growth of Latino populations in South Florida and Illinois compared to those in major metro areas in the Southwest. Los Angeles County, long the county with the largest Latino population in the United States, saw that population more than double between 1980 and 2010, when it neared 4.7 million. In 1980, Los Angeles County was the only county with more than 1 million Latino residents. By 2010, 8 counties boasted Latino populations larger than 1 million. New York hosted 3 of the 10 counties with the largest Latino populations in 1980, while California had only 2 and Arizona had none. By 2010, 5 of the top 10 counties in Latino population were in California, one was in Arizona, and none were in New York. Harris County, Texas, which was number 8 in Latino population in 1980, saw that population increase fivefold over the next three decades. By 2010, Harris County overtook Miami-Dade County at number 2 on the overall list. The electoral clout that accompanied dramatic and widespread growth in Latino populations in these and other metropolitan areas was key to expanding Latino descriptive representation. Page 54 → Year 1877 1879

Table 2.1. Latinos in Congress, 1877–2013 Congress Total Number In the House In the Senate Latino Democrats Latino Republicans 45th 1 1 0 0 1 46th 1 1 0 0 1

1881

47th

1

1

0

0

1

1913 1915 1917 1919

63rd 64th 65th 66th

1 1 0 2

1 2 1 2

0 0 0 0

1 1 1 1

0 1 0 1

1921 1923 1925

67th 68th 69th

2 0 0

2 1 1

0 0 0

1 1 1

1 0 0

1927 1929

70th 71st

2 0

1 0

1 0

1 0

1 0

1931 1933 1935 1937 1939 1941 1943 1945 1947 1949 1951 1953 1955 1957 1959 1961 1963 1965 1967 1969 1971 1973

72nd 73rd 74th 75th 76th 77th 78th 79th 80th 81st 82nd 83rd 84th 85th 86th 87th 88th 89th 90th 91st 92nd 93rd

2 2 2 2 1 1 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 3 3 4 4 5 6 6

2 2 1 1 0 0 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 2 2 3 3 4 5 5

0 0 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1

2 2 2 2 1 1 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 3 3 4 4 4 5 5

2 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 1 1

1975 1977 1979 1981 1983 1985 1987 1989 1991 1993 1995 Page 55 →1997

94th 95th 96th 97th 98th 99th 100th 101st 102nd 103rd 104th 105th

6 6 6 7 10 11 11 11 11 18 19 20

5 5 6 7 10 11 11 11 11 18 19 20

1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

5 5 5 6 9 10 10 10 10 15 16 17

1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 3 3 3

1999

106th

19

19

0

16

3

2001 2003 2005 2007

107th 108th 109th 110th

20 25 30 30

20 25 27 27

0 0 3 3

17 20 24 25

3 5 6 5

2009 2011 2013

111th 112th 113th

25 30 35

24 28 32

1 2 3

21 22 27

4 8 8

Source: Data from Library of Congress Hispanic Reading Room Biographies; Congressional Research Service Reports on Congressional Demographic Profiles by Mildred Amer and Jennifer Manning (2004–13). Perhaps most important, recent rounds of congressional redistricting Page 56 →resulted in larger numbers of districts where Latinos exercise substantial electoral influence and almost certainly contributed to the elections of larger numbers of Latinos. The 1980, 1990, 2000, and 2010 redistricting cycles increased the number of districts where Latinos comprised at least 40 percent of the population from 9 in the 97th Congress to 10 in the 98th Congress, 26 in the 103rd Congress, 35 in the 108th Congress, and 46 in the 113th Congress.3 Following these redistricting cycles, the number of seats in the House of Representatives occupied by Latinos increased by 3, 7, 5, and 5, respectively, over previous Congresses. By contrast, following other elections during that three-decade span, when district demographics Page 57 →remained relatively constant, the number of Latinos in Congress increased by an average of just over .4. Table 2.2. Top Ten U.S. Counties by Latino Population, 1980–2010 1980 1990 County State Latino Pop. % Latino County State Latino Pop. % Latino Los Angeles CA 2,065,503 27.6 Los Angeles CA 3,351,242 37.8 Miami-Dade FL 580,025 35.7 Miami-Dade FL 953,407 49.2 Cook IL 499,538 9.5 Cook IL 694,194 13.6 Bexar TX 460,752 46.6 Harris TX 644,935 22.9 Bronx NY 395,138 33.8 Bexar TX 589,180 49.7 Kings NY 393,103 17.6 Orange CA 564,828 23.4 Harris TX 368,220 15.3 Bronx NY 523,111 43.5 New York NY 335,247 23.5 San Diego CA 510,781 20.4 El Paso TX 297,196 61.9 Kings NY 462,411 20.1 Orange CA 285,722 14.8 El Paso TX 411,619 69.6 2000 County State Latino Pop. Los Angeles CA 4,242,213 Miami-Dade FL 1,291,957 Harris TX 1,119,751 Cook IL 1,071,743 Orange CA 875,583 Maricopa AZ 763,352 Bexar TX 757,038 San Diego CA 750,965 San Bernardino CA 669,387

2010 % Latino County State Latino Pop. 44.6 Los Angeles CA 4,687,889 57.3 Harris TX 1,671,540 32.9 Miami-Dade FL 1,623,859 19.9 Cook IL 1,244,762 30.8 Maricopa AZ 1,128,741 24.8 Orange CA 1,012,973 54.3 Bexar TX 1,006,958 26.7 San Bernardino CA 1,001,145 39.2 Riverside CA 995,257

% Latino 47.7 40.8 65.0 24.0 29.6 33.7 58.7 49.2 45.5

Dallas

TX

662,730

29.9

San Diego

CA

991,348

32.0

Source: Pew Research Center, Hispanic Trends: Latinos by Geography, http://www.pewhispanic.org/2012/03/16 /latinos-by-geography/ Although rapid population growth to some extent necessitated the creation of plurality- or majority-Latino districts, the creation of such districts has rarely if ever been merely incidental. Over the past three decades, majority-minority districts, where groups such as Latinos can use their power as an electoral majority to elect descriptive representatives, have become increasingly associated with objectives of empowering minority voters and the enforcement of the Voting Rights Act. Lani Guinier explains that electing minority candidates provides a standard for enforcing voting rights that is convenient, is judicially manageable, and has become a near panacea in litigation over redistricting (1994, 43). Especially since the mid-1980s, courts have focused on the ability of marginalized groups to decide electoral outcomes in their favor as evidence that districts meet the Voting Rights Act requirement that all citizens be afforded an equal opportunity to “participate in the political process and to elect representatives of their choice” (478 U.S. 30, Thornburg v. Gingles, 1986). This measure offered activists an “easily identifiable, uniformly enforceable proxy for the judicial inquiry into dilution jurisprudence” and has been used effectively to oppose redistricting schemes that break up majority-minority districts (Guinier 1994, 51). At the same time, the judicial focus on majority-minority districts provided conservatives with a clear standard for ensuring that Republican gerrymanders could meet constitutional muster under provisions of the Voting Rights Act. A number of scholars argue that racial gerrymanders, which in the strictest form have been declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court but continue as “partisan” districting schemes, strengthen Republican advantages in conservative states (O’Connor 1993). By “packing” groups, like Latinos, that tend to support Democrats into a handful of majority-minority districts, mapmakers can avoid illegal minority-vote dilution, because such districts practically guarantee that minority voters will be members of a winning Democratic Party coalition. And because such maps tend to result in fewer districts where Democratic constituencies comprise electoral majorities, they increase the size of Republican legislative delegations (Lublin 1997b). The confluence of interests between conservatives and voting rights advocates with regard to the creation and maintenance of majority-minority districts, combined with rapid growth in the Latino population in some states, helps to explain uncharacteristicallyPage 58 → large decennial increases in Latino descriptive representation in Congress following each redistricting cycle. The formidability of Latino electorates has long been the main factor in electing Latinos to Congress. New Mexico, the state with the longest history of Hispanic demographic dominance, produced all but one of the seven Latinos elected to Congress between 1912 and 1960. The lone exception, Representative Ladislas Lazaro, served Louisiana in the House from 1913 to 1927. Latino electoral success remains strongly associated with the presence of large Latino constituencies. For example, in his analysis of dynamics associated with the election of Latinos to the U.S. House and seven state houses, Jason Casellas concludes that “the strongest predictor of the presence of a Latino legislator in the eight lower chambers studied here is the percentage of Latino citizens in a given district” (2009, 414). The probability of electing a Latino to Congress in 2002, which his analysis shows was just .27 in districts where Latinos (citizen and noncitizen) made up half of the population, improved to .74 when Latinos made up more 60 percent of a district’s population. Casellas’s findings that large Latino constituencies have generally been a precondition for the election of Latino representatives echoes findings of earlier research. In his analysis of electoral patterns between 1972 and 1994, Lublin found that while Latinos were elected in just 29 of 5,190 Latino-minority districts, they won 82 of 105 elections in Latino-majority districts (1997b, 48). Using long-term-residency of five years or more as a proxy for rates of citizenship, Lublin’s analysis demonstrated that the probability of electing Latino candidates in districts where Latinos comprised half of the population dropped below .5 when 20 percent or more of residents had lived in the district for fewer than five years. But in districts that were 60 percent Latino and where more than three-quarters of residents had been there “long term,” Latinos enjoyed a .68 probability of election to Congress (52).

Data from House elections from 1982 to 2012 (displayed in fig. 2.1) illustrate the point that electing Latinos is highly correlated with the presence of large Latino populations.4 Non-Latino candidates won 100 percent of races in districts where Latinos comprised less than 20 percent of the population. Latinos won just 25 seats in races where Latinos comprised a minority of the population. But in races where Latinos comprised a majority, Latinos won 246 of 349 seats—more than 70 percent. When Latinos comprise more than 60 percent of a district’s population, non-Latinos are Page 59 →extremely unlikely to win election. They won just 20 of 185 elections in such districts. A few recent elections in Latino-minority districts, particularly of Latino Republicans, suggest the possibility of increasing Latino appeal in non-Latino electorates.5 But such cases remain the exception rather than the rule. Assuming that Latino electoral success continues to require substantial electoral support from Latinos, the Latino presence in Congress—as well as the potential for Latino inclusion and influence in the policymaking process—may remain limited by the number of districts where Latinos constitute a major voting bloc. Fig. 2.1. Latino and Non-Latino Representatives Elected by Latino Population, 98th–112th Congresses (1983–2012) While electoral demographics and the factors that shape them go a long way toward explaining Latino electoral influence, it is also important to acknowledge that factors related to voter mobilization (and demobilization) are likely to contribute to Latino influence within the context of individual races and may reshape Latino electoral influence in more permanent ways. For example, Ricardo Ramirez (2013) compellingly argues that proactive mobilization by elites and reactive mobilization in response to political and policy threats are important to understanding patterns of Latino electoral influence. Strong reactions by California Latinos to Proposition 187 Page 60 →and other anti-immigrant policies in the mid-1990s, for example, appears to explain lasting patterns of heightened mobilization, particularly by a cohort of naturalized Latino voters who first registered between 1994 and 1996. At the same time, proactive mobilization efforts by elites and organizations have at times been shown to increase Latino participation. Finally, a rash of recent laws, including those requiring voters to present identification at the polls, may confuse and demobilize Latino voters (Malewitz 2015). It is therefore important to keep in mind that contextual factors, including the policy climate, organizational mobilization, legal barriers, and the characteristics and campaign strategies of candidates, may impact the likelihood of success for Latino candidates.

Latinos on Committees and in Leadership The acquisition of institutional power is important to the consideration of Latino representatives’ impact in Congress, because failure to acquire such power limits representatives’ abilities to influence the policy process and provide policy responsiveness. As Guinier argues, once elected, minority legislators sometimes find that institutional rules limiting participation or influence curtail their ability to exercise influence over critical legislative functions such as agenda setting, deliberation, and decision making(1994, 75–76). While Guinier’s argument centers on racially motivated efforts by white majorities to change legislative procedures in ways that limit the institutional power of minority legislators, usually at the local level, her concerns highlight the fact that representatives’ positions in Congress substantially shape their abilities and opportunities to influence the legislative process and therefore to be effective representatives. The acquisition of institutional power by Latino members of Congress proceeded slowly until recently in part as a result of the general lack of Latino presence among congressional leaders, among committee chairs, and on prestigious committees. The institutional opportunities and constraints Latinos have faced as representatives shed light on their objectives and illustrate how institutional positions within Congress may shape Latino representatives’ legislative behaviors. At a more general level, they provide important qualitative insight into the extent to which Latinos have achieved inclusion in Congress and into their collective potential for political influence. Page 61 →Researchers often relate the types of committees to which representatives are assigned to the three major goals shared by most members of Congress: reelection, good public policy, and power and prestige within the institution (Deering and Smith 1997). These goals are often complementary. Acquiring power in Congress not

only may facilitate a representative’s efforts to win reelection but may also prove essential to the achievement of policy objectives (Fenno 1973). Because congressional committees vary substantially with respect to their power and prestige, they confer different opportunities to influence policy and different electoral benefits and appear likely to influence the representative behaviors of their members and to lend insight into representatives’ policy objectives (Fenno 1973). In the House of Representatives, some committees, particularly the Appropriations and Ways and Means Committees, stand out as “prestige committees,” given their expansive jurisdictions over policies that affect the role of government at a macro level and virtually all issue constituencies (Deering and Smith 1997). Representatives who seek to maximize their influence in Congress may seek seats on such committees (Fenno 1973). Historically, the Budget and the Rules Committees have also been identified as prestigious committees, although in the contemporary partisan era, these committees have arguably lost much of their cachet. Party leadership exercises increasing influence over the activities of these committees, perhaps making them less preferable than they used to be. The Rules Committee has operated largely as an arm of majority party leadership for nearly two decades (Owens 1997), and the Budget Committee has lost substantial agenda-setting power in an era of government financing through near-endless continuing resolutions. Committees whose jurisdictions affect relatively narrow often geographically based issue constituencies are often referred to as “constituency committees” (Deering and Smith 1997). The House Agriculture and Armed Services committees are among the most frequently cited examples of such committees. Representatives may see membership on constituency committees as helpful to advancing reelection goals if it helps them to represent major special interests in their districts. Between prestige and constituency committees are “policy committees,” whose issue jurisdictions occupy important but relatively discrete areas of public policy and whose decisions shape policies that affect constituencies in most if not all congressional districts (Deering and Smith 1997). The House Education and Workforce Committee, which handles education Page 62 →and labor policy, among other issues, is a good example. The House Judiciary Committee and Energy and Commerce Committee offer other examples of policy committees. Membership on policy committees is critical for representatives with goals of reforming major national public policies. Finally, some congressional committees are generally “unrequested” because membership offers few benefits related to goals of prestige, policy influence, or reelection (Deering and Smith 1997). The House Administration and Ethics Committees offer two examples of committees that most representatives would prefer to avoid. Latino representatives’ committee assignments shape their opportunities to influence policy in the House as well as to gain reelection and prestige among their colleagues. Ultimately, they also affect efforts to represent Latinos and the extent to which descriptive representation can be expected to facilitate Latino political incorporation. During the 30-year period between the 98th and 113th Congresses (1983–2014), Latinos occupied 306 of 6,960 House seats (4.4 percent). Latinos held 602 of 13,645 full or permanent select committee seat assignments in the House (again about 4.4 percent).6 No Latinos served in the Senate between 1983 and 2004. Between 2005 and 2014, Latinos occupied Senate seats 12 times and 55 of 2,143 full or permanent select committee slots. Table 2.3 illustrates the distribution of Latino members’ House standing and permanent select committee assignments from the 98th through the 113th Congresses. Latino House members served on 23 different committees. Since the early 1980s, Latinos have been a consistent presence on the Natural Resources, Financial Services, Agriculture, Appropriations, Foreign Affairs, Armed Services, Small Business, and Education and Workforce Committees. Latinos also frequently served on the Veterans’ Affairs, Transportation and Infrastructure, Science and Technology, and Oversight and Government Reform Committees. Consistent Latino membership on the Energy and Commerce, Ways and Means, Budget, Homeland Security, and Judiciary Committees and the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence occurred only in recent Congresses. Latino

membership on other standing committees, including Rules, House Administration, Merchant Marine, Ethics, and Post Office, has been occasional. No Latino ever served on the now-defunct District of Columbia Committee. Latino and non-Latino representatives’ rates of assignment to various types of House committees have differed slightly over the past three decades. Latino representatives have experienced somewhat lower rates of Page 63 →assignment to prestige, policy, and unrequested committees and slightly higher rates of assignment to constituency committees.7 Between 1983 and 2014, assignments to prestige committees (Appropriations, Ways and Means, Budget, and Rules) accounted for 93 of the 602 full or permanent select committee seats (about 15.4 percent) assigned to Latinos. By comparison, 2,341 of 13,043 standing or select committee seats assigned to nonLatinos (nearly 18 percent of assignments) were to prestige committees. Assignments to constituency committees (Agriculture, Armed Services, Merchant Marine, Natural Resources, Science and Technology, Small Business, Transportation and Infrastructure, and Veterans’ Affairs) accounted for 310 of 602 (about 51 percent) of all committee seat assignments to Latino representatives. By comparison, 6,321 seats assigned to non-Latinos (about 48 percent) were on constituency committees. Latinos occupied 200 seats (about 33 percent) on policy committees (Education and Labor, Energy and Commerce, Financial Services, Foreign Affairs, Homeland Security, Judiciary, and Oversight and Government Reform), while non-Latinos occupied 4,747 (more than 36 percent). Finally, only 35 of the seats assigned to Latinos (less than 6 percent) were on “unrequested” committees (Ethics, House Administration, the House Select Committee on Intelligence, and Post Office), while the 835 such seats allocated to non-Latinos accounted for just over 6 percent. Latino descriptive representation on committees in many ways mirrors broader patterns of descriptive representation in Congress. Latino influence may have been diminished somewhat by their slightly lower rates of assignment to prestige committees, and their ability to participate in major policy reforms may have been somewhat less than non-Latinos. But Latino representatives’ abilities to engage in certain aspects of pork barrel politics may have been somewhat greater than other members given higher-than-average rates of assignment to constituency committees. Because no Latinos served in the U.S. Senate between 1983 and 2004 and their recent presence has been small, Latino committee service in the Senate can be discussed succinctly. Senator Mel Martinez (R-FL), who served one six-year term covering the 109th through 111th Congresses, served stints on the Banking, Energy and Natural Resources, Armed Services, and Foreign Relations Committees as well as on the Select Committee on Aging, which he chaired during the 111th Congress. Senator Ken Salazar (D-CO) served on the Agriculture, Energy and Natural Resources, Veterans’ Affairs, Finance, and Ethics Committees during the 109th and Page 66 →110th Congresses before leaving the Senate to become secretary of the Interior Department in 2009. Senator Robert Menendez (D-NJ), who joined the Senate in 2006 after a special election, has served on the Banking, Budget, Energy and Natural Resources, Foreign Relations, and Finance Committees. Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) served on the Select Committee on Intelligence and on the Commerce, Science, and Transportation, Foreign Relations, and Small Business Committees during the 112th and 113th Congresses. Finally, Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) served on the Armed Services, Judiciary, Rules and Administration, Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committees as well as on the Select Committee on Aging during the 113th Congress. Page 64 → Table 2.3. Committee Seat Assignments, Latino and Non-Latino Representatives, 98th–113th Congresses (1983–2014) A. 98–106th Congress Committee Type 98th 99th 100th 101st 102nd 103rd 104th 105th 106th Agriculture Constituency 41 (2) 44 (2) 44 (2) 46 (3) 44 (2) 51 (2) 50 (3) 50 (1) 52 (2) Armed Services Constituency 45 (1) 49 (2) 52 (2) 51 (2) 53 (2) 55 (2) 54 (2) 60 (4) 60 (4) Merchant Constituency 42 (1) 42 (1) 45 (1) 44 (1) 45 (1) 48 (3) 0 (0) 0 (0) 0 (0) Marine

Natural Constituency 43 (3) 37 (3) 37 (3) 38 (2) 44 (1) 41 (2) 48 (3) 47 (2) 49 (3) Resources Science & Constituency 41 (2) 41 (2) 48 (2) 50 (1) 55 (1) 57 (1) 52 (0) 50 (0) 52 (1) Technology Small Business Constituency 42 (1) 47 (2) 45 (2) 45 (1) 47 (2) 46 (2) 50 (2) 39 (2) 37 (4) Transportation Constituency 48 (0) 51 (0) 56 (0) 57 (0) 56 (0) 62 (1) 69 (1) 74 (1) 76 (2) & Infr. Veterans Constituency 34 (2) 34 (0) 34 (0) 35 (1) 34 (1) 36 (2) 35 (2) 32 (3) 32 (3) Affairs Education & Policy 40 (1) 39 (1) 34 (2) 37 (2) 40 (3) 38 (2) 43 (2) 43 (3) 48 (3) Workforce Energy and Policy Commerce Financial Policy Services Foreign Affairs Policy Homeland Policy Security Judiciary Policy Oversight Policy Appropriations Prestige Budget Prestige Rules Prestige Ways and Prestige Means District of Unrequested Columbia Ethics Unrequested House Unrequested Administration Intelligence Unrequested (Select) Post Office Unrequested Total All Committees

42 (1) 43 (1) 42 (1) 45 (1) 43 (1) 44 (1) 51 (1) 50 (0) 53 (0) 48 (2) 46 (2) 51 (2) 53 (2) 52 (1) 51 (4) 53 (4) 66 (5) 62 (3) 40 (3) 43 (3) 43 (1) 44 (1) 42 (1) 44 (5) 46 (3) 50 (3) 48 (3) 0

(0) 0

(0) 0

(0) 0

(0) 0

(0) 0

(0) 0

(0) 0

(0) 0

(0)

32 41 57 31 13

(0) (0) (1) (0) (0)

(0) (2) (1) (0) (0)

(0) (2) (1) (0) (0)

(0) (2) (1) (0) (0)

(0) (2) (1) (0) (0)

(1) (1) (4) (0) (0)

(2) (1) (3) (1) (1)

(0) (1) (4) (1) (1)

(0) (1) (4) (0) (1)

36 42 59 33 13

35 41 58 36 13

38 44 58 37 12

35 41 60 39 12

35 45 59 44 13

36 54 56 44 13

39 49 60 43 13

39 46 64 44 13

35 (0) 37 (0) 37 (0) 37 (0) 36 (0) 38 (0) 39 (0) 39 (1) 39 (1) 11 (0) 12 (0) 12 (0) 11 (0) 11 (0) 11 (0) — — — — 0

(0)

13 (0) 12 (0) 13 (0) 13 (0) 15 (0) 14 (0) 10 (0) 10 (1) 10 (1) 21 (1) 19 (1) 19 (1) 22 (1) 25 (0) 19 (0) 12 (2) 9 0

(0) 0

(0) 0

(0) 0

(0) 0

(0) 10 (0)

(0) 19 (1) 19 (2) 16 (0) 15 (0)

28 (1) 23 (1) 21 (1) 24 (1) 22 (0) 23 (0) — — — — 0 (0) 788 (22) 802 (24) 816 (23) 841 (22) 851 (19) 893 (34) 834 (35) 839 (33) 849 (36)

Page 65 → B. 107–113th Congress Committee Type 107th 108th 109th 110th Agriculture Constituency 52 (2) 53 (4) 48 (7) 48 (5) Armed Services Constituency 62 (4) 62 (4) 62 (3) 67 (3) Merchant Marine Constituency 0 (0) 0 (0) 0 (0) 0 (0) Natural Resources Constituency 52 (4) 53 (9) 46 (7) 50 (6) Science & Technology Constituency 52 (1) 52 (1) 45 (2) 49 (1) Small Business Constituency 39 (4) 38 (4) 30 (3) 35 (4) Transportation & Infr. Constituency 80 (2) 74 (2) 74 (3) 79 (4) Veterans Affairs Constituency 35 (3) 33 (3) 31 (4) 33 (2)

111th 48 (4) 67 (3) 0 (0) 45 (4) 44 (1) 29 (1) 78 (4) 31 (1)

112th 45 (4) 59 (2) 0 (0) 43 (3) 38 (0) 27 (1) 60 (2) 26 (2)

113th 46 (6) 62 (3) 0 (0) 47 (8) 40 (0) 25 (2) 60 (2) 25 (3)

Total 762 920 266 720 766 621 1,054 520

Education & Workforce Policy

51 (3) 51 (3) 48 (2) 49 (3) 50 (2) 40 (2) 41 (2) 692

Energy and Commerce Financial Services Foreign Affairs Homeland Security

Policy Policy Policy Policy

58 70 51 9

Judiciary Oversight Appropriations

Policy Policy Prestige

41 (0) 37 (1) 41 (1) 40 (2) 41 (3) 36 (1) 40 (3) 601 48 (1) 49 (2) 43 (2) 41 (0) 43 (1) 39 (0) 41 (2) 707 65 (4) 65 (4) 67 (4) 68 (4) 61 (5) 49 (4) 51 (7) 957

Budget Rules

Prestige Prestige

46 (0) 44 (1) 41 (3) 42 (2) 43 (3) 38 (0) 39 (3) 644 15 (1) 14 (1) 13 (1) 13 (2) 16 (2) 13 (0) 13 (1) 212

Ways and Means District of Columbia Ethics House Administration Intelligence (Select) Post Office Total All Committees

Prestige Unrequested Unrequested Unrequested Unrequested Unrequested

41 (1) 41 (1) 42 (2) 41 (2) 41 (3) 39 (2) 39 (3) 621 0 (0) 0 (0) 0 (0) 0 (0) 0 (0) 0 (0) 0 (0) 68 13 (1) 11 (1) 10 (1) 11 (1) 12 (0) 10 (1) 10 (1) 187 9 (0) 9 (0) 9 (0) 10 (1) 9 (1) 9 (1) 9 (1) 220 23 (1) 23 (1) 21 (1) 23 (1) 22 (1) 18 (2) 20 (3) 219 0 (0) 0 (0) 0 (0) 0 (0) 0 (0) 0 (0) (0) 141 912 (40) 940 (55) 883 (57) 926 (57) 891 (49) 779 (37) 801 (59) 13,645

(0) (4) (3) (1)

60 73 50 48

(2) (5) (3) (3)

58 71 51 32

(2) (4) (4) (1)

61 79 52 35

(2) (5) (5) (2)

60 71 47 33

(1) (4) (3) (2)

53 62 42 33

(1) (4) (3) (2)

54 61 46 32

(1) (2) (4) (2)

817 969 739 222

Note: Number of seats assigned to Latino representatives in parentheses. Source: U.S. House of Representatives Committee Rosters. The substantial diversity in the House committee assignments of Latino representatives is relevant to understanding the role Latino representatives play in representing Latinos. Like their non-Latino colleagues, Latino representatives pursue diverse policy interests. The fact that Latinos occupy seats on many different committees, (20 during both the 111th and 113th Congresses), provides a base for advancing a broad and diverse policy agenda. To the extent that House committees are organized to serve the informational interests of the chamber, as some scholars suggest (Krehbiel 1991), the distribution of Latino representatives across a large number of committees means that the institution may now benefit from the input of Latino representatives on most major pieces of legislation. While Latino interests may be particularly acute with regard to some issues such as immigration or civil rights, Latino interests require representation in many other issues as well. Their diverse pattern of committee assignments arguably leaves Latino representatives in a good position collectively to ensure that Latino viewpoints are included in committee deliberations and to enable Latino influence with regard to many different Latino priorities. As might be expected, Latino membership on a number of “constituency committees” often appears to be related to the association between committee policy jurisdictions and major special interests in these representatives’ districts. Enduring Latino membership on the House Agriculture Committee, for example, reflects a long pattern of Latino representation in rural areas of the Southwest and is explained in large part by the facts that these assignments positioned Latino representatives to advance major economic interests in their districts. But membership on constituency committees may also prove relevant to Latino representation. The labor interests of migrant agricultural workers, whose ranks have long been Page 67 →populated disproportionately by Latino laborers, fall largely within the policy jurisdiction of the Agriculture Committee. And posts on the Agriculture Committee are important to advancing the public health interests of underserved populations, including many Latinos, through food stamps and other nutrition programs. Former representative Joe Baca (DCA), for example, used his seat on the Agriculture Committee to bring attention to legislation addressing these Latino priorities as the 110th Congress considered a renewal of the Farm Bill. Another constituency committee on which Latinos have frequently served and that has at times proved important to Latino representation is the House Small Business Committee. Many Latino members of Congress represent

constituencies where small businesses comprise a substantial portion of the district economy. Likewise, rapidly growing Latino ownership of and employment by small businesses make such initiatives important to representing major economic interests in the Latino community.8 Serving on the Small Business Committee, therefore, provides important opportunities to represent Latino economic interests. For example, as a member of the Small Business Committee, former representative Henry B. GonzГЎlez helped to safeguard provisions of the RobinsonPatman Act, which protects small business interests against price fixing by large chain stores (Library of Congress 2013). Latinos have also frequently served as members of other constituency committees, among them Natural Resources, Armed Services, and Veterans’ Affairs. Although the jurisdiction of the Natural Resources Committee is less obviously related to special interests of Latinos than are the jurisdictions of some other committees, it remains relevant to addressing interests in districts that are heavily Latino. For example, local economies in many rural southwestern districts, where large Latino populations reside, rely heavily on responsible management of public land and water resources. A seat on the Natural Resources Committee provides an ideal position for ensuring that Latino residents and workers benefit from resource management plans. Similarly, protecting local military interests has often proved important to propping up local economies in heavily Latino areas such as San Antonio, Texas, and Southern California. High rates of military service among Latinos (who accounted for nearly 17 percent of new recruits in 2011) make membership on both the Armed Services and Veterans’ Affairs Committees relevant to Latino representation (Erika L. SГЎnchez 2013). Page 68 →Relationships between Latino representation and membership on certain policy committees are also evident. For example, a number of programs that expanded housing opportunities for Latinos emerged from the Financial Services Committee. From his seat on that committee, former representative Henry B. GonzГЎlez (DTX) contributed to the formulation and passage of New Frontier and Great Society programs such as the Housing Act of 1964. Representative Luis GutiГ©rrez (D-IL) used his position on the Financial Services Committee to shepherd legislation protecting consumers from predatory lenders by capping interest on payday loans made to military families and to help create the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. These and similar laws address the financial and housing interests of vulnerable populations, including a disproportionate number of Latinos. Disproportionate deficits in Latino educational access and attainment make the Education and Workforce Committee another policy committee that offers substantial opportunities to represent Latinos. Representative Ruben Hinojosa (D-TX) used his position on the House Education and Workforce Committee to help secure a new section of the Higher Education Act devoted specifically to establishing and funding a federal program to assist Hispanic-serving institutions of higher learning. Representative Raul Grijalva’s (D-AZ) position on the same committee assisted his effort to pass the Improving Head Start for School Readiness Act of 2007, which addresses educational challenges facing migrant children and children with limited proficiency in English. Membership on the House Judiciary Committee has long been important to policies that affect Latino interests related to discrimination and voting rights. The Judiciary Committee has become increasingly relevant to Latino representation in recent years as a consequence of heightened congressional interest in immigration reform as well. Judiciary Committee members including Linda SГЎnchez (D-CA) and Luis GutiГ©rrez (D-IL) have resisted immigration policies that conflict with Latino preferences and brought attention to Latino priorities and preferences on immigration. For example, GutiГ©rrez sponsored the Security through Regularized Immigration and a Vibrant Economy (STRIVE) Act of 2007 and used his position on the judiciary committee to advocate on behalf of an immigration bill that would both solve problems associated with border security and increasing numbers of undocumented immigrants and represent the interests of undocumented immigrants in obtaining legal status and eventual citizenship. Although that effort during the 110th Congress did Page 69 →not succeed, it helped set the agenda for future immigration discussions and established policy positions that would become synonymous with the phrase comprehensive immigration reform. More than half of Latino representatives’ assignments to prestige committees over the past three decades have been to the House Appropriations Committee. On three of four prestige committees (Budget, Rules, and Ways and Means), Latino representatives had no presence from the early 1980s through the mid-1990s. Latino

descriptive representation on prestige committees increased slightly during the Democratic-controlled 110th and 111th Congresses but declined during the Republican-controlled 112th Congress, in part as a consequence of electoral losses by Democrats. Latinos of both political parties have recently served on prestige committees. For example, during the 111th Congress, Representatives Dennis Cardoza (D-CA) and Lincoln DГ-az-Balart (R-FL) served on the Rules Committee. During the 112th Congress, representatives Mario DГ-az-Balart (R-FL), Jose Serrano (D-NY), Lucille Roybal-Allard (D-CA), and Ed Pastor (D-AZ) all served on the Appropriations Committee. Positions on the powerful House Appropriations Committee certainly raised the profile and increased the power of Representative Ed Roybal (D-CA) and other Latino representatives, and Latino Appropriations Committee members have often worked to increase funding for programs that benefit Latinos. Roybal advocated funding health and education programs for underserved populations as well as bilingual education programs. As the policy agenda of the CHC has expanded, Latino members of the Appropriations Committee have become increasingly important to the funding and success of CHC policy initiatives such as education programs for underserved communities. So beyond using their positions on Appropriations to advance their own funding agendas or maximize their own influence, Representatives Serrano, Pastor, and others have also played important roles as CHC agents, acting to maximize committee attention to and funding for CHC priorities (Staffer J 2007). Overall, committee positions have offered Latinos a relatively broad though perhaps shallow level of inclusion. Especially in recent Congresses, Latinos have enjoyed a seat at the table during most committee policy debates. The broad distribution of Latino representatives across many different committees also means, however, that Latino inclusion in congressional committee processes often comes with only limited opportunities for translating inclusion into influence. In addition to the committees and policy jurisdictions in which Latino Page 70 →representatives have operated, their positions within party leadership are also important to understanding their impacts in Congress. All members of Congress enjoy limited ability to influence the legislative agenda by introducing bills and by publicly advocating their policy objectives to constituents, colleagues, and the press. But the opportunities for rank-and-file representatives to advance their agendas at the institutional level pale in comparison to the abilities of party and committee leaders to shape policy agendas and influence the direction and content of policy debates. Perhaps most the most obvious example of this institutional power is the ability of committee chairs to determine the legislative agendas of their committees. Put bluntly, chairs exercise control over narrow aspects of the congressional policy agenda that rank-and-file members lack. Because agenda setting has been shown to influence congressional policymaking and policy change, positions associated with agenda-setting power must be seen as important to legislators’ abilities to effectively pursue their policy goals (Baumgartner and Jones 1993; Jones and Baumgartner 2004, 2005). The presence of Latinos among congressional committee leadership is quite limited historically but has increased somewhat in recent decades. Between 1979 and 2014, Latino representatives chaired 21 of the 359 full and permanent select House committees and 80 House subcommittees. Latino representatives served as ranking minority members on full committees 16 times during the same period. Figure 2.2 illustrates the presence of Latinos among committee leadership over these 18 Congresses. Latinos chaired at least one full committee and at least three subcommittees from the 97th through the 103rd Congresses. The number of Latino chairs dropped during the 12-year period of Republican control between 1995 and 2006, and Latinos chaired no more than three subcommittees and one full committee during that period. During the 110th Congress, Latinos achieved record presence among committee leaders, chairing 2 full committees and 14 subcommittees. Following the return of Republican control in the 112th Congress, Latino presence among committee chairs dropped off once again. Because congressional committee chairs tend to hold their positions for multiple Congresses, only a handful of Latino representatives have ever chaired full committees or subcommittees in the House. In fact, in the past century, just eight different Latino representatives have chaired full committees. Representative Ed Roybal chaired the Permanent Select Committee on Aging from 1983 to 1990. Representative Eligio “Kika” de la Garza (D-TX), who chaired the Agriculture Committee from 1981 to 1994, was Page 71 →the first Latino to

become chair of a full standing committee since Ladislas Lazarro (D-LA) in 1917 (Burns et al. 2013). Representative Henry B. GonzГЎlez (D-TX) chaired the Banking/Financial Services Committee from 1989 to 1994. Representative Richard Pombo (R-CA) chaired the Natural Resources Committee from 2003 to 2007. Representative Sylvestre Reyes (D-TX) chaired the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence from 2007 to 2010. Representative Nydia Velasquez (D-NY) chaired the Small Business Committee from 2007 to 2010. And Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL), chaired the House Foreign Affairs Committee from 2011 to 2012. In addition, as table 2.4 shows, 20 other Latino representatives chaired U.S. House subcommittees between 1979 and 2014. Fig. 2.2. Standing and Permanent Select House Committees and Subcommittees Chaired by Latinos, 96th–113th Congresses (1979–2014) The rare service of Latinos as full committee chairs is significant for understanding both their relatively limited influence in Congress as a group and their limited ability to shape institutional responsiveness to Latinos. On issues ranging from voting rights and immigration to education and health care, Latino representatives have generally lacked the ability to bring committee attention to their issue priorities or to control the drafting and amending of legislation in committee. Because they Page 74 →have rarely held the levers of power in congressional committees, they have generally been at a strategic disadvantage, with the success of their efforts often determined by the attitudes and actions of non-Latino representatives. Page 72 → Table 2.4. House Standing and Permanent Select Committees Chaired by Latinos, 96th–113th Congresses (1979–2014) Full Subcommittee Chair Name State Congresses Committee Aging (Select) Roybal CA 98th–101st Aging (Select) Retirement Roybal CA 98th–101st Aging (Select) Retirement, Income, and Employment Roybal CA 98th–101st Aging (Select) Employment Opportunities Roybal CA 98th–101st Aging (Select) Health and Long-term Care Roybal CA 102nd Agriculture Livestock and Horticulture Coelho CA 99th Agriculture Department Operations, Oversight, Nutrition & Forestry de la Garza TX 96th Agriculture Department Operations, Oversight, Nutrition & Forestry Baca CA 110th–111th Agriculture Horticulture and Organic Agriculture Cardoza CA 110th–111th Agriculture de la Garza TX 97th–103rd Agriculture, Rural Development, FDA, Related Appropriations Bonilla TX 107th–109th Agencies Appropriations Treasury, Postal Service, and General Government Roybal CA 97th–102nd Appropriations Financial Services and General Government Serrano NY 110th–111th Armed Military Readiness Ortiz TX 110th–111th Services Financial Consumer Credit and Insurance Torres CA 102nd Services Financial Housing and Community Opportunity Gonzalez, H. B. TX 97th–103rd Services Financial Domestic Monetary Policy GutiГ©rrez IL 110th Services

Financial Services Financial Services Financial Services Financial Services Financial Services Education & Workforce Education & Workforce Education & Workforce Page 73 →Homeland Security Homeland Security Homeland Security Homeland Security Intelligence (Select) International Relations International Relations International Relations International Relations International Relations International Relations Judiciary Merchant Marine Natural Resources Natural Resources Natural Resources

International Monetary Policy and Trade

Gonzalez, H. B. TX

International Finance, Trade, and Monetary Policy

Garcia

96th

NY 100th

Domestic Monetary Policy, Tech., & Economic Growth GutiГ©rrez

IL

110th

Financial Institutions and Consumer Credit

IL

111th

GutiГ©rrez

Gonzalez, H. B. TX

101st–103rd

Employment Opportunities

Martinez

CA

99th–101st

Postsecondary Ed., Training, Life-Long Learning

Hinojosa

TX

110th–111th

Employer-Employee Relations

Martinez

CA

102nd–103rd

Emergency Preparedness and Response

Cuellar

TX

110th–111th

Infrastructure and Border Security

Sanchez, Loretta CA

110th

Rules

DГ-az-Balart, L. FL

108th

Border, Maritime, and Global Counterterrorism

Sanchez, Loretta CA

110th–111th

Reyes

TX

110th–111th

International Economic Policy and Trade

Ros-Lehtinen

FL

105th–106th

International Operations and Human Rights

Ros-Lehtinen

FL

107th

Terrorism, Nonproliferation, and Trade

Ros-Lehtinen

FL

104th

Near East and South Asia

Ros-Lehtinen

FL

108th–109th

Middle East and North Africa

Ros-Lehtinen

FL

113th

Ros-Lehtinen

FL

112th

Commercial and Administrative Law

SГЎnchez, Linda CA

110th

Oceanography, Gulf of Mexico, Continental Shelf

Ortiz

TX

103rd

Pombo

CA

108th–109th

National Parks and Public Lands

Grijalva

AZ

110th–111th

Water and Power

Napolitano

TX

110th–111th

Natural Resources Post Office Rules Small Business Small Business Small Business Ways and Means

Energy and Mineral Resources

Costa

Census, Statistics, and Postal Personnel Legislative and Budget Process

Garcia NY 96th–99th DГ-az-Balart, L. FL 109th

Environment and Employment

Torres

CA

101st

Regulations, Healthcare, and Trade

Gonzalez, C.

TX

110th

VelГЎzquez

NY 110th–111th

Nunes

CA

Trade

CA

111th

113th

Source: Data compiled by the author from Policy Agendas Project data (policyagendas.org); Clerk of the U.S. House of Representatives website (clerk.house.gov). Latino service in party leadership outside the committee system has also been uncommon. No Latino has ever served as House Speaker or majority or minority party leader. Representative Tony Coelho (D-CA) was named chair of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee in 1980 and was elected to succeed Representative Thomas Foley as House Majority Whip in 1986, a post he occupied until he resigned from Congress in June 1989. More recently, Representative Xavier Becerra (D-CA) was appointed to the newly created position of assistant to the Speaker in 2007. He was subsequently elected vice chair of the Democratic Caucus in 2008 and chair of the Democratic Caucus in 2012. Now the fourth-ranking Democrat in the House, Becerra joins Coelho on the very short list of Latino party leaders in the U.S. House. In an era of intense partisanship, the lack of Latino presence among top party leadership leaves Latinos with relatively little ability to direct partisan policy priorities. The policies pursued during the speakership of Nancy Pelosi provide some good anecdotal examples. The Democratic leadership appeared largely ambivalent about immigration reform efforts during her speakership. This attitude might reflect a conclusion that the party saw few political benefits to pursuing the issue, given the vulnerability of many members in electoral swing districts. Meanwhile, Democrats expended substantial political capital during the 111th Congress passing climate change legislation that ultimately died in the Senate. Support for the cap-and-trade policy was used effectively against a number of Democrats in the 2010 elections. While efforts to pass legislation on either issue were perhaps doomed and neither was seen as providing substantial electoral benefits, climate change was clearly prioritized above immigration reform on the Democratic Party policy agenda. Although presence of Latino representatives in majority-party leadership is likely neither a necessary nor sufficient condition to bring about the prioritization of Latino issues, lack of presence almost certainly diminished Latino representatives’ ability to influence party policy agendas. Page 75 →

The Congressional Hispanic Caucus: Collective Efforts to Represent Latinos Founded in 1976, the CHC is one of dozens of congressional member organizations and is organized around Hispanic issues and identity. Full membership in the CHC is open only to Latino representatives, and the group has enjoyed the broad—though not universal—membership of Latinos in Congress since its founding. During the 113th Congress, membership included 24 U.S. representatives, one senator, and two House delegates, all Democrats of either Hispanic or Portuguese descent.9 The CHC provides its members with benefits that serve both political and responsiveness purposes. The organization’s primary mission—assisting its members in achieving their goals (electoral and otherwise)—is seen as complementary to the broader objective of representing Latinos. From a practical

perspective, one CHC staffer told me, the purpose of the organization is both “to respond to the needs of Hispanic members of Congress and to respond to the needs of the Hispanic community” (Staffer P 2007). Another staffer for a CHC member emphasized that the group’s purpose is “to present the face and the interests—economic, social, and otherwise—of the Hispanic community in the United States; to bring a different perspective to the mainstream discussion, because that’s what is lacking” in the legislative process (Staffer J 2007). The staffer added that the practical and political expedience of the organization facilitates the goal of being more responsive to Latinos. On some Latino issues, representatives would find it difficult to be strong advocates because special interests in their districts opposed certain aspects of the CHC agenda or simply because they had other, more pressing priorities. The CHC “can offer an opportunity to represent a national [Latino] constituency that you don’t have the resources to represent yourself, and it offers some cover on issues on which you feel sympathetic but which run contrary to what you need to do for your district,” explained the staffer (Staffer J 2007). The CHC currently divides its policy responsibilities among eight task forces that address what the organization identifies as priority issues for Hispanics: civil rights; diversity and inclusion; education and labor; financial services, manufacturing, and commerce; health care; homeland security, veterans and defense; immigration; and information technology and telecommunications. The policy jurisdictions of CHC task forces, which change somewhat from Congress to Congress, typically correspond to Page 76 →the legislative interests and expertise of their leaders. For example, recent chairs of the civil rights task force include former representative Charles Gonzalez and Representative Linda SГЎnchez (D-CA), both of whom are attorneys. The CHC’s influence over the legislative process, particularly with regard to decision making in the House, where it has an organized presence, is shaped and constrained by its small size, by the fact that Hispanics remain a somewhat isolated constituency, and by the organization’s position in relation to the major political parties. The CHC’s relatively small membership in the House (the 24 voting members in the 113th Congress was a record) means that the organization rarely finds itself in a position to cast deciding votes as a bloc. The CHC’s policy agenda reflects the interests of a Hispanic constituency that lives disproportionately in districts represented by its members. Few non-Latino members of Congress represent large Latino constituencies in their districts. Combined with its limited size, the CHC’s somewhat isolated policy agenda gives the organization little ability to advance a legislative agenda on its own terms. The CHC’s ability to block unwanted legislation is only slightly greater. And because all CHC members are Democrats, opportunities to exercise their limited “negative” agenda-setting power are generally absent when Republicans control the House. The partisan dynamics that condition the CHC’s ability to influence the legislative process are evident to the organization’s members. When asked to provide examples of CHC accomplishments during the period of Republican control from 1995 to 2006, one Hispanic representative admitted that the organization’s legislative rГ©sumГ© was thin: We can’t point to a piece of legislation because we would have never gotten anything on the floor. Democrats never got a bill [to the floor]; people don’t understand that. What we’ve been doing is basically damage control. We’ve been playing defense. Our accomplishments are often measured by what didn’t happen. (Representative J 2007) The same member expressed greater optimism about the prospects for CHC influence during the Democraticcontrolled 110th Congress: “The caucus members could be the margin of victory or defeat—that’s what people listen to.” But he remained skeptical that the CHC would exercise Page 77 →significant control over major initiatives. “You’re going to see some component in a big bill, but you’re not going to see the Congressional Hispanic Caucus–sponsored bill—even the immigration bill,” he asserted. The diversity of the Democratic Caucus, he suggested, made controversial Latino priorities difficult for some Democrats to support and unattractive to party leaders: “We may be in the majority, but it’s not that kind of [cohesive] majority” (Representative J 2007). The CHC’s limited ability to effectively advance its own policy agenda within the legislative process has long

been recognized. Although the organization was specialized and “highly institutionalized” by the mid1980s, it was generally viewed as a relatively weak coalition within the House (Vega 1990, 109–10). The group’s involvement in the Simpson-Mazzoli immigration reform legislation during the 98th–100th Congresses helps to illustrate this perspective. The legislation was stopped twice, at least in part due to CHC members’ opposition to the proposal. However, the CHC never possessed the cohesiveness to effectively advance its own immigration policy alternatives and played only a limited role in shaping the ultimate legislative language and outcome (Vega 1990, 150–51; Vega and Peters 1996). Although the CHC still has a limited ability to advance or “veto” congressional policy proposals, it has become increasingly active and specialized in terms of attempting to influence prevoting stages of the legislative process. The organization meets weekly in the Capitol basement to share information on major policy developments relevant to Latinos and strategize about how to shape various legislative agendas and formulate their messaging. Caucus members collectively rely on the insights and expertise of their CHC colleagues to maintain an effective and united coalition on a large number of issues. For example, when asked how the CHC assisted its members in addressing a diverse issue agenda, one staffer for a member provided a list of representatives with issues corresponding to their expertise and/or committee jurisdictions: “You have Representative GutiГ©rrez on immigrationВ .В .В . Representative Solis is the person to go to on health. Congressman Gonzalez is the person to go to on civil rights.В .В .В . On appropriations, it’s pretty much understood that it’s Representative Serrano.В .В .В . On things related to the military, it’s Representative Ortiz.В .В .В . Representative Loretta Sanchez is the person to go to on homeland security issuesВ .В .В . with border issues, it’s Representative Reyes” (Staffer J 2007). While the staffer demurred when asked to what extent this division of labor resulted from a Page 78 →conscious strategy, it seems clear that the organization has developed, both formally and informally, a system of shared responsibility that increases its capability to monitor and act on a broad legislative agenda. This collective effort also enhances the extent to which Latino representatives can work together to ensure the inclusion of Latino concerns on prioritized issues and to enable greater and broader Latino influence in Congress. The caucus’s diverse committee membership and issue expertise are clearly assets when it comes to Latino representation. The organization simultaneously pursues multiple policy agendas and keeps its members informed about key policy developments throughout Congress. Furthermore, the division of labor enhances members’ abilities to pursue policies in which they are interested and have expertise by freeing them from major responsibility on initiatives spearheaded by their colleagues. The CHC pursues a host of coordinated activities to influence committee agendas, shape the tone of policy discussions in both congressional debate and the media, build legislative coalitions between the CHC and other representatives and senators, negotiate partnerships with the president on certain policy initiatives, and even influence federal agency actions. Later in this book, I will illustrate in greater detail the CHC’s efforts to represent Latinos. Because it is among the most high-profile and important issues impacting Latinos in recent years, substantial attention is given to Latino representation related to immigration. For example, in chapter 4, which focuses on Latino representation in legislative agenda setting, the CHC’s continuing efforts to push for comprehensive immigration reform since the turn of the twenty-first century illustrate how the organization has advanced the immigration policy agenda in ways that represent Latino interests. Chapter 5, which focuses on Latino representation in deliberation, employs a case study of CHC activity from the 110th Congress on an issue that was not a legislative issue and that enjoyed almost no national attention until the CHC involved itself: the inclusion of Latinos in the major PBS documentary The War by filmmaker Ken Burns. This section is interesting because it illustrates how “uncrystallized” Latino interests can be brought into focus by the efforts of groups of representatives. The CHC worked to identify, bring attention to, and clarify Latino concerns and demands that had previously been ignored or unrecognized by non-Latino representatives and on which non-Latino representatives sometimes appear unprepared to provide leadership. Page 79 →Chapter 6, which examines Latino representation in decision-making, returns to immigration-related policy to illustrate collective efforts of CHC members to construct coalitions to support and oppose legislative

proposals. My examination of the CHC’s efforts reveals that the organization moves with a purpose—albeit in fits and starts. In spite of the difficulties the organization encounters, the CHC remains a good example of collective representative effort, an active player throughout the legislative process, and essential component of Latino representation in Congress. As will become clear in the following chapters, then, the impact of Latino representatives on Latino representation does not occur solely at the level of the individual. In many ways, collective and synergistic efforts define the relationship between Latino representatives and Latino representation. As the preceding discussion of Latino descriptive representation in Congress suggests, Latinos have begun to occupy a presence throughout the institution and across the public policy spectrum in spite of the fact that they remain proportionally underrepresented. The opportunity for Latino inclusion in Congress is therefore apparent—there are few areas of congressional activity that fall beyond the reach of Latino representatives. Latinos continue to lack adequate descriptive representation in the most influential positions within Congress—on the most prestigious committees, and particularly within committee and party leadership. Limited Latino inclusion in such positions likely comes with limited opportunity and ability to exercise proportionate influence in Congress. And while Latino representatives have organized themselves for collective legislative and political action, they continue to lack the numbers to consistently demand the attention and cooperation of legislative leaders. The extent to which this context shapes the substantive representation of Latinos—and Latino political incorporation—turns largely on whether and how Latino representatives reshape relationships and processes in ways that enhance Latino representation in Congress. As Part 2 of this book illustrates, Latino representatives act throughout the representative process, both individually and collectively, in ways that are moving Latinos from inclusion to influence in politics and policymaking.

Page 80 → Page 81 →

Part II From Inclusion to Influence

Page 82 → Page 83 →

Chapter 3 The Latino Connection Including Latinos in the Political Process Representative-Constituent Relationships Each August, members of Congress enjoy a nearly monthlong recess from their jobs as legislators. Most take the opportunity to return home to their districts, relax, hold friendly public forums, reconnect with their constituents, and in even-numbered years kick off their reelection campaigns. So as summer days shortened in 2009, representatives from across the country prepared to leave Washington. Most anticipated discussing the central issue of the day, newly elected President Barack Obama’s primary policy initiative, a sweeping reform of health care policy. There would be no elections that fall, so representatives anticipated a relatively laid-back break from Washington. Few expected the summer 2009 recess to be the most confrontational in recent memory. Stung by political defeat in 2008, conservatives had begun to regroup by the summer of 2009. Across the country, the local organizations and national political action groups that collectively came to identify themselves as the Tea Party began to form in opposition to government expansion, taxation, and the president’s broader policy agenda. As public forums between representatives and constituents commenced in August, it quickly became clear that plans to reform the nation’s health care system would be the focal point of Tea Party ire. Normally friendly affairs, representative-constituent forums took on an atmosphere of hostility. When battle lines are drawn in politics, prudent politicians seek the Page 84 →company and cover of their strongest supporters. Republicans, like Representative Lamar Smith (R-TX), sensed opportunity as the Tea Party wave seemed to spontaneously sweep the country and opposition to health care reform grew. Smith held forums in Schertz and Kerrville, Texas, two conservative, relatively affluent white-majority cities in the 21st Congressional District. More than eight hundred attendees, mostly opposed to health care reform, received Smith enthusiastically in Schertz. He opened with a rebuke of Democratic complaints about the growing incivility of congressional health care forums. “I don’t care what some people in Washington say,” he said, greeting the audience. “This is democracy at its best!” (G. Garcia 2009). Smith questioned the need for health care reform, accused Democrats of exaggerating the number of uninsured Americans, and suggested Republican alternatives to Democratic plans, including tort reform and increased private-sector competition in the insurance industry. When he asked for a show of hands to gauge opposition to the Democratic proposal being considered in the House of Representatives, one reporter estimated “90 percent of the attendees raised their hands” (G. Garcia 2009). A handful of health care reform supporters made their presence known at the event, but it was clear that Smith and most audience members were on the same political wavelength. Several miles away, in the 20th Congressional District, Representative Charles Gonzalez (D-TX) held his own forum on health care reform. Like Smith, Gonzalez sought a venue that would attract his strongest supporters. He chose a large theater at the Edgewood Independent School District (ISD) in poor, overwhelmingly Latino West San Antonio. Edgewood is famous for successfully challenging the constitutionality of Texas’s inequitable school funding system in Edgewood ISD v. Kirby. Attorneys with the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund brought the 1989 case and the Texas Supreme Court sided unanimously with the plaintiffs, ultimately forcing the Texas legislature to adopt a more equitable system for funding public schools. Latinos in Texas widely view Edgewood as a landmark civil rights case and major victory for Latino educational opportunity. Following an invocation by Father Eddie Bernal, Gonzalez delivered a PowerPoint presentation to the mostly

Latino, Catholic audience. “I think it’s fitting that we’re at Edgewood tonight. Edgewood has been at the forefront in the fight for equality and access to the American dream,” Gonzalez Page 85 →said as he began his presentation (G. Garcia 2009). He noted that an estimated 168,000 people in the 20th District alone lacked health insurance. Because many of Gonzalez’s constituents speak mostly Spanish, a translator provided Spanish-language translation for those who wished to listen on headphones. Given that many Latino families have endured the indignities of discrimination and poverty for generations, Gonzalez’s framing of health care reform as a civil rights issue likely resonated with Latino audience members. While a vocal minority of opponents to Obama’s plan was present, Gonzalez’s message, like Smith’s, fell mostly on the ears of his supporters, reassuring them that he would represent their interests on health care. These two events provide snapshots of a critical function in the representative process. Prior to any major legislative action in Washington, representatives work to consolidate and maintain political support among their constituents. Richard Fenno famously dubbed the methods by which representatives pursue this objective their “home style” and argued vigorously that the study of representation is incomplete without research that examines the representative-constituent relationship “at the constituency end of the linkage” (1978, xiii). The central questions Fenno posed were: “What does an elected representative see when he or she sees a constituency?” and “What consequences do these perceptions have for his or her behavior?” (xiii). His answers to these questions—that representatives see their constituents largely as nested in concentric circles of political support and that representatives’ perceptions of their constituencies shape the “soft” policy connections observable in their efforts to build relationships with their constituents as well as “hard” policy connections observable in legislative behaviors—outlined what would become textbook explanations of legislative politics and policymaking (Fenno 1978; 2003, 213). For example, the widely used college textbook Congress and Its Members asserts, “There are two Congresses.” One involves legislative action and “how a bill becomes a law.” The other relates to representatives’ individual relationships to those who elect them, evident in the “policy positions they take individually, and the local ties they build and maintain, ” (Davidson, Oleszek, and Lee 2010, 3). Much contemporary research implicitly assumes that the relationships between representatives and their constituents are shaped by electoral motivations. But research on the association between descriptive and substantive representation suggests that electoral motivations alone cannot fully explain the nature of representative-constituent relationships. Representatives’Page 86 → personal characteristics are also important. Arguments emphasizing the idea that the characteristics of representatives shape the representativeconstituency relationship have prominent historical antecedents. The Antifederalist known as Brutus, for example, long ago observed that representatives ought to “resemble those who appoint themВ .В .В . possess their sentiments and feelings, and be governed by their interests” (Storing 1985, 124). On the other side of the constitutional debate, Federalist James Madison similarly observed that the proposed government, particularly the House of Representatives, “should have an immediate dependence on and intimate sympathy with the people” (Federalist 52). Arguments that representatives ought to resemble their constituents—presumably in any and all politically relevant dimensions—imply that the “authenticity” of the representative, as truly representative of the people in some deeper physical or metaphysical sense, adds something to representative-constituency relationships that electoral motivations alone cannot provide. Author Susanne Dovi (2002) underscores this assumption by turning the argument on its head. While descriptive representation may enhance the representation of marginalized groups, she suggests, whether descriptive representatives build “strong mutual relationships” with their constituents is critical to evaluating the authenticity of the theorized relationship (Dovi 2002, 729). Like judging people’s character by their associations, evaluating representatives by the company they keep and their efforts to keep it appears fundamental to answering larger questions about representation generally and the relationship between Latino representatives and Latino representation in particular. In this chapter, I explore a number of hypotheses suggesting that Latino and non-Latino representatives differ with respect to their perceptions of Latino constituents and their efforts to reach out to, communicate, and connect with those constituents. Drawing on interviews1 and observational data, I explore how their experiences as members of

the Latino community influence Latino representatives to view Latinos as a special constituency and heighten perceived obligations to act on their behalf. The premise that representatives’ ethnicities should shape both their desires and abilities to build relationships with the Latino community is consistent with theories linking group experiences and group consciousness to heightened advocacy by descriptive representatives on behalf of marginalized groups. Next, I explore whether differences in representatives’ perceptions of their relationships to Latinos are matched by differences in efforts of LatinoPage 87 → and non-Latino representatives to build strong mutual relationships with Latino constituents. I employ a battery of indicators coded from congressional press releases, websites, and hiring patterns to test this possibility. My analysis of congressional press releases examines whether Latino representatives reach out to Latino audiences in public communications by discussing Latino-interest issues and emphasizing Latino perspectives in these discussions more frequently than their non-Latino colleagues. The experiential ties and group consciousness that theoretically link descriptive representatives to groups such as Latinos should manifest themselves in representatives’ communication patterns, demonstrating both heightened interest in Latino issues on the part of representatives and communication patterns that symbolically appeal to Latinos by emphasizing their policy priorities, positions, and perspectives. I also examine the hypothesis that Latino representatives represent Latino perspectives more consistently than their non-Latino colleagues using data from discussions appearing in the “issues” sections of their websites. While representatives share substantial commonality with regard to the issue topics they tend to address on websites, their representation of Latino perspectives in these forums provides important clues for understanding which groups representatives emphasize in their broader constituency outreach and communication behaviors. In addition, I examine hypotheses that Latino representatives offer greater service responsiveness to Latinos through congressional websites by offering greater Spanish accessibility on their websites and by offering immigration casework assistance more reliably than do their colleagues. The qualities of the staffers hired to assist representatives provide a number of additional insights into the effect of descriptive representation on relationships between representatives and Latino constituencies. Many scholars argue that the characteristics of congressional staffers, not just representatives, are important to understanding the substantive representation of minority communities. For example, both theoretical and empirical research suggests that the closeness and quality of communication between minority constituencies and congressional offices is enhanced when staffers share physical characteristics with the represented (Canon 1999; Grose, Mangum, and Martin 2007). Furthermore, my research suggests that Latino legislative staffers influence policy responsiveness to Latinos (W. C. Wilson 2013). These findings rest atop arguments that hiring decisions signal the importance of diversity to representatives and provide a method Page 88 →for directly empowering members of marginalized groups such as Latinos. Again, based on the experiential connections and group consciousness Latino representatives share with Latino communities, Latino representatives would be expected to prioritize the hiring and promotion of Latino staffers to a greater extent than their non-Latino colleagues. Representatives’ perceptions, communications, service efforts, and staffing patterns collectively provide important evidence for evaluating their relationships with Latino constituents. For Latinos, a group historically marginalized from meaningful political participation, strong relationships with representatives—characterized by effective communication, service, and political trust—can promote political inclusion and motivate participation, mobilization, and electoral influence. While far from comprehensive, these complementary behaviors reflect information akin to observations of representatives’ “home styles” and reveal representativeconstituency linkages that help illustrate whether and how descriptive representatives play a role in connecting Latinos to Congress. If representatives in general and descriptive representatives in particular should be judged in part by the company they keep, then these analyses provide an opportunity to evaluate who in Congress keeps company with Latinos.

Congressional Perceptions of Latinos as a Constituency Asking how representatives see Latinos as members of their constituencies and themselves as representatives of

Latinos seems a useful place to begin this analysis. Research linking descriptive and substantive representation yields the expectation that Latino representatives would be more likely than non-Latino representatives to perceive special relationships between themselves and their Latino constituents. Specifically, the behaviors of Latino representatives, more than those of their non-Latino colleagues, should be guided by their experiential connections with their Latino constituents. Their experiences should lead these representatives to see Latinos as a constituency that exists beyond the borders of their districts and to feel special obligations to represent a national Latino community. To explore these hypotheses, I draw on data collected from a series of interviews with current and former members of Congress and their staffers conducted between December 2006 and August 2007. Table 3.1 describes the ethnic and partisan characteristics of the interviewees as well as the states or territories in which their districts were located. Page 89 →The Latino staffers and representatives I interviewed frequently spoke about personal experiences that they felt linked Latino representatives to Latino constituencies, and enhanced their abilities to represent Latinos. Latino interviewees often focused on particularly visceral experiences to illustrate their political perspectives and motivations as representatives. Some non-Latino interviewees suggested that Latino representatives enjoy certain advantages when it comes to Latino representation and that non-Latinos had to work much harder to effectively represent their Latino constituents. In general, interviewees shared the view that Latino experiences are assets when it comes to representing Latinos, while their perceptions of their relationships to Latinos differed systematically along the lines of ethnicity. One Latino staffer explained that Latino members of Congress generally share similar experiences related to their upbringing in Latino communities and speculated that these experiences help to explain representatives’ perceptions of their roles. Speaking about the Latino Democrat for whom he worked, the staffer related, First of all, he was born in Mexico. He grew up in [a Latino neighborhood in Texas], and he spent his life there. That experience is what drove him to run for the school board and then state representative and eventually for Congress. I think the same experience motivatesPage 90 → most members of the Hispanic Caucus. Hispanic members of Congress are driven by their experiences, and they see themselves as advocates for an underrepresented constituency. (Staffer S 2007) Table 3.1. Interviews with Current and Former Congressional Representatives and Staffers Office of: State Latino Democrat Non-Latino Democrat Latino Republican Non-Latino Republican Arizona 1 (1) (1) California 7 (7) 2 (2) 1 (1) Colorado Florida Illinois New Jersey New Mexico New York Puerto Rico Texas Totals

1 2 (1) 1 (1) (1) (1) 4 (9) 14 (20)

3 (1) 5 (4)

1 1 4

1 (2)

Note: Staffer interviews in parentheses. A subsequent interview with this staffer’s employer confirmed this statement. The representative’s

family included Mexicans and Americans, Latinos and Anglos. Family members lived on both sides of the border and had historically moved across it with frequency. “We’ve always done that,” he explained, “people [who want to seal the border] don’t understand that in terms of immigration, in terms of the border’s economics.” His Latino background shaped his perspectives not only on immigration but also on discrimination: “As a little kid, I used to hide the tacos [I brought to school for lunch]. The system made you feel bad about being who you are. I couldn’t speak Spanish—I was given licks.” Not until he was 15, when some coworkers were impressed with his bilingual abilities, did his attitude toward his Spanish linguistic skills begin to change. These experiences, the representative made clear, became major motivations as he sought public office and pursued interests in education policy (Representative Q 2007). Another Latino Democrat from a rural southwestern district similarly spoke at length about how familial and youthful experiences helped to shape his political perspectives. His family traced its lineage back to Spanish colonial times and had once owned a vast ranch. In a story common to many Latino families, his ancestors could not speak or read English and were swindled out of most of their land by unscrupulous attorneys after the United States won control of the region from Mexico. He grew up on a small farm, and “we were very poor, as a matter of fact,” the representative recalled. “In third grade, I used to wear one shoe of one kind, and one of the other” (Representative S 2007). He and his brother, he explained, tended to wear out shoes on the opposite feet, and when the brother wore out one shoe, the family bought him a new pair. As the younger brother, the representative inherited the less worn of his older brother’s shoes. Representative S, too, experienced verbal and physical abuse at school for speaking Spanish. As a young farmer, he found it difficult to borrow money he needed because lenders discriminated against him. He learned of the lending discrimination only after being elected to a seat on the Farm Credit Service’s board of directors. “The collateral that they were asking me for was twice or three times what they were asking from someone with an Anglo surname,” he recalled. “That really, really angered me!” These experiencesPage 91 → cumulatively shaped the representative’s perspectives on the importance of equality. “Experience does help,” he concluded. “I’ve experienced [discrimination] firsthand.В .В .В . When I look at what has happened in the past, I think it’s really critical that everybody get a fair shake” (Representative S 2007). Latino representatives were linguistic and cultural outsiders in very diverse settings. One Latino Democrat from the Northeast recalled, I came to this country when I was 11 years old. I know what it is to be in a school where nobody speaks Spanish. I was one of three in my grammar school—my brother was another one. So I have experience growing up as a Hispanic in a non-Hispanic area.В .В .В . And growing up as an immigrant in a cold flat—in New Jersey and New York they have these apartments and the heat only comes from the cookstove! Just experiencing what an immigrant experiences I think gives me a leg up when I need to represent immigrants and people struggling to make ends meet in general. (Representative V 2007) Representative V’s background makes clear that while the particular details of a Latino experience vary, Latino representatives generally can relate to socioeconomic disparities and linguistic barriers that often impede success or are accompanied by discrimination. Discrimination characterized many Latino representatives’ particularly visceral experiences as political and social outsiders. One Latino Democrat from California illustrated his sensitivity to discrimination and civil rights by explaining, “My dad reminds me of stories when he wanted to be seated in restaurants, and he would walk by as a kid, restaurants that had signs out: вЂNo Dogs or Mexicans Allowed.’ And so there, my father was being labeled with dogs!” (Representative A 2007). A Latina Democrat from California also recalled experiencing discrimination: “If you’ve gone to a voting booth to try to vote and because of the color of your skin you’ve been asked for identification card even though you’re not supposed to be [asked], your perspective on voting rights is vastly different than somebody who’s never had that experience” (Representative T 2007).

Latino representatives in both political parties have been stung by discrimination. A Latino Republican from Florida, for example, was troubled by efforts to establish “English only” curricula and public services. In the representative’s view, proponents of such policies failed to recognize that Page 92 →most Latinos genuinely desire to learn English and that bilingualism is a substantial asset: “When people say вЂHispanics don’t want to learn English,’ they should go to the night classes and see—immigrants do want to learn English! Those criticisms are a result of their lack of understanding” (Representative E 2007). Although reluctant to criticize other Republicans, it was clear that the representative was hurt by much of the rhetoric advocating English-only policies. Many of his Republican colleagues, the representative suggested, “wouldn’t know about [immigrants’ efforts to assimilate] and so they wouldn’t think about it. It wouldn’t be brought to their attention.” The representative felt that his experiences as a member of the Latino community provided him with a perspective that better enabled him to recognize the strengths and understand the interests of his Latino constituents. Of the 18 Latino representatives with whom I spoke, nearly all cited their experiences as Latinos when asked to discuss the strengths that they brought to Congress. In and of itself, this comes as little surprise, given the subject of my study. Still, the voluntary elaboration that generally accompanied these assertions clarified the authenticity of their perceptions. Latino representatives saw their experiences as important to their understanding of and sensitivity to the interests, concerns, and culture of Latino communities. As one Latino Republican put it, “I was born in a housing project in a Spanish-speaking neighborhood and grew up in a part of town that was over 90 percent Hispanic. So I completely understand the culture” (Representative C 2007). A Latina Democrat similarly observed, “I come from the Latino community. The trust I share with my Latino constituents is related to my use of Spanish, my cultural sensitivities, my reference to Latino ways of life. It gives my [Latino] constituents a sense of security” (Representative W 2007). Non-Latino representatives generally did not share the personal experiences with discrimination or binational upbringings so widely discussed by their Latino colleagues. Instead, these representatives often related important observations that helped to inform their perceptions of Latinos and Latino interests. Non-Latino representatives also generally pointed to other attributes such as seniority, policy expertise, legislative experience, strategic committee membership, and aggressive community involvement as important elements of their ability to represent Latinos. One California Democrat, for example, explained that his interest in migrant worker issues had “sparked when I was in college, and about that Page 93 →time Edward R. Murrow came out with a documentary called Harvest of Shame, which was about the plight of migrant farm workers. I could not help but notice that every major labor law either exempted farmworkers from coverage or treated them as truly second-class people.” He recognized that, important as they are, such sympathies are not the same as personal experience; he understood why ethnicity might be an important factor in a voter’s decision from both symbolic and practical perspectives. “Everything else being equal, I can really understand why Latinos would give a nod to [a Latino representative]. One, in the sense of pride, but also in the sense that [the Latino representative] is going to understand what Latinos want more easily than someone else might.” But he also felt that the advantages associated with descriptive representation could not outweigh other important considerations: “My seniority, and my involvement in [subcommittees key to Latino issues] as well as my record of accomplishment—all those things aren’t equaled” by ethnicity (Representative B 2007). The civil rights perspective of another non-Latino California Democrat was shaped by his experience as a Freedom Rider. The racism he observed while riding an integrated bus through the 1960s South hardened his resolve to stand up for marginalized groups. However, like his colleague, this representative did not believe his observations replaced personal experience, and he perceived his Latino colleagues as having stronger relationships with Latino constituents in their districts and as appealing to Latinos outside their districts: “I can’t do what they do in terms of connecting with a national Latino constituency” (Representative G 2007). He cited the success of representatives such as Luis GutiГ©rrez (D-IL) in attracting large crowds and raising campaign money in Latino communities across the country. But he also emphasized that experience as a group member is not the only important attribute for effectively representing Latinos. Echoing arguments made by his non-Latino

California colleague, he argued that although “experience can’t be duplicated, it’s not the only issue.” His legislative experience and his office’s heavy involvement in community outreach, he argued, enabled him to represent Latinos. Representatives’ ethnicities also appear related to the ways in which they view Latinos as a constituency and their perceptions of obligation to represent Latinos. Specifically, Latino representatives were more likely to discuss Latinos as a constituency that stands apart from the traditional conceptualization of constituency as electorally and geographically based. “I represent a Latino constituency that is national, even international, ” one Page 94 →Latina Democrat told me. She and the other Latina members of Congress have even more specific roles in representing not just their ethnic group but the female members of that group. As one of just seven Latinas in Congress, she asked rhetorically, “Who else will speak for Latinas? We feel strongly that we need to be here to do this” (Representative W 2007). A Latino representative from a mostly rural Southwest district also perceived a special role or obligation to represent Latinos. According to the congressman, The people’s house should be representative of this nation. So I think the presence of the [Congressional Hispanic] Caucus and the Latino members in Congress is a reflection of who we are as a nation. So that’s good, and it’s growing, and it’s reflective of our [Latino] population growth as well. But as Latino congressmenВ .В .В . we wear two hats in this Congress. We wear the hat that every other member wears, and that is to be a member of Congress, [and] then we must represent at another level, where we make the priorities—or what we believe are the Latino community’s priorities—known and advocate for them. (Representative L 2007) Not surprisingly, Latino representatives frequently discussed issues that united Latino constituencies across district and state borders. One Latino Democrat from Texas asserted, “There’s almost no difference in the problems that the Latino communities face whether you’re in California, New Mexico, Texas, Illinois, Florida. It’s almost the same thing” (Representative J 2007). Most often, the problems uniting Latinos across the country were discussed in terms of legal and socioeconomic disparities between Latinos and nonLatinos. When asked to identify what Latino representatives generally recognized as “consensus” issues for Latinos, one Latina Democrat from California related, I would say civil rights. Each [Latino] subgroup has a very common history of having been discriminated against.В .В .В . I thinkВ .В .В . health care and educationВ .В .В . are two other areas in which each [Latino] subgroup has experienced that [disparity]. So there is a common concern that we need to address these disparities. (Representative T 2007) Page 95 →Part of addressing disparities, the representative continued, involves shaping how government and society perceive and treat people because of who they are or appear to be. She argued that the country should be labeling people that want to come to this country and work and give an economic opportunity to their children not as terrorists or criminals but as risk takers who have given up everything that’s familiar to them, their country, probably their language, their friends and their families to come here in search of opportunity. [Latino representatives] generally see this as an area where we can help lift up the community by getting them access to opportunities. (Representative T 2007) In emphasizing the importance of equal opportunity as a key Latino interest, Latino representatives returned repeatedly to major barriers to opportunity: immigrants’ difficulties with obtaining legal status and equal treatment, health care disparities, and most pointedly, lack of quality education. In the words of one staffer for a Latino Democrat from California, Bread-and-butter Hispanic issues are situations where clearly the Hispanic community is at a loss or is disproportionately being affected. Immigration is one; health care is a huge one where there are incredible disparities between Hispanics and non-Hispanics. Education is the same thing. Our dropout

rate is incredibly high. The language barrier is very easy to identify. These are signature kinds of issues because they so disproportionately affect the Hispanic community. (Staffer R 2007)

Latino representatives in both parties echoed the staffer’s sentiments. A Latino Republican, for example, identified both immigration and education as key issues for Latinos. Regardless of whether you’re Puerto Rican and are not directly affected or Cuban American with a special opportunity to adjust your immigration status, even then you’re still concerned about immigration. What matters is how it’s being debated.В .В .В . [T]he tone of [political debate over immigration] I thought was very unfortunate.В .В .В . Page 96 →[W]e are sensitive if people are bashing immigrants, bashing Latinos. (Representative F 2007) The same representative also stressed the importance of education: Education is recognized by the Hispanic community as the door, the way to open doors. [Latinos] recognize that knowledge is the key to success. Most don’t come to this country just to hang out. They come to work hard and succeed to provide a better future for their kids, and education is clearly seen as the way to get there. (Representative F 2007) While Latino interests appear in many issue areas and with regard to many specific policies, the common thread is the Latino desire for equal treatment and opportunity. The general sense emerging from the interviews was that Latino representatives approach a host of issues from the perspective that those issues impact a national Latino constituency in systematic and special ways. The same representatives also perceived a common commitment to representing the interests of Latinos in achieving equality and accessing opportunity. In contrast with Latino representatives, non-Latino representatives rarely identified a national Latino constituency or felt an obligation to represent a national Latino interest. More often, these representatives discussed Latino interests within their districts and emphasized their efforts to address these local concerns. Non-Latino representatives also generally did not share Latino representatives’ passion or urgency with regard to representing Latinos and did not as highly prioritize Latinos’ problems and concerns. One non-Latino Democrat from Texas discussed Latino interests in relation to agriculture, the major industry in his district. Echoing the Latino Democrat who experienced lending discrimination as a small farmer, this representative acknowledged that Latino farmers face barriers to equal treatment. But his reaction, which bordered on hopelessly apologetic, suggested that the issue was relatively peripheral to his concerns: “Small farmers are having a very difficult time. And it doesn’t matter whether you’re white, black, or Hispanic.” He continued, It is a terribly competitive business. Now having said that, discrimination is wrong, and we have unfortunately had documented examplesPage 97 → in the [Farm Service Agency] structures in every state, where county officials, all being white, did not give any cooperation [to Latino and black farmers]. It’s wrong. It’s against the law, and they ought to be prosecuted to the full extent. But that’s difficult to do in our system. (Representative X 2007) Another non-Latino Democrat explained, Most members, if they have a large [ethnic or racial] population base in their district, can assume that that population base will translate into significant numbers of votes. You can’t assume that with Hispanics. I had a district that was 30 percent Hispanic, and yet maybe 10 percent of the voter turnout was Hispanic. Some are unregistered, and some are not citizens, and even the ones that are registered don’t turn out as well as other blocs. (Representative I 2007) He went on,

Hispanics, when I was growing up, were counted as white. I went to schools that were integrated, white and Hispanic. And Hispanics are culturally fairly conservative. Hispanics are very pro-nationaldefense, very patriotic, much like your white constituents. So except for language issues, there is a fair amount of commonality between Anglo Democrats and Hispanics. Overall, the representative appeared to see Latinos much as traditional scholarship on the subject would predict—that is, in terms of their share of the electorate in his district, their issue attitudes, and their patterns of political behavior. The initiatives he cited as examples of his efforts to represent Latinos, such as improving local public transportation infrastructure and helping to ensure that major employers in his district did not downsize, further demonstrate these perceptions. A staffer for another non-Latino Democrat from a southwestern state described the representative’s ethnicity as relevant for understanding his relationship with Latinos. According to the staffer, who is Latina, on some issues related to discrimination, “because he’s not a Latino member, Latinos don’t necessarily see him as their lead advocate—they want to hear it from Latino members because Latino members have firsthand experience”Page 98 → (Staffer N 2007). The same staffer described outreach to Latinos in straightforward political terms. Whether Republican or Democrat, she suggested, “It’s very important to have advertisements in Spanish.В .В .В . It makes a difference. It’s just kind of what you do.” Again, the staffer’s comments point to a conventional electorally based relationship between Latino constituents and non-Latino representatives. The lone non-Latino Republican I interviewed, who represented a district in California, expressed a “colorblind” view of his constituency. Consistent with contemporary conservative attitudes on racial issues, the representative argued, “We should not separate people according to race for political purposes.” He stated matter-of-factly that his office cannot offer service assistance to “illegals” and took a hard line on language issues: “If you’re going to come to a public function, you should speak English” (Representative N 2007). The representative indicated that he had a good working relationship with the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce in his district and that he had success working with Hispanic members of Congress on transportation and water issues. In general, however, his orientation toward Latinos as a constituency and toward his position as a representative of that constituency contrasted sharply with the orientations of the other representatives with whom I spoke and particularly with Latino representatives. Unlike his Latino Republican colleagues, he drew a stark division along lines of language and citizenship, and at no point did he identify Latinos as a national issue constituency with common interests that required representation. A staffer for another California Republican expressed the same color-blind attitude. Describing his office’s approach toward serving constituents, he argued, “It doesn’t matter what you look like. If you have an interest in your community, skin color doesn’t matter” (Staffer Z 2007). The conservative, assimilationist attitudes expressed by this staffer, who is Latino, reflect a minority but not uncommon opinion among Latinos. Political party affiliation is clearly an important explanation of these views. Such attitudes also appear to be more prevalent among Latinos whose families have been in the United States for multiple generations than among those with less established family histories in the United States (Rouse, Wilkinson, and Garand 2010). Like the nonLatino Republican representative, this staffer gave little indication that the non-Latino Republican for whom he worked perceived Latinos as a national constituency. The different perceptions of Latino and non-Latino representatives Page 99 →with respect to their personal relationships to the Latino community, their Latino constituents, and their roles as representatives of that constituency largely confirmed my expectations. Latino representatives generally shared formative experiences as Latinos that they felt deepened their abilities to understand and represent Latinos as a group. They also tended to identify Latinos as a constituency in national terms and to emphasize issues that disproportionately impact Latinos. Finally, they frequently expressed commitments or obligations to represent Latinos. In general, these representatives’ perceptions reflected empathy with their Latino constituents and an enhanced ability to share Latino concerns in relation to politics and public policy. By contrast, non-Latino representatives generally did not describe personal experiences that provided them with

Latino perspectives and did not perceive of Latinos as a national constituency or see their roles as representatives of Latinos in the same ways as their Latino colleagues. Some non-Latino representatives clearly recognized important Latino interests that transcended district boundaries. But non-Latinos tended to understand Latino issues more through their observations than through experiences and were more likely to see Latinos in traditional terms—that is, as part of the electoral makeup of their geographic district constituencies. My discussions with non-Latino representatives produced little evidence that they felt special commitments or obligations to represent Latinos. Non-Latino representatives, then, have more sympathetic than empathetic relationships with their Latino constituents and typically are motivated on a case-by-case basis by circumstances that bring Latino concerns to their attention. In essence, non-Latino representatives generally appeared ready to respond to the interests of Latinos when those interests became salient and comported with their broader political objectives. Latino representatives, conversely, perceived relationships with Latino constituencies that appeared endogenous to their political orientations.

Reaching Out to Latinos through the Press Given the empathetic nature of Latino representatives’ feelings toward the Latino community, it seems likely that they would act to build relationships with Latino constituents by publicly pursuing initiatives associated with Latino interests more frequently than would their non-Latino colleagues.Page 100 → Furthermore, Latino representatives might be expected to work to maintain relationships with Latinos by taking positions that represent Latino interests and by representing Latino perspectives when explaining and justifying political agendas. One useful way to test these hypotheses is by comparing how Latino and non-Latino representatives communicate with the public. Examining representatives’ public rhetoric provides important insight into their relationships with specific constituencies and can shed light on the “soft” policy connections that link Latino constituencies and congressional representatives (Fenno 2003, 213). This section analyzes patterns of Latino representation in communication using data from congressional press releases to explore whether and how descriptive representation affects efforts to connect with Latino constituents. Although representatives’ press releases certainly constitute political documents, they also reveal important information about the constituencies that representatives target for outreach as well as representatives’ issue priorities and positions. Press releases are effective communication tools for representatives, especially when directed to local press outlets, because local papers frequently print them verbatim. For example, Canon (1999) indicates that African American representatives recognize that black newspapers are likely to print their press releases and therefore frequently use press releases to get their messages out to local supporters (220). I observed similar assumptions on the part of congressional staffers. So while press releases are technically directed toward a general public audience, they frequently reach targeted readerships, making their examination useful for understanding differences in representatives’ methods of outreach to Latinos. To assess representatives’ efforts to reach out to Latinos through the press, I examined the content of 10,582 press releases issued by 77 members of the 110th Congress (2007–8) who served districts with populations that were at least 20 percent Latino.2 Press releases were downloaded from representatives’ web pages on the U.S. House of Representatives website with the goal of collecting every press release issued by representatives whose districts met the criteria.3 Coding of press releases, conducted with the help of a pair of graduate assistants, focused on obtaining information related to the representation of Latino interests and the representation of Latino perspectives. The definition of Latino-interest representation used throughout this study refers to activities in which representatives take positions on policies that Page 101 →both would impact Latinos disproportionately compared to more privileged groups and would impact Latinos positively. Consistent with other research, the policies associated with efforts to represent Latino interests might decrease discrimination, alleviate the effects of discrimination, assist in meeting socioeconomic needs, or promote greater social inclusion (Bratton 2006; W. C. Wilson 2010). Latino interests are also represented when representatives take steps to defend existing policies that disproportionately and positively affect Latinos or to oppose policy changes that would disproportionately and negatively affect Latinos. Overall, representations of Latino interests identified here comport with the Latino

political agenda identified by Rouse (2013), which highlights issues prioritized by Latino voters and leaders that are distinct from those prioritized by most whites. The broad definition of Latino interest used here means that representation on a large number of issue topics is captured by the dependent variable. As Rouse notes, while immigration stands out as a high-profile issue of heightened interest to Latinos, the Latino policy agenda also includes issues associated with access to education, health care, poverty assistance, and other topics (2013, 19–46). Uniting Latino interests across such issues are patterns of discrimination, inequality, and a disproportionate lack of political influence. Each press release was also coded according to whether it represented a Latino perspective. Discussions that represent Latino perspectives are those in which Latino constituencies play a central role and that link policies to their interests. This generally occurred in one of three ways related to how arguments were framed, how policy impacts were discussed, or how experiences were related to contemporary issues (Walsh 2002, 376). First, press releases represented Latino perspectives if they discussed issues in ways that were framed by Latino concerns. For example, in debate over immigration, arguments that emphasized the plight of immigrant families framed the discussion to emphasize Latino concerns. Second, press releases sometimes emphasized the impacts or potential impacts of policies or proposals on Latino populations. Linking policy proposals to raise the minimum wage or cut social security to statistics illustrating the reliance of Latinos on minimum-wage jobs or social security income provide examples. Finally, press releases occasionally employed Latino experiences to explain the meaning or purpose of policy positions. From the dataset, I identified 875 press releases that represented Latino Page 102 →interests and 319 press releases that represented Latino perspectives. Representation of Latino perspectives and Latino interests were not mutually exclusive, and 271 press releases coded for this project both represented Latino perspectives and expressed positions that represented Latino interests. Among the press releases that represented Latino perspectives, only 2 percent (seven total) did so by discussing Latino experiences, while 38 percent did so by framing arguments to emphasize Latino concerns and 60 percent did so by discussing policy impacts on Latinos. The 26 Latino representatives in the sample issued 253 (or 79 percent) of the press releases representing Latino perspectives and 565 (or 65 percent) of the press releases representing Latino interests. I assigned a code to each press release corresponding to the primary issue area on which it focused. Table 3.2 illustrates the issue topics addressed by bills that represented Latino interests and Latino perspectives. The largest numbers of press releases representing Latino perspectives addressed symbolic, education, health, economic and immigration issues (in that order). Similarly, the largest numbers of press releases representing Latino interests addressed health, education, immigration, symbolic, and economic issues (in that order). An excerpt from a May 17, 2007, press release issued by Representative Lois Capps (D-CA) supporting the Senate preliminary agreement on a comprehensive immigration bill illustrates the representation of Latino interests: Table 3.2. Latino Representation in Press Releases by Issue, 110th Congress Numbers of Press Releases by Issue Latino Perspective Represented Latino Interest Represented Civil Rights 21 46 Crime 4 22 Economy/Labor 30 82 Education 49 128 Environment 8 20 Foreign Affairs 12 44 Health 44 165

Immigration

28

126

Symbolic Other Total

89 34 319

120 122 875

Page 103 → I am a proud co-sponsor of the Security through Regularized Immigration and a Vibrant Economy (STRIVE) Act, which has been introduced in the House. This much needed legislation includes a fair temporary worker program and a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants who work hard and play by the rules. I am also pleased it incorporates provisions of the American Dream Act to grant permanent residence to certain undocumented immigrant children who complete high school and go to college or join the military. These are important provisions that must be included in any real immigration reform legislation. The positions Capps staked out in this press release represent the interests of many Latinos who are undocumented or who have family members who are undocumented. Furthermore, her position is congruent with the preferences of most Latinos on immigration reform (Suro 2005). Because Capps’s statement did not explain the position by framing the discussion to emphasize Latino concerns, by discussing impacts on Latinos, or by employing Latino experience to explain her position, however, the press release did not represent a Latino perspective on immigration. An excerpt from a May 22, 2007, press release issued by Representative Xavier Becerra (D-CA) provides an example of Latino interest representation as well as the representation of a Latino perspective through the device of framing arguments to emphasize Latino concerns: Comprehensive immigration reform legislation must place a high priority on keeping families together, as well as ensuring that new workers do not become a permanent underclass. In addition to strong, effective border and workplace enforcement, and a tough, realistic earned path to citizenship, we must all keep economic and humanitarian issues top of mind. When we keep families separated and workers in a state of uncertainty, we only perpetuate the failures of the current system. I urge Senate members to consider enhancing the bill by giving higher priority to family re-unification and providing a legal path to permanent residency for future immigrant workers. To many Latinos, family reunification is perhaps the most emotional aspect of immigration reform efforts. Becerra’s emphasis on this concern Page 104 →as well as the labor rights of immigrants is a useful device for framing broader immigration discussions in ways that focus on what matters most to Latinos. Press releases by Representatives Shelley Berkley (D-NV) and Charles Gonzalez (D-TX) offer further examples of the representation of Latino interests and perspectives in press releases. Berkley’s January 10, 2007, press release represented Latino interests by calling for an increase in the minimum wage and represents a Latino perspective through a discussion of issue impacts. The release, which noted that “2.3 million Hispanic AmericansВ .В .В . will be affected by raising the minimum wage to $7.25 an hour,” made clear the importance of this issue to the Latino community through a discussion of policy impacts, representing an important Latino perspective on the issue. Gonzalez’s May 14, 2007, press release discussed his leadership of a series of “special order” speeches highlighting the contributions of immigrant soldiers, describing at length the experiences of Marine Lance Corporal JosГ© Antonio GutiГ©rrez, an immigrant from Guatemala and the first American soldier killed in the Iraq War. Gonzalez eulogized GutiГ©rrez to explain the congressman’s support for comprehensive immigration reform and a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants and his opposition to policies that ostracize immigrants. GutiГ©rrez, like most Guatemalans, was born into poverty. He was orphaned in 1983, at age

9.В .В .В . He worked for a time in a maquila plant, a sweat shop.В .В .В . [I]n early 1997, [Lance Corporal] GutiГ©rrez made a decision to travel to the United States to seek a better life. He arrived in California an undocumented immigrant. He attended North High School in Torrance, California. In March 2002, [he] enlisted in the U.S. Marine Corps because he wanted to become a citizen of this great country.

GutiГ©rrez’s story is familiar to many Latinos, and Gonzalez’s use of that experience to explain his immigration views illustrates an important Latino perspective—that is, many undocumented immigrants, a majority of whom are Latino, are patriotic and upstanding members of their communities and deserve legal recognition as model citizens. Such communications both articulate a neglected part of the American experience and send a strong signal to Latino audiences that a representative understands them. Page 105 →Like discussing how policies impact Latinos or framing discussions in ways that emphasize Latino concerns, such communications indicate efforts to build strong mutual relationships with Latinos. While Latino representatives in the sample issued larger numbers of press releases that represented Latino interests and perspectives on average than did other representatives, the larger question is whether they did so after controlling for other factors that might also influence Latino representation, including the demographic and partisan characteristics of representatives and of their constituencies. To more fully address the dynamics that influence Latino representation in congressional press releases, I used negative binomial regression methods to estimate counts of press releases representing Latino interests and perspectives that were issued by the 77 representatives included in the sample. The key independent variable in the model4 used to analyze Latino representation in congressional press release portfolios indicates whether a Latino representative issued the releases. Based on the expectation that Latino representatives possess experiential advantages that should enable them to better recognize, understand, and voice Latino interests or concerns, one would expect Latino representatives to issue more press releases that represent Latino interests and Latino perspectives than their non-Latino colleagues. If Latino representatives constitute a “supply side” variable in this analysis of Latino representation, Latino population, which indicates the proportion of residents in each congressional district examined who were Latino, represents a “demand side” variable. Based on the familiar demand-input model of representation (Eulau and Karps 1977; Miller and Stokes 1963) and expectations of most research on congressional behavior, one would expect Latino population proportion to correlate positively with the number of press releases that represent Latino interests or Latino perspectives. Figure 3.1 illustrates representative ethnicity in heavily Latino congressional districts during the 110th Congress. In addition to measures of representative and constituency ethnicity, I model several control variables. Variables for legislator characteristics include whether the representative was a Republican,5 Black Representative, or Female Representative. Substantial evidence demonstrates that efforts to represent Latinos may be correlated with the partisan and ideological orientations of representatives, and members of the Republican Party would generally be expected to represent Latinos less actively than would Democrats.Page 106 → Research also suggests that black representatives and female representatives are more likely to take positions on some issues, such as social welfare, that overlap with Latino interests and might therefore be expected to more actively represent Latinos in their press releases than would white or male representatives (Canon 1999; Swers 2002). Fig. 3.1. Representative Ethnicity, Heavily Latino Districts, 110th Congress I control for Constituency Conservatism because the ideological makeup of constituencies may be related to support for Latino interests.6 Especially on hot-button issues such as immigration or bilingual ballots, the conservatism of constituencies is likely to influence representatives to take positions that conflict with Latino preferences. It therefore seems likely that Constituency Conservatism would be negatively associated with efforts to represent Latinos in press releases. Finally, I control for the Number of Press Releases issued by representatives

because representatives who issue larger numbers of press releases might be expected to issue more press releases that represent Latinos by virtue of their greater opportunities to do so. Latino representatives clearly made the greatest efforts to represent Latinos in congressional press releases during the 110th Congress. They issued press releases that took positions representing Latino interests and Latino perspectives at three times the rate of their non-Latino colleagues. Holding other variables at their means, predicted counts indicate that Latino representatives in the sample issued an average of 11.9 press releases that represented Latino interests and 3.2 press releases that represented Latino Page 107 →perspectives during the 110th Congress. By contrast, non-Latino representatives in the sample issued an average of 4.2 press releases that represented Latino interests and 1.1 press releases that represented Latino perspectives. Figure 3.2, which illustrates predicted counts of Latino representation in the press releases of Latino and non-Latino Democrats and Republicans, shows that while non-Latino Democrats issued slightly more press releases that represented Latino interests than did Latino Republicans, within political parties, representative ethnicity significantly affected patterns of Latino representation. Latino Democrats and Republicans issued at least twice as many press releases that represented Latino perspectives and nearly three times as many press releases that represented Latino interests as their partisan counterparts. In both regressions, the likelihood that Latinos were represented was positively associated with Latino population, although the relationship was significant only with regard to the representation of Latino perspectives.Page 108 → The relative weakness of Latino population as a predictor of outreach to Latinos through the press in comparison with the significance of representative ethnicity suggests that constituency demands tell only a part of the story when it comes to understanding Latino representation in press communications from members of Congress. Table 3.3. Latino Representation in Press Releases, 110th Congress Negative Binomial Regression Latino Interest Latino Perspective Latino Representative 1.017** 1.064* (0.368) (0.498) Latino Population 1.099 3.115* (0.899) (1.251) Republican 0.107 в€’1.156* (0.321) (0.478) Black Representative 0.142 0.829 (0.392) (0.477) Female Representative в€’0.267 в€’0.120 (0.236) Constituency Conservatism в€’3.783*** (1.003) Number of Press Releases 0.008*** (0.001) Constant 1.557** (0.524) lnalpha в€’0.570** (0.221) Number of Observations 77

(0.294) в€’2.095 (1.261) 0.007*** (0.002) в€’0.985 (0.690) в€’0.515 (0.301) 77

Pseudo R-Square

0.15

0.21

Note: *p < 0.05 **p < 0.01 ***p < 0.001. Two-tailed significance tests. Standard errors in parentheses. Fig. 3.2. Latino Representation in Press Releases, 110th Congress Constituency conservatism was negatively and significantly associated with press releases that represented Latino interests, while being a Republican was negatively and significantly associated with the representation of Latino perspectives. The number of press releases issued by representatives was positively associated with both outcomes. Neither the race nor sex of representatives was significantly associated with Latino representation in congressional press releases. Overall, the findings highlight the importance of representative ethnicity to representatives’ efforts to reach out to Latinos along the public policy dimension in their press communications, supporting the notion that Latino representatives cultivate stronger relationships with their Latino constituencies than do their non-Latino colleagues. However, the significant effect of Latino population on the representation of Latino perspectives suggests some demand-side influence as well. To illustrate the tandem effectsPage 109 → of representative and constituency ethnicity, figures 3.3 and 3.4 graph estimated numbers of press releases that represented Latino interests and perspectives given Latino populations that range from 20 to 80 percent of total district population. These graphs illustrate that Latino representatives were more active with regard to representing Latino interests and perspectives regardless of the size of the Latino constituency being represented. Given that Latino representatives represent most Latino-majority districts, these graphs also indicate that Latino representatives were responsible for a highly disproportionate share of the press communications that represented Latinos.

Representing Latinos on Congressional Websites Congressional websites are increasingly vital to the representative-constituency relationship. By the late 1990s, all members of Congress had personal websites, and by 2001, the design of most congressional websites had been outsourced to professional web design vendors (Goldschmidt et al. 2002). This professionalization was necessary, given that some House offices were receiving 8,000 E-mail messages a month and some Senate offices more than 50,000 (Goldschmidt et al. 2002, 3). By 2008, 44 percent of Americans reported having contacted a U.S. representative or senator in the past five years according to one survey, and a plurality of those who did (43 percent) reported having done so online, a trend that has likely grown. Among individuals who had contacted congressional offices using the Internet, 92 percent had visited a member’s website (Goldschmidt and Ochreiter 2008). These statistics demonstrate that the Internet has rapidly become the primary conduit for communication between constituents and their representatives. Congressional websites provide content useful for analyzing representatives’ relationships to their constituencies. As a form of communication over which congressional offices exercise complete control, congressional websites provide reliable insight into the messages and images representatives wish to present to the public (Gulati 2004, 24; Niven and Zilber 2001, 397). Congressional websites contain information similar to that found in traditional congressional newsletters and are subject to rules that limit their use for political purposes. For example, a congressional website may not include “personal, political, or campaign information” or be linked to Page 111 →a representative’s campaign website. Nor may campaign websites or materials provide links to congressional websites or advertise congressional website addresses (U.S. Congress, House, Committee on Standards of Official Conduct 2008). These ethics guidelines suggest that representatives see websites as a significant public forum. Finally, congressional websites constitute perhaps the most universally comparable forum of congressional communication. For all these reasons, the research value of congressional website content has appropriately been compared to Fenno’s observations of representatives’ “home styles” (Adler, Gent, and Overmeyer 1998). Page 110 → Fig. 3.3. Representing Latino Perspectives in Press Releases, 110th Congress Fig. 3.4. Representing Latino Interests in Press Releases, 110th Congress

To provide a broader view of the relationship between Latino representatives and Latino representation and to build on the previous analysis of press releases, my analysis of Latino representation on congressional websites uses data from all personal websites of members of the 110th U.S. House of Representatives rather than only those members who represented large Latino constituencies.7 I analyze three dependent variables related to representatives’ efforts to reach out to Latinos through their congressional websites. The first two variables relate largely to service responsiveness, which is associated with “efforts of representatives to secure particularized benefits for individuals or groups,” including actions that keep constituents aware of and informed about government services and make those services accessible (Eulau and Karps 1977, 241). The outreach and casework done by congressional district offices are frequently identified with service responsiveness. On congressional websites, content that facilitates communication with constituents or informs them of services that may be available on an individual basis provides service responsiveness. The indicators I examine include the Spanish Accessibility of congressional websites and offers of Immigration Assistance among the services provided through congressional casework. Spanish Accessibility was coded on an ordinal scale ranging from 0 to 3, where 0 indicates that the website contained no Spanish content; 1 indicates that the website contained at least one Spanish feature, such as a member biography, but was generally inaccessible in Spanish; 2 indicates moderate Spanish accessibility, either through multiple active Spanish links or an option that directed viewers to an external translation service; and 3 indicates that the website was fully bilingual in English and Spanish. Immigration Assistance was coded dichotomously, where 1 indicates that a website offered immigration assistance among the representative’s casework services and 0 indicates that it did not. Page 112 →The third dependent variable indicates whether a Latino Perspective was represented in any policy discussion in the “issues” sections of representatives’ websites. This variable captures the same type of content examined in the previous analysis of press releases but in relatively permanent and general explanations of representatives’ major policy positions. Just 40 congressional websites (fewer than 10 percent) featured Spanish-language content. Of those, 15 contained partially complete menus in Spanish or links to external translation services that made them moderately accessible in Spanish, and only 4 were fully accessible in Spanish. Websites of 15 of the 26 Latino representatives in the sample (58 percent) provided at least some Spanish content. Of those 15, 7 were generally inaccessible, 5 were moderately accessible, and 3 were fully accessible in Spanish. Among websites of non-Latino representatives, 25 (6 percent) offered some form of Spanish-language content. Fourteen of these were generally inaccessible, 10 were moderately accessible, and 1 was fully accessible. In comparison with Spanish accessibility, offers of immigration assistance on congressional websites were relatively common. Overall, 263 representatives (61 percent) offered assistance with immigration problems, while 167 did not. Twenty of 26 Latino representatives (77 percent), and 243 of 404 non-Latino representatives (60 percent) offered immigration assistance. Finally, Latino perspectives were represented relatively rarely on congressional websites. Just 36 websites (8 percent) featured issue discussions that represented Latino perspectives, including 21 of 26 websites hosted by Latino representatives (81 percent) but just 15 of 404 websites hosted by non-Latino representatives (4 percent). To assess the statistical influence of Latino representatives on Latino representation on congressional websites, I used ordinal logistic regression to estimate Spanish accessibility and logistic regression to estimate the likelihood that websites would offer immigration assistance or represented Latino perspectives. Similar to the models used to analyze the content of press releases, I estimate independent variables that indicate whether the website was hosted by a Latino Representative; the Latino Population proportion of each web host’s congressional district; whether the website was hosted by a Republican, Black Representative, or Female Representative; and the Constituency Conservatism of each web host’s district. Results appear in table 3.4. Although websites of Latino representatives provided Spanish accessibility,Page 113 → offered immigration assistance, and represented Latino perspectives at proportionally higher rates than did the websites of their non-

Latino colleagues, these differences were statistically significant only with respect to the representation of Latino perspectives when controlling for other variables. Latino population size played an important but limited role in explaining Latino representation on congressional websites, significantly predicting the likelihood that websites represented Latino perspectives in issue discussions as well as the extent to which they were accessible in Spanish. Constituency conservatism was negatively associated with the representation of Latino perspectives. None of the independent variables shared a statistical relationship with whether websites offered immigration assistance. The limited influence of representative ethnicity on website content Page 114 →seems unexpected at first. Particularly with regard to indicators related to service responsiveness, my analysis found little difference between behaviors of Latinos and non-Latinos. Indeed, the fact that Latino population stands alone in explaining the Spanish accessibility of congressional websites suggests that representatives’ recognitions of their constituencies’ linguistic needs shape this aspect of website content. Given that most districts prioritize providing service responsiveness to resident constituents, these results are not altogether surprising. Table 3.4. Latino Representation on Congressional Websites, 110th Congress Logistic Regression Spanish Accessibility Immigration Assistance Latino Perspective Latino Representative в€’0.170 0.301 1.833* (0.756) (0.704) (0.965) Latino Population 5.893*** 0.782 6.765*** (1.324) (1.003) (1.684) Republican в€’0.677 0.217 в€’0.603 (0.604) (0.273) (0.890) Black Representative в€’0.575 в€’0.502 в€’1.574 (0.697) (0.411) (1.003) Female Representative в€’0.331 0.0839 0.796 (0.483) (0.286) (0.565) Constituency Conservatism в€’0.0357 в€’0.014 в€’0.058* (0.018) (0.011) (0.028) Constant — 0.976 в€’1.685 — (0.554) (1.223) cut1 1.521 (0.853) cut2 2.587** cut3 Number of Observations Pseudo R-Square

(0.876) 4.425*** (0.989) 430 0.24

430 0.01

430 0.55

Note: *p < 0.05 **p < 0.01 ***p < 0.001. One-tailed significance tests. Standard errors in parentheses. Predicted probabilities of the Spanish accessibility of websites of Latino and non-Latino representatives were remarkably similar. While the probability that Spanish content appeared on congressional websites of members who represented small Latino populations was miniscule, the likelihoods that websites featured some Spanish content or were partly or fully accessible in Spanish increased steadily as the Latino population increased for both groups of legislators. In districts where Latinos comprised half the population, the combined probability that a Latino representative’s website contained any sort of Spanish content was approximately .30, while the

combined probability was .32 for websites of non-Latino representatives. When Latinos comprised 70 percent of the population, the combined probability that websites of Latino representatives contained Spanish content of any kind was .56, while the combined probability for non-Latino representatives’ websites was .59. Representatives’ recognition of linguistic need appears to explain Spanish accessibility on congressional websites, but the question remains why representative ethnicity does not seem significantly related to this indicator. One possibility is that Latino representatives saw Spanish accessibility on their websites as a relatively ineffective means of reaching out to Spanish-dominant constituents and therefore chose to prioritize other methods of outreach. Although the “digital divide” between Latinos and whites has closed somewhat in recent years, it remains significant, especially for Spanish-dominant Latinos. In 2012, 78 percent of Latinos surveyed used the Internet, compared with a similar number of blacks and 87 percent of whites. But fewer than 65 percent of Spanish-dominant Latinos reported doing so (M. Lopez, Gonzalez-Barrera, and Patten 2013). Six years earlier, the numbers differed more starkly: 71 percent of whites and 60 percent of blacks used the Internet, but only 56 percent of Latinos did so. And among Spanish-dominant Latinos, only 32 percent reported using the Internet (S. Fox and Livingston 2007). Page 115 →Given the low rates of Internet use by Spanish-speaking Latinos and the fact that congressional websites provide general rather than custom content to viewers, representatives may have calculated that the time and effort required to provide Spanish accessibility outweighed the meager advantages of communicating with Spanish-speaking constituents via the Web. A number of staffers with whom I spoke reflected that attitude. For example, one staffer who worked for a Latino representative was skeptical when I indicated my plan to assess patterns of Spanish accessibility on websites: “Do you know why so many Latino representatives don’t do that?” the staffer asked. “Because nobody goes to them” (Staffer A 2007). Although the Latino representative for whom this staffer worked had a website that offered moderate Spanish accessibility, the staffer emphasized that communicating directly with Spanish-speaking constituents was more effective. I observed similar behaviors in the San Antonio, Texas, area, where representatives campaigned in Spanish when it was appropriate to the audience and gave interviews to local Spanish-language media in Spanish. Such efforts arguably allow representatives to target Spanish-speaking constituents with greater accuracy and effectiveness than do website communications. Although offers of immigration assistance were ubiquitous on congressional websites and almost certainly constitute a high priority for some representatives, they were not explained by the independent variables modeled in this analysis. As figure 3.5 illustrates, differences between representatives based on party and ethnicity were unsubstantial. There may be several reasons that websites offered little information about the intensity with which representatives prioritize immigration services. The ubiquity with which such services are offered suggests that they more closely reflect standardized representative behavior than do the other indicators examined. Furthermore, as congressional websites have become increasingly professionalized with respect to web design and certain web design vendors have garnered multiple congressional clients, some aspects of congressional website content, like services listed under the “casework” or “constituency service” tabs, may become more uniform. Finally, given that constituents requiring immigration assistance are likely to be among those most affected by the digital divide, as well as the possibility that representatives with diverse constituencies could invite backlash from some conservatives by offering assistance with immigration, representatives may prefer to advertise immigration services by alternative methods. An event Page 116 →I observed in San Antonio that was hosted by staffers for Representative Charles Gonzalez offers one such example. The “DREAMers Deferred Action Workshop” provided information and assistance to undocumented youths seeking to apply for deferred action on deportation following President Barack Obama’s summer 2012 announcement that his administration was changing its policy toward undocumented child immigrants (Antonio Rodriguez 2012). The event resembled others in which Gonzalez’s staffers spent the day helping immigrants fill out paperwork and providing them with information and instructions on how to file forms (Stephanie Smith 2013). Fig. 3.5. Offers of Immigration Assistance on Congressional Websites, 110th Congress Unlike Spanish accessibility or offers of immigration assistance, Latino representatives clearly mattered in

representing Latino perspectives in issue discussions. Similar to patterns of outreach through congressional press releases, Latino representatives were far more likely than non-Latino representatives to discuss issues in ways that emphasized Latino concerns, identified policy impacts on Latinos, or explained issue positions by referencing Latino experiences. Holding other variables at their means, the odds that a website would represent a Latino perspective in an issue discussion Page 117 →were seven times higher for Latino representatives than for nonLatino representatives. The representation of Latino perspectives was also strongly related to the size of Latino populations in congressional districts. Figure 3.6 displays predicted probabilities that congressional websites would represent Latino perspectives. The graph illustrates that differences in website content of Latino and nonLatino representatives were substantial in all districts with large Latino populations. For example, given a population that was half Latino, the probability that a Latino perspective would be represented on the website of a Latino representative was approximately .58. The probability that a Latino perspective would be represented on the website of a similarly situated non-Latino representative was .19. In districts where Latinos comprised 60 percent of the population, the probability that a Latino representative’s website would represent a Latino perspective was .71, and the probability that a non-Latino representative’s website would do so was .32. Fig. 3.6. Representing Latino Perspectives on Congressional Websites, 110th Congress This analysis provides further evidence that Latino representatives stand apart from their colleagues with respect to the ways in which they discuss issues but suggests that major similarities characterize Latino and Page 118 →non-Latino representatives when it comes to Internet indicators of service responsiveness. The weakness of the Internet for purposes of reaching the most vulnerable parts of the Latino community may limit the extent to which insights from the analysis can be generalized to representatives’ actual efforts to reach out to Spanishdominant and immigrant populations. But findings that Latino representatives are more likely to represent Latino perspectives comports with evidence from press releases, strengthening the argument that Latino representatives identify Latinos as a special constituency and that their ethnicities enhance their efforts to communicate with Latino constituents.

Latino Representation on Congressional Staffs While the previous sections attribute patterns of substantive Latino representation in press releases and on congressional websites to representatives themselves, it is common knowledge that congressional staffers are often intimately involved in activities that provide responsiveness to and build relationships with constituents. Staffers are often direct mediators between representatives and constituents. Constituents who visit Congress to lobby their representatives meet more often with legislative staffers than with the members themselves. In district offices, district staff members facilitate almost all contact related to lobbying and constituency service requests. In short, interaction between representatives and constituents often occurs indirectly through staffers. Beyond direct interactions with constituents, congressional staffers indirectly shape relationships to constituencies by influencing representatives’ initiatives. According to the Congressional Research Service, “Virtually nothing is done in Congress so exclusively by Members of Congress themselves that staff have no impact on the outcome” (Rundquist, Schneider, and Pauls 1992, summary). Staffers with substantial resources and expertise, including chiefs of staff, legislative directors, and some legislative assistants (Romzek and Utter 1996, 420), often make important judgments on behalf of representatives, exercise influence in policymaking decisions (Fox and Hammond 1977), and sometimes act as surrogates for members of Congress—not just for purposes of communicating with constituents but also in communications with other legislators (Romzek and Utter 1996, 420; Rosenthal and Bell 2003). Page 119 →Recent research suggests that the influence of congressional staffers on representative behavior may be systematically related to the descriptive characteristics of congressional staffs, including gender, race, and ethnic characteristics. For example, Rosenthal and Bell theorize that when interest groups lobby for “passive representation” by women staffers on an issue, when those staffers possess necessary resources of “interest, expertise, and status,” and when “the opportunity structure of member-staff relations, staff autonomy, and political salience coincide,” women committee staffers influence legislative decision making in ways that

actively represent women’s interests (2002, 355). Research on black representation similarly suggests that staff diversity and the representation of marginalized groups on congressional staffs may influence representative behaviors. Canon argues that “to the extent that people have different life experiences based on their racial background, a racially diverse staff is more likely to push the member in different directions than is a racially homogeneous staff.” Given the power sometimes wielded by congressional staffers, he concludes that “to truly understand the nature of racial representation in Congress, it may be nearly as important to examine the race of the staffers as it is the race of the member” (1999, 206). At least two empirical studies support these arguments. One presents qualitative evidence from interviews with congressional staffers and reveals they perceive that African American district staffers share stronger connections with African American constituencies than do their white counterparts. This relationship appears to result from the greater likelihood of overlap in the social, political, and professional communities between African American staffers and African American constituencies (Grose, Mangum, and Martin 2007, 457). My research demonstrates that the representation of Latinos on Congress members’ legislative staffs was positively associated with their sponsorship of Latino-interest bills (W. C. Wilson 2013). These studies suggest that the descriptive composition of congressional staffs influences responsiveness to minority communities in both district and Washington, DC, congressional offices. Because the composition of congressional staffs appears to shape congressional responsiveness, asking whether Latino representatives differ from their non-Latino colleagues with respect to the hiring and promotion of Latinos seems important for understanding how representative ethnicity affects representative-constituency relationships. If Latino staffers Page 120 →facilitate communication between representatives and their constituencies and increase representatives’ policy responsiveness to Latino communities, then decisions to hire Latino staffers would suggest that representatives prioritize their relationship with the Latino community and actively seek to keep that relationship strong and supportive. I use data from the 110th Congress to explore the relationship between representative ethnicity and the presence of Latinos in congressional staff positions. A graduate assistant coded all 6,930 personal office staffers listed in the Spring 2007 U.S. House of Representatives Telephone Directory by Spanish surname and staff position. Spanish surnames have been used to identify Latinos for numerous data-coding purposes, including for the U.S. Census (Word and Perkins 1996). Classifications of ethnicity using Spanish surname lists are relatively accurate. For example, more than 92 percent of householders with twelve common Spanish surnames8 self-identified as Hispanic in data drawn from the 1990 Census, while less than 1 percent of householders with twelve common non-Spanish surnames9 self-identified as Hispanic (Word and Perkins 1996). Error appears more likely for women staffers, who may be falsely identified if they are non-Latinas married to Latinos or Latinas married to nonLatinos. Staffers with Latina mothers and non-Latino fathers may also be falsely identified as non-Latino. Because of the possibility that both Latinos and non-Latinos could be misidentified, it is unlikely that the data are substantially biased in any direction, although some efficiency may be lost due to error. From the data examined, 632 Latino staffers were identified. Of these, 248 occupied positions in Washington, DC, and 384 worked in district offices. Latinos occupied 27 chief of staff positions, 26 legislative director positions, 73 legislative assistant positions, 39 press secretary positions, and 36 district director positions. The remaining Latino staffers occupied 92 lower-level administrative and outreach positions in Washington and 348 administrative, outreach, and caseworker positions in district offices. Overall, these statistics demonstrate that Latino staffers were most likely to occupy constituency-service-oriented positions in district offices and that Latinos were underrepresented in higher-status positions, just as they are among members of Congress. I examine three categories of Latino staff presence: (1) the overall presence of Latinos in All Positions in each congressional office, (2) the number of Latinos on each office’s Legislative Staff (legislative directors and legislative assistants), and (3) the number of Latino staffers in each District Office. Page 121 →Differentiating among staff positions is important because the orientations of staffers toward different aspects of

responsiveness—primarily service and policy responsiveness—are shaped substantially by their positions. District staffers are more intimately involved with the outreach and casework essential to individualized service responsiveness; legislative staffers help shape legislative agendas and policy responsiveness. Table 3.5 illustrates the average number of Latino staffers in various position types by the party and ethnicity of representatives. Slightly more than one-third of all Latino staffers and Latino legislative staffers and nearly 30 percent of Latino district staffers worked for Latino members of Congress. Close to three-fourths of Latino staffers in all three categories worked for Democrats. Every Latino representative employed at least one Latino staffer and at least one Latino district office staffer, and 20 of 26 employed at least one Latino legislative staffer.10 On average, Latino representatives employed more than eight times as many Latino staffers as did non-Latino representatives. Democrats employed twice as many Latino staffers as Republicans. While 222 non-Latino representatives employed at least one Latino staffer and 98 non-Latino representatives employed multiple Latino staffers, 186 non-Latino representatives (107 Republicans and 79 Democrats) appeared to employ no Latino staffers at all. I analyze the numbers of Latino staffers in each type of position using negative binomial regression and models similar to those used in this chapter’s earlier analyses. As in previous analyses, independent variables indicating whether the office was headed by a Latino Representative and the Latino Population in each district are the key variables and should share a positive relationship with the presence of Latinos on congressional staffs. Page 122 →Also like the previous analyses, I control for whether congressional offices were headed by a Republican, Black Representative, or Female Representative as well as for the district’s Constituency Conservatism. Table 3.5. Average Latino Staffers by Representatives’ Ethnicity and Party, 110th Congress Latino Dem. (N = Latino GOP (N = 4) Non-Latino Dem. (N = 212) Non-Latino GOP (N = 196) 22) All Positions

8.09

10.75

1.31

0.68

(2.74)

(6.70)

(1.54)

(0.95)

1.50 (1.00)

0.21 (0.45)

0.10 (0.31)

7.25

0.84

0.35

(4.35)

(1.22)

(0.68)

Legislative 1.36 (1.00) Staffers District 4.95 Office (1.96)

Note: Standard deviations in parentheses. Results displayed in table 3.6 demonstrate that the presence of Latinos in congressional offices generally and on legislative staffs specifically increased significantly when a Latino Representative headed the congressional office. Representative ethnicity did not, however, significantly influence the presence of Latinos in district offices. By contrast, Latino Population was positively associated with the presence of Latinos overall and in district offices but not in legislative staff positions. Latino staffers occupied significantly fewer positions overall as well as in the district offices of black representatives. Latino staff presence was also negatively associated with the conservatism of district constituencies. Figures 3.7 and 3.8 use predicted probabilities to illustrate the relationship between Latino staff presence and Latino population in congressional districts in offices of Latino and non-Latino representatives, respectively. Latino representatives of districts in which 20 percent of the district populationPage 124 → was Latino employed approximately two Latino staffers, on average. In districts where Latinos comprised half of the population, Latino representatives employed an average of nearly five Latino staffers, and in districts where Latinos comprised 70 percent of the population, representatives employed more than eight Latino staffers. As the descriptive statistics indicated, Latino representatives employed an average of at least one Latino legislative staffer regardless of the

size of the Latino constituency they represented. Finally, Latino representatives employed multiple Latino district staffers (2.4 on average) in districts where Latinos comprised half of the population and 3.6 Latino staffers in districts where Latinos comprised 60 percent of the population. Table 3.6. Latino Representation on Congressional Staffs, 110th Congress Negative Binomial Regression All Positions Legislative Staff District Office Latino Representative Latino Population

0.482* (0.223) 2.914***

(0.377) Republican в€’0.117 (0.141) Black Representative в€’0.739*** (0.212) Female Representative в€’0.296 (0.428) Constituency Conservatism в€’0.021*** (0.005) Constant 0.953** (0.352) lnalpha в€’1.660*** (0.316) Number of Observations 435 Pseudo R-Square 0.18

1.820*** (0.501) 0.344

0.025 (0.259) 3.826***

(0.867) в€’0.545 (0.292) в€’0.202 (0.446) в€’0.0812 (0.876) в€’0.003 (0.009) в€’1.486* (0.692) в€’14.140 (517.3) 435 0.15

(0.447) в€’0.196 (0.177) в€’0.706** (0.255) 0.203 (0.524) в€’0.021*** (0.006) 0.028 (0.426) в€’1.634*** (0.433) 435 0.20

Note: *p < 0.05 **p < 0.01 ***p < 0.001. Two-tailed significance tests. Standard errors in parentheses. Page 123 → Fig. 3.7. Latino Staffers, Offices of Latino Representatives, 110th Congress Fig. 3.8. Latino Staffers, Offices of Non-Latino Representatives, 110th Congress Figure 3.8 illustrates that the Latino presence in offices of non-Latino representatives contrasts with the Latino presence in offices of Latino representatives in important ways. First, overall Latino presence as well as Latino presence in legislative positions was significantly lower on average in offices of non-Latino representatives than in offices of Latino representatives, regardless of Latino population size. Offices of non-Latino representatives typically employed multiple Latino staffers only in districts that were at least 40 percent Latino and rarely employed Latinos on their legislative staffs regardless of the Latino constituencies they represented. But the Latino presence in district offices of non-Latinos closely resembled patterns observed in district offices of Latino representatives. In districts that were half Latino, non-Latino representatives employed 2.4 Latinos in their district offices on average. In districts where Latinos comprised 60 percent of the population, non-Latino representatives employed an average of approximately 3.6 Latino staffers in their district offices. That figure equals the number of Latino staffers in offices of Latino representatives and combined with the differences just discussed offers interesting insight into the relationships between Latino and non-Latino representatives and their Latino constituencies. Both Latino and non-Latino representatives appear to recognize that the importance of Latino staffers to their district office operations increases with the size of the Latino constituencies they represent. The fact that both sets

of legislators allocate Latino staffers in similar ways to assist their outreach and casework operations indicates important responsiveness on the part of representatives in general to the cultural and linguistic needs and interests of Latino communities and suggests that not unlike the patterns of service responsiveness examined on congressional websites, Latino and Page 125 →non-Latino representatives behave similarly when it comes to recognizing and addressing the service needs of their Latino constituents. More interesting are the differences in Latino staff presence that characterize offices of Latino and non-Latino representatives. Overall, Latino representatives appear to have more highly prioritized hiring Latino staffers than have their non-Latino counterparts. This prioritization is especially apparent with regard to Latino legislative staffers. Such hiring patterns, research suggests, send important symbolic signals about Latino representatives’ attitudes toward inclusiveness, diversity, and Latino empowerment. But beyond the symbolic importance of prioritizing Latino presence on congressional staffs, these findings suggest something important about Latino representatives’ prioritization of Latino policy interests. Latino representatives appear to place importance on ensuring that their legislative support staffs include individuals who can assist in efforts to address the Latino community’s interests and concerns and facilitate the kinds of relationships with Latino constituents that promote political inclusion and encourage political participation. The idea that Latino representation in the ranks of congressional staff has an impact on representatives’ abilities to represent Latinos comports with the attitudes of Latino staffers themselves. According to the Congressional Hispanic Staff Association, when representatives do not hire Latino staffers, particularly for senior policy positions “on issues like education, the economy, health care, and decisions of war and peace, Members of Congress are largely without the perspective of a community that encompasses about one in six Americans” (Congressional Hispanic Staff Association 2010). Latino representatives appear not to rely solely on their own insights when it comes to representing Latinos but instead to seek policy advice from assistants whose Latino experiences can enhance the representatives’ abilities to represent Latinos.

Representative Ethnicity and Representative-Constituent Relationships The analyses in this chapter reveal interesting findings about the influence of representative ethnicity on the types of relationships representatives share with their Latino constituents. First, Latino and non-Latino representatives generally differ with regard to their perceptions of Latinos Page 126 →as a constituency, their roles as representatives of Latinos, and the qualities they bring to Congress that enable them to represent Latinos. Latino representatives generally recognize a national Latino constituency and see many if not most issues from a Latino perspective. They frequently discuss the impacts of policies on Latinos, emphasize Latino concerns when framing issue discussions, and draw on Latino experiences—sometimes their own experiences—to explain their political orientations. Latino representatives also express commitments or obligations to represent Latinos and tend to see advocacy for the Latino community as central to their roles as representatives. By contrast, non-Latino representatives tend to view Latinos in more conventional electoral terms. These representatives generally appear to think about Latinos as a demographic group within the larger geographic and electoral constituency. They view Latinos in terms of their partisan and attitudinal orientations and appear motivated to represent Latinos primarily when lobbying efforts or political events make it clear that political sympathies and/or electoral interests coincide with initiatives to represent local Latino interests. Non-Latino representatives generally do not emphasize a Latino point of view as a primary reference point for understanding issue debates, nor do they discuss experiences that unite their political perspectives with those of the Latino community. Instead, non-Latino representatives cite observations that led them to sympathize with Latino interests on a number of issues. Rather than citing their personal perspectives as strengths when it comes to representing Latinos, non-Latino representatives emphasize their experience as legislators and their positions of power within Congress. The patterns of behavior examined in this chapter generally complement the differences observed in the perceptions of Latino and non-Latino representatives. Latino representatives appear far more likely than nonLatino representatives to address Latino priorities in communications to constituents through the press and more

likely to discuss issues in ways that emphasize Latino perspectives in both press communications and the unmediated issue discussions posted on websites. These connections support the notion that Latino representatives make greater efforts to build relationships with Latino constituents through communications that provide symbolic responsiveness along the dimension of public policy. The similarities between behaviors of Latino and non-Latino representatives associated with service responsiveness—Spanish accessibility and Page 127 →offers of immigration assistance on websites as well as hiring Latino district staffs to conduct outreach and casework—suggest that certain dimensions of the representative-constituent relationship are less reliant on representative ethnicity than others. Both Latino and nonLatino representatives appear to respond to constituency-level needs with Spanish linguistic outreach and with staffers who can effectively communicate with Latino constituents on an individual basis. Although these analyses provide little insight into the initiatives that representatives pursue at the district level, they suggest similar recognition on the part of Latino and non-Latino representatives that their offices must be equipped to address the needs of their district constituents, at least those related to accessibility. Like the differences that shaped representatives’ efforts to communicate with their constituents on policy, differences in the hiring patterns of Latino and non-Latino representatives—specifically, the greater initiative of Latino representatives to hire Latinos to staff their Washington offices and legislative operations—complements the differences with which Latino and non-Latino representatives perceive of Latinos as a constituency. Latino representatives appear cognizant of the desire to surround themselves with staffers who will not only make their offices accessible to Latinos but also symbolically represent their prioritization of Latinos as a constituency and better enable them to substantively represent Latinos on matters of public policy. The stronger relationships between Latino representatives and Latino constituencies are important if we take seriously the argument that the connections that representatives build at the constituency end of the linkage shape the larger concept of representation. As Fenno (1978; 2003) suggested, the “soft” policy connections that are evident in the ways representatives reach out to their constituencies and cultivate support are related to the “hard” policy connections observable in Washington. And if representatives are to be judged in part by the company they keep and by their efforts to build relationships along these lines, as Dovi (2002) argues, then such efforts are critical to the larger picture of representation. Beyond these immediate impacts, such relationships also are suggestive of the broader role Latino representatives play in the process of Latino political incorporation. By reaching out to Latinos and communicating in ways likely to build relationships characterized by political trust, Latino representatives invite Latinos into the political arena, including them in the political process and encouraging the participation and mobilization necessary for Page 128 →greater Latino electoral influence. Taking a step back, it seems clear that representative ethnicity is not the only factor shaping these relationships. But the significant ways in which Latino representatives appear to enhance so many efforts related to building strong relationships with Latino constituents suggests that they play a critical and perhaps essential role in bringing Latinos closer to America’s political system.

Page 129 →

Chapter 4 Latino Representation and the Congressional Policy Agenda Problems and Solutions: Gaining Attention to Latino Priorities Perhaps the largest barrier to Latino opportunity and success in America is limited access to quality education. The disparities in educational attainment between Latinos and other major demographic groups speak for themselves. Educational attainment among Latinos over age 25 lags so far behind the U.S. average, it can fairly be said that Latinos’ economic prospects in today’s increasingly knowledge-based economy border on crisis. And given the diminishing educational investments in many states where Latino populations are growing, the educational outlook for future generations of Latinos is less than promising. In 2011, nearly 37 percent of Latinos over age 25—more than 10 million people—had not graduated from high school. Nearly 22 percent had no high school education at all. Among foreign-born Latinos, the numbers were even more discouraging. Fully half had no high school diploma, and a third had not attended high school. Fewer than 37 percent of all Hispanics over age 25 had ever attended college, and fewer than 14 percent had college degrees (data from Motel and Patten 2013). These numbers contrast strikingly with educational attainment among both non-Hispanic whites and blacks. In the same survey, more than 91 percent of whites and 82 percent of blacks had obtained at least high school diplomas. Nearly 62 percent of whites had some college education, and nearly 32 percent had college degrees. More than half of blacks had attended college, and nearly 19 percent had obtained college degrees. Page 130 →The need to improve Latino educational attainment is widely recognized by the Latino community, advocated by a number of Latino political organizations, and evident in the experiences and perspectives of members of Congress. For example, national surveys of Latino opinion conducted in both 2004 and in 2010 identified education as the most important issue to Latinos (Pew Hispanic Center National Survey 2010; Pew Hispanic Media Survey 2004). The National Association of Latino Elected Officials Educational Fund, the Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities, the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute, and other organizations emphasize improving Latino access to education as the key to improving the Latino community’s social and economic condition. In interviews I conducted, both representatives and congressional staffers also identified education as a key issue for Latinos. One Latino Democratic representative explained how his experiences growing up—which mirror the experiences of many Latinos of his generation—shaped his prioritization of education. Education, according to the representative, was important as an issue that could have the biggest impact on Latino communities and could propel new generations out of poverty: Dad and mom got only a third- and a sixth-grade education. They were migrant workers. I’m the oldest of ten kids, and they would always emphasize that they were not able to get an education because, you know, things were different at that time. The economy was different. The more hands you had in the fields, the more money you made. And they saw what they went through and they said all of [their children] are going to get an education. (Representative D 2007) Another Latino Democratic representative similarly discussed educational disparities as a major issue for Latinos and a motivator for his political involvement: The disparities in school finance got me to run for the school board. Then I ran for the [state] House, and the U.S. House.В .В .В . I view it from the perspective that your level of education determines how successful you’re going to be or how successful your family is going to be. The level of education in the community determines how successful they’re going to be as a community and

as a nation as a whole. (Representative Q 2007)

Page 131 →The three Latino Republican Representatives I spoke with all shared the view that education was a top priority for Latinos. While these representatives and many congressional staffers mentioned other issues—among them health care, immigration, and civil rights—as important Latino priorities, education was consistently identified as a huge deficit in the Latino community, the best solution to Latino socioeconomic problems, and therefore the most pressing Latino issue. Probably the most important development for Latinos in congressional education policy over the past two decades has been the establishment and funding of Hispanic-serving institutions (HSIs) of higher learning under Title V of the federal Higher Education Act. The HSI program provides grants to help colleges and universities with high Hispanic enrollments expand educational opportunities and improve educational attainment by enhancing their academic offerings, program quality, and institutional stability (U.S. Department of Education 2013). By 2010, total funding for HSI undergraduate programs exceeded $117 million, and new programs to promote college access and graduate education offered and additional $120 million in support to HSIs or their students (U.S. Department of Education 2013). Although HSI funding dropped following the return of a Republican House majority in 2011, numbers of eligible institutions continued to rise. Today, more than 400 institutions where Hispanics comprise more than 25 percent of total university enrollment are eligible for funding as HSIs (Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities 2015). Although appropriations, particularly during recent Republicancontrolled congresses, constitute a relatively small sum compared with eligibility and need, they also constitute major progress for a 25-year-old program that was initially authorized without funding. This progress did not occur by accident. The growing success of the HSI program has resulted in large part from the initiatives of Latino members of Congress, such as Representative Ruben Hinojosa (D-TX), who worked hard to put HSIs on Congress’s education policy agenda and to bring attention to Latino educational needs.1 The HSI success story resulted from key agenda-setting efforts related to the identification of Latino educational deficits as a problem and the development of policy proposals to address that problem. HSIs were first authorized in 1992 alongside existing congressional authorizations for historically black colleges and universities and tribally controlled colleges and universities under Title III of the Higher Education Act of 1965 (Mercer Page 132 →2008). But no money was appropriated for HSIs until 1995, when the program received its first allocation of $12 million. Colleges initially faced very strict eligibility requirements to qualify for HSI program funding. In addition to the requirement that at least a quarter of students enrolled be Hispanic, the initial authorization required that colleges demonstrate that either half of their students qualified for need-based assistance or that half of Hispanic enrollees were both low-income and first-generation college students and that another 25 percent of Hispanic enrollees were either low-income or first-generation college students (Mercer 2008). The stiff requirements made program eligibility difficult for colleges and universities to establish. In addition, advocates for historically black colleges and universities and tribally controlled colleges and universities were reluctant to provide significant funding under Title III for the newly added HSIs out of concern that funding for black and tribal colleges would be cut as a result (Laden 2001, 85–86). Recognizing these hurdles to the success of the program, newly elected Latino congressman Ruben Hinojosa initiated a legislative effort in 1997 to create Title V of the Higher Education Act, which would establish a separate authorization for HSIs, revise eligibility requirements to make them more achievable, and eliminate perceived competition for federal dollars between HSIs and other programs funded under Title III (H.R. 2495 1998). Adopted as part of the Higher Education Act amendments of 1998, the new authorization for HSIs eased eligibility requirements, providing grant access to accredited colleges and universities whose Hispanic enrollments exceeded 1,500 students, comprised at least 25 percent of the student body, and were at least half low-income (H.R. 6 1998). HSIs play an increasingly vital role in the educational attainment of Latinos. During the 2009–10 school year, more than half of all Latino undergraduates in the United States were enrolled at an HSI (Santiago 2011). Although dramatic success in attracting Latino students to HSIs has not translated into overwhelming success in degree completion (Contreras, Malcom, and Bensimon 2008), scholars generally agree that HSIs serve an

important and growing role in Latino education and enhance the educational opportunities available in Latino communities (Hurtado and Ruiz 2012). As Laden’s research shows, the HSI program makes significant contributions by offering a powerful combination of fiscal and human resources to HSIs and within the Hispanic communities.Page 133 → These sources of support within communities and across the nation for Hispanics areВ .В .В . raising the educational and economic aspirations and attainment rates for the more marginalized among the nation’s population. (2001, 88) Establishing a program for HSIs in the Higher Education Act required major efforts in the House Committee on Education and Workforce’s Postsecondary Education, Training, and Life-Long Learning Subcommittee, of which Hinojosa was a member, as well as negotiations with the Clinton administration for support for the new provision (Hinojosa 2007). During interviews, the efforts of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus (CHC) and particularly of Representative Hinojosa were frequently mentioned as important to the placement of HSIs on the congressional agenda and to garnering attention that facilitated passage of the proposal. One staffer, for example, indicated that Hinojosa used his position as chair of the subcommittee during the 110th Congress to advance Latino-interest education proposals like the HSI program. According to the staffer, “Ruben Hinojosa is always pushing education issues.В .В .В . The fact the he is a subcommittee chairman now allows him to really push a lot of these things through” (Staffer J 2007). The same staffer indicated that while the CHC members supported his initiatives, Hinojosa’s commitment to bringing attention to Latino education issues and to working behind the scenes on the Education and Workforce Committee to ensure the inclusion of Hispanic priorities had a major impact on legislative success. When asked about policy successes for Hispanic Caucus members, one Latino representative attributed major achievements in education policy to Hinojosa’s efforts to bring HSIs to the congressional agenda and mobilize caucus members. The funding increase for HSIs he had witnessed since coming to Congress was “a result of work with Congressman Hinojosa bringing the Caucus into play” and of members collectively lobbying for the program (Representative J 2007).

Agenda Setting and Latino Representation Proposals for HSIs and other programs that benefit Latinos do not arise in Congress without advocacy. Agendasetting efforts that identify policy problems and offer policy solutions are critical to the substantive representation of groups because, as John Kingdon argues, patterns of policymakingPage 134 → are “determined not only by such final decisions as votes in legislatures, or initiatives and vetoes by presidents, but also by the fact that some subjects and proposals emerge in the first place and others are never seriously considered” (2003, 2). Without effective representation in agenda setting, effective representation in processes of deliberation and decision making are also unlikely to occur. Scholars have long recognized that biases in terms of policy outputs and representation are linked to the unequal participation and power of organized interests in society. E. E. Schattschneider’s famous observation that “the flaw in the pluralist heaven is that the heavenly chorus sings with a strong upper-class accent” (1960, 35) alludes to the fact that, in spite of pluralist expectations, the scope of conflict over many policies excludes the participation of many, mostly poor, constituencies. With respect to Latinos, Hero (1992) dubbed this pattern of “marginal inclusion” two-tiered pluralism and noted that Latinos’ link to their government throughout the policy process is limited compared to more privileged groups. Latinos especially lack participation at key developmental stages of the policymaking process such as agenda setting. Exclusion from participation in policy agenda setting tends to relegate Latinos to the status of policy recipients and frequently leaves their interests poorly represented. Given the fact that Latinos have been historically marginalized from agenda-setting processes in Congress, efforts to introduce Latino priorities and preferences into the policy process constitute important indicators of Latino representation. The notion that Latinos need greater access to the agenda comports with long-standing observations that the scope of conflict helps to explain the products of political conflict—those who are not effectively included in the process tend to be left out when policies are chosen (Schattschneider 1960). When the configuration of participants in the policymaking process remains stable and exclusive, policy narratives and

images as well as policies themselves are more likely to remain stable. The entry of new participants can upend policy status quos and lead to policy changes (Baumgartner and Jones 1993). If Latinos are to be full participants in the conflict over and the development of public policy, the inclusion of Latino interests during processes of agenda setting must be seen as essential. Identifying problems and policy solutions is fundamental to successful agenda-setting efforts in Congress and therefore to Latino representation. Efforts that help to define problems and offer solutions coincidentally constitutePage 135 → two of Kingdon’s (2003) three key processes in agenda setting, while the other is political focusing events that bring attention to issues. With regard to Latino representation, representatives may play a role in identifying and promoting attention to problems or priorities of Latinos that frequently go unrecognized and unaddressed. Such efforts sometimes occur during committee hearings. Representatives may also offer policy proposals that reflect Latino priorities or preferences when they sponsor legislation, enabling the consideration of such alternatives. Often, as with Latino representatives’ efforts to identify Latino educational needs and propose policy solutions that address them, these activities are coordinated. This chapter explores Latino representation in agenda setting and the role Latino representatives play in this process by examining several important behavioral indicators. These include data on patterns of Latino-interest bill sponsorship and congressional committee hearing topics. I also present a case study of agenda setting on the issue of immigration to illustrate dimensions of the process that occur over lengthy periods of time and through collective as well as individual efforts. As these analyses illustrate, important differences separate the agendasetting activities of Latino and non-Latino representatives in the U.S. House of Representatives, suggesting that Latino representatives play an important role by bringing attention to problems, priorities, and solutions associated with Latino interests. Such efforts are crucial to Latino inclusion in the policymaking process. Without them, Latino influence is necessarily circumscribed to issues prioritized by others, seriously diminishing opportunities to pursue Latino priorities.

Latino Representation in Bill Sponsorship Sponsoring legislation is generally a prerequisite for action on any specific policy proposal and therefore an important indicator for understanding Latino representation in agenda setting. Bill sponsorship is also a useful indicator for assessing representatives’ motivations, priorities, and preferences (Hall 1996). In research on women’s representation, for example, Michele L. Swers argues, “Bill sponsorship patterns will reflect varying levels of commitment to women’s issues [and] analysis of bill sponsorship is therefore a good first step toward determining which members are working to bring women’s issues to the national agenda” (2002, 34). Karen Page 136 →Tamerius similarly argues that as an activity that places “attitudinal and resource demands” on legislators, bill sponsorship reveals substantial insight into the policy agendas of representatives (1995, 104). These arguments support the assumption that patterns of bill sponsorship related to Latino issues and interests can illuminate efforts to represent Latinos on the congressional policy agenda. The personal and electoral interests revealed by patterns of bill sponsorship ultimately provide information about which constituencies representatives consider important and feel comfortable with, especially when bills clearly identify and address the interests of specific groups or constituencies. Legislation seeking implicitly or explicitly to advance the interests of Latinos or other specific groups arguably reveals substantively rich and expressive policy connections between representatives and their constituencies, given the legislators’ great freedom to initiate and shape the legislative agenda. Such efforts ultimately may reveal information about representatives’ constituency orientations similar to that gleaned through examinations of “home styles” (Fenno 1978) given the relationship between these “hard” policy connections and the “soft” policy connections evident in district-based behaviors (Fenno 2003, 7, 258–59). By examining bills with careful attention to the interests they seek to advance and to the specificity with which they address the interests of discrete constituencies, much can be learned about the direction and intensity of their sponsors’ orientations toward Latino interests. Before delving into the qualities that might distinguish the legislation sponsored by Latino representatives from

that sponsored by non-Latino representatives, it is important to consider the broader activities of Latino representatives as bill sponsors. At the congressional level, two important studies of Latino representatives’ legislative behaviors focus on the number of bills Latino representatives sponsor and their rates of legislative success. Research by Santos and Huerta (2001) revealed no significant differences between Latino and non-Latino representatives with regard to numbers of bills they sponsored or the number of public laws they authored. Rocca and Sanchez (2008), however, examined different data and discovered that Latino representatives sponsored and cosponsored significantly fewer pieces of legislation than did non-Latinos. Rocca and Sanchez argue that depressed patterns of minority bill sponsorship and cosponsorship reflect a more general pattern of marginalization within legislatures that is related to the fact that non-Latino representatives Page 137 →often do not share their prioritization of the interests of the minority constituencies and to institutionalized racism (2008, 133–34).2 Their study also reveals that Latino representatives (and African American representatives) sponsor fewer bills during Republican-controlled Congresses. Findings that partisan context affects Latino representatives’ efforts to influence the congressional policy agenda fit within a broader body of research suggesting that agenda-setting behaviors are related to the likelihood of policy success (Frantzich 1979; Rocca and Sanchez 2008; Swers 2002). Because of the greater influence rank-and-file members of the majority party have with influential gatekeepers like party leaders and committee chairs, “representatives increase their sponsorship rates when they believe they have an opportunity to shape policy outcomes and to see their proposals enacted into law” (Swers 2002, 39). Several studies produce findings that support the theory that different rates of legislative activity by Latino and non-Latino representatives are based in part on the content of the legislation they sponsor. Kathleen Bratton’s (2006) study of Latino representation in seven state legislatures revealed that while Latino representatives did not differ significantly from their partisan counterparts in terms of their sponsorship of education-, health-, or welfarerelated bills, they did sponsor a significantly larger number of Latino-interest bills than did non-Latinos. Rouse’s more recent study, which examines patterns of sponsorship related to Latino priorities on public education, assistance to the poor, environmental issues, crime, child care, universal health coverage, and citizenship for undocumented immigrants, similarly suggests that Latino state legislators are more likely than nonLatino state legislators to sponsor bills related to these Latino-interest issues (2013, 57–58). My previous research on Latino representation in Congress presents similar evidence that Latino representatives differ from their non-Latino colleagues by sponsoring larger numbers of Latino interest bills (W. C. Wilson 2010). I analyzed Latino representation in bill-sponsorship patterns by examining data from 9,300 public bills sponsored during the Republican-controlled 109th Congress (2005–6) and 10,420 public bills sponsored during the Democratic-controlled 110th Congress (2007–8). Using the same guidelines employed to identify the representation of Latino interests on websites and in press communications, I identified all Latino-interest bills sponsored during those Congresses. Latino-interest bills were those that proposed policies that would both impact Latinos disproportionately comparedPage 138 → to more privileged groups and impact Latinos positively. This broad definition includes bills that address a range of topics including but not limited to immigration, language issues, education, housing, and health. Among the bills sponsored during the 109th Congress, I identified 241 Latino-interest bills, 80 of which (onethird) were sponsored by Latino representatives. Among the 110th Congress bills, I identified 217 Latino interest bills, 83 of which (38 percent) were sponsored by Latino representatives. Figures 4.1 and 4.2 illustrate the distribution of issues within the set of Latino-interest bills examined. Latino-interest bills include both substantive and symbolic legislation. Symbolic policy initiatives tend to be long on goals, short on means to achieve them, and relatively noncontroversial compared with substantive initiatives. They therefore offer both opportunities for beneficial credit claiming and relatively ample room for compromise and legislative success (Mayhew 1974). These factors make symbolic policy initiatives attractive to representatives seeking to represent key constituencies. Although some question the importance of symbolic policy initiatives, there is reason to believe that such measures matter when it comes to representation. Tate argues that symbolic legislation can affect substantive policymaking in numerous ways, including by initiating and

augmenting larger legislative agendas, persuading colleagues in Congress to embrace core principles on policy, cultivating executive policy support, and addressing group concerns that might otherwise be ignored (2003, 98–99). Symbolic policy initiatives, she argues, offer a “way to distribute nonmaterial public goods to constituents” (100). Viewed from Tate’s perspective, it makes sense to consider Latino-interest bills that offer symbolic representation. Symbolic Latino-interest legislation sends the empowering message that Latinos matter to the fabric of American society; brings broader social recognition to Latino concerns, accomplishments, and goals; and may ultimately help to jump-start and build momentum for larger Latino interest policy agendas. A good example is H.CON.RES. 262, sponsored during the 109th Congress by Representative Hilda Solis (D-CA). The resolution sought support for the observance of National Latino AIDS Awareness Day. Although it proposed no substantive policy solutions and never made it out of committee, the bill almost certainly helped raise congressional awareness about AIDS in the Latino community by garnering support from 68 cosponsors. H.CON.RES. 262 is a good example of legislation where Latino interestsPage 140 → were made explicit. The Latino interests in H.R. 512, sponsored by Representative Xavier Becerra (D-CA) during the 110th Congress, are also quite explicit. The bill, which became law in 2008, established the Commission to Study the Potential Creation of the National Museum of the American Latino, marking a critical first step toward establishing a museum devoted to Latino history on the National Mall. Page 139 → Fig. 4.1. Latino-Interest Bills by Issue, 109th Congress Fig. 4.2. Latino-Interest Bills by Issue, 110th Congress Not all bills identified as Latino-interest bills explicitly identified Latinos as a beneficiary constituency. Latino interests often were implicit, based on the disproportionate and positive impact policy proposals would have on Latino interests. A good example of a bill in which Latino interests are implicit is H.R. 2957, “To amend the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 to improve educational practices for limited English proficient students and immigrant students” sponsored by Representative Joe Baca (D-CA) during the 110th Congress. This bill sought to address the needs of immigrant students and students with poor English skills regardless of their background, and Latinos comprise the overwhelming majority of students in both categories. The disproportionate positive impact the policy would have on Latinos compared with most other groups makes the Latino interest in this bill implicit. For similar reasons, Latino interests are implicit in H.R. 427, sponsored by Representative Edolphus Towns (D-NY), and H.R. 2068, sponsored by Sylvestre Reyes (D-TX), during the 110th Congress. H.R. 427 sought to “assure coverage for legal immigrant children and pregnant women under the Medicaid Program and the State children’s health insurance program (S-CHIP).” H.R. 2068 proposed the creation of the Southwest Regional Border Authority to address the many educational, economic, and infrastructural challenges faced by growing immigrant communities. These and similar legislative initiatives offer useful indicators for analyzing Latino representation in agenda setting. From the original dataset of bills, I created four separate dependent variables that reflect the number of bills sponsored by each representative during each Congress. The first is the Total Bills Sponsored by representatives per Congress, regardless of issue or whether they represented Latino interests. This dependent variable is useful for establishing relative patterns of overall legislative activity by Latino and non-Latino representatives during the 109th and 110th Congresses. Based on the arguments and findings of previous research, both the ethnicities of representatives and their status within majority or minority parties in Congress should have affected the number of bills they sponsored. Page 141 →The other three dependent variables are collectively used to assess the total number of Latino Interest Bills representatives sponsored and the number of bills they sponsored in two subcategories, Substantive Latino Interest Bills and Symbolic Latino Interest Bills. Together, these four dependent variables offer a range of perspectives on the relationship between Latino representatives and legislative agenda setting in patterns of bill sponsorship.

The following cross-sectional analysis uses a negative binomial regression3 model to estimate the number of bills each representative sponsored in each bill category (Total Bills sponsored, Latino Interest Bills, Substantive Latino Interest bills, and Symbolic Latino Interest bills). The unit of analysis is therefore each individual representative’s record of bill sponsorship for each individual Congress. Observations of the 368 representatives who sponsored bills during both Congresses are clustered because their sponsorship behaviors are probably not fully independent from Congress to Congress (Long and Freese 2003). For example, when representatives fail to make progress with a piece of legislation during one Congress, they may sponsor a similar or identical bill during the subsequent Congress. The key independent variable in the analysis indicates whether a given bill sponsor was a Latino Representative. If theoretical arguments linking descriptive and substantive representation hold in this analysis, then Latino representatives would be expected to sponsor more Latino interest bills than their colleagues. Similarly, Latino representatives would be expected to sponsor more bills in the two subcategories of Latino interest legislation examined here, Substantive Latino Interest bills and Symbolic Latino Interest bills. One advantage of examining sponsorship behaviors in the Republican-controlled 109th Congress and Democraticcontrolled 110th Congress in a single cross-sectional analysis is that this enables us to consider party status as a factor that may affect sponsorship behaviors of Latino and non-Latino representatives. The dummy variable Majority Party Status indicates whether a representative was in the congressional majority. Consistent with previous research, majority-party status would be expected to increase the overall sponsorship activities of Latino and non-Latino representatives (Franztich 1979; Moore and Thomas 1990; Rocca and Sanchez 2008). The interactive variable Latino*Majority captures the multiplicative impact of ethnicity and party status. Given findings that marginalization within a majority-white institution depresses overall sponsorship by LatinoPage 142 → representatives, especially during Republican-controlled Congresses, when most Latino representatives are in the minority, it is important to ask whether majority- or minority-party status conditions Latino representatives’ sponsorship of bills generally or their sponsorship of Latino-interest bills specifically. The inclusion of this interactive term therefore helps to evaluate the resilience of descriptive representation as a factor affecting Latinos’ substantive representation in congressional legislation. In addition to independent variables that examine the impact of representatives’ ethnicities and party status, the models examine the impact of several other representative and constituency characteristics. Perhaps the most important is the Latino Population proportion of districts represented by bill sponsors. Given well-established electoral connections reflected by policy responsiveness on the part of representatives, the importance of this variable to analyses of Latino representation in bill sponsorship is obvious (Eulau and Karps 1977; Mayhew 1974; Miller and Stokes 1963). I would expect representatives with larger Latino constituencies to sponsor more Latinointerest bills. Political party (1 = Republican, 0 = Democrat) is important to consider because it has been shown to affect support for Latino interests (Bratton 2006; Hero and Tolbert 1995; Knoll 2009; W. C. Wilson 2009). The interactive variable Latino*Republican assesses whether this might also be the case among Latino representatives.4 In models that estimate various categories of Latino-interest bill sponsorship, I control for the Total Bills Sponsored because I expect active bill sponsors to author more legislation in subcategories of bills (Swers 2002). The dichotomous variable Female Representative is included based on research showing that women representatives are sometimes more active in areas of policy such as social welfare that overlap with Latino interests (Swers 2002). Black Representative is similarly included because some studies suggest that black representatives are more supportive of Latino interests than are white representatives (Bratton 2006; Huerta and Santos 2006). The Black Population in congressional districts is included because historical experiences with social and political marginalization give blacks and Latinos overlapping interests in a number of issue areas addressed by Latino-interest bills. I control for Constituency Conservatism5 because of the importance of constituency policy preferences to dyadic models of policy responsiveness (Eulau and Karps 1977; Miller and Stokes 1963). Whether representatives’ districts were in a Border State with Mexico is indicated to tap regional efforts to represent Page 143 →Latino interests by differentiating between representatives who serve constituencies that are largely Mexican American from those who serve more diverse Latino constituencies in

other parts of the country. Finally, I model a dichotomous variable, 110th Congress, to control for the fixed effects of two Congresses on the sponsorship behavior being considered. The first column in table 4.1 presents the results for the analysis of overall sponsorship activity. Consistent with earlier findings, Latino representatives sponsored fewer bills overall than non-Latino representatives. On average, Latino representatives sponsored approximately 12 bills per Congress during the 109th and 110th Congresses, while non-Latino representatives averaged more than 22 bills. This finding raises concerns that Latino representatives exercise less legislative influence in Congress than their non-Latino colleagues (Rocca and Sanchez 2008). Also similar to the findings of earlier research, overall bill sponsorship was linked to whether representatives were members of the majority party. Holding other variables at their means, majority-party members of the 109th and 110th Congresses sponsored more than 23 bills, while their minority-party counterparts sponsored, on average, about 19 bills. The black population of district constituencies was negatively associated with overall bill sponsorship efforts, as was the conservatism of districts. These findings suggest that representatives with large black constituencies did not pursue as many legislative initiatives, on average, as representatives with smaller black constituencies and that representatives also pursued fewer legislative initiatives, on average, as their constituencies grew more supportive of Republicans. Finally, rates of sponsorship were modestly higher, on average, during the 110th Congress than in the 109th. Collectively, these findings suggest that legislative activity in these Congresses generally conformed to patterns previously identified by other scholars. While Latino representatives were less active in terms of overall legislative agenda-setting behavior, results reveal that they played a more active role in sponsoring Latino-interest bills than their non-Latino colleagues. This was the case regardless of whether bills represented Latino interests substantively or symbolically. And Latino Republicans’ records of sponsoring of Latino-interest bills did not differ significantly from the records of their Democratic counterparts. Given a district that was 60 percent Latino, the mean Latino population represented by Latino legislators in the sample, Latino representatives would have been expected to sponsor approximately 2 Latino-interest bills per Congress (.6 symbolic Latino-interestPage 144 → bills and 1.45 substantive Latinointerest bills). By comparison, non-Latino representatives who served similar constituencies would have been expected to sponsor fewer than half as many Latino-interest bills (.1 symbolic Latino-interest bills and .74 substantive Latino-interest bills). These patterns suggest tangible differences in the extent to which Latino and non-Latino representatives prioritized Latino interests in the bills they sponsored. Table 4.1. Latino Representation on the Legislative Agenda, 109th and 110th Congresses Total Bills Sponsored Latino Interest Symbolic Latino Int. Substantive Latino Int. Latino Representative в€’0.615*** 0.974** 1.868** 0.719* (0.180) (0.309) (0.642) (0.330) Latino*Majority 0.198 в€’0.193 в€’0.506 в€’0.119 (0.128) (0.234) (0.474) (0.291) Latino*Republican Majority Party Republican Black Representative Female Representative Latino Population

0.265 (0.311) 0.208*** (0.033) 0.135 (0.071) 0.176 (0.153) 0.0924 (0.077) 0.443

в€’0.103 (0.594) 0.290 (0.170) в€’0.435 (0.228) 0.156 (0.364) 0.037 (0.204) 2.946***

0.451 (0.832) 0.802* (0.401) в€’0.258 (0.438) 1.517 (0.852) в€’0.220 (0.401) 3.520***

в€’0.494 (1.002) 0.207 (0.181) в€’0.444 (0.244) в€’0.0305 (0.385) 0.0471 (0.211) 2.976***

(0.305)

(0.624)

(0.987)

(0.728)

в€’0.827** (0.273)

1.266 (0.888)

в€’1.345 (1.973)

1.510 (0.933)

Constituency Conservatism

в€’0.013***

в€’0.024***

в€’0.027

в€’0.025**

Border State

(0.003) 0.0245 (0.091)

(0.007) 0.364 (0.217)

(0.017) 1.064* (0.434)

(0.008) 0.209 (0.257)

0.083** (0.032) —

в€’0.407* (0.161) 0.027***

в€’0.879* (0.379) 0.025**

в€’0.316 (0.178) 0.028***

— 3.551*** (0.157) −1.106*** (0.064) 125.64 883

(0.003) в€’1.424*** (0.398) в€’0.502 (0.305) 432.66 883

(0.008) в€’3.855*** (0.784) 0.114 (0.471) 234.56 883

(0.004) в€’1.488** (0.453) в€’0.331 (0.269) 371.72 883

Black Population

110th Congress Total Bills Sponsored Constant lnalpha Wald Chi-Square No. of Observations

Note: Negative binomial regression. *p < 0.05 **p < 0.01 ***p < 0.001. Standard errors in parentheses. Observations clustered by representative. Page 145 → Majority-party status generally did not affect Latino representation in bill sponsorship, with the exception of symbolic Latino-interest bills. Because Latino members of the majority party are accounted for in the model by the interaction term Latino*Majority, this finding indicates that non-Latino representatives in the majority party would sponsor significantly larger numbers of symbolic Latino-interest bills than non-Latino members of the minority party. Although the actual number of bills predicted in this case is quite small, this finding suggests that non-Latino representatives’ efforts to represent Latinos symbolically through bill sponsorship is conditioned by the likelihood that they will be able to advance their legislation. The fact that party status did not affect other aspects of Latino-interest bill sponsorship suggests that most efforts to place Latino interest items on the legislative agenda remained relatively consistent, regardless of the partisan environment in Congress, especially with regard to substantive proposals. The finding that majority-party status did not significantly alter Latinos’ efforts to represent Latinos on the legislative agenda is important because it suggests that the Latino-interest agendas of these legislators are relatively resilient in the face of institutional considerations. The fact that Latino Democrats and Republicans did not differ significantly with regard to representation of Latino interests on the legislative agenda also bolsters the conclusion that descriptive representation of Latinos enhances Latino representation on the legislative agenda. Regardless of party or majority- or minority-party status, then, Latino representatives demonstrated a heightened commitment to sponsoring bills that placed Latino interests on the legislative agenda. Although Latino population was unrelated to overall sponsorship activity, it was, not surprisingly, significantly related to Latino-interest bill sponsorship. This finding demonstrates that, controlling for other factors, there was significant responsiveness to Latino constituencies in the form of legislative agenda setting, thereby supporting the argument that Latino representation is explained at least in part by conventional theories of congressional responsiveness. Being a Republican, which was positively but insignificantly related to overall sponsorship patterns, was

negatively but insignificantly associated with legislative agenda setting that represented Latino interests. These findings suggest that while political party shared an expected relationship to Latino representation, it did not significantly affect Latino representation in agenda setting when controlling for other factors. Republican representatives sometimes represent Latino constituencies by sponsoring Page 146 →legislation, even though Democrats are often identified as more reliable representatives of Latino interests in analyses of other behaviors like legislative voting. A number of other variables also shared statistically significant relationships with sponsorship of Latino-interest bills. Sponsorship of substantive Latino-interest bills (but not symbolic ones) was negatively associated with the conservatism of constituencies. While many proposals designed to address discrimination or the socioeconomic needs of disadvantaged populations are unpopular with conservatives, these findings suggest that representatives with conservative constituencies are not significantly less likely than their colleagues to sponsor bills that represent Latinos symbolically. Representatives from border states sponsored more bills that represented Latinos symbolically, on average, than representatives from other states. This may reflect a compromise on the part of border-state legislators, who likely face heightened scrutiny on controversial subjects such as immigration and language issues and thus may seek to represent Latino interests through less controversial legislation. Sponsorship of Latino-interest bills was negatively associated with the 110th Congress, reflecting the slight decline (from 241 to 217) in the overall number of such bills sponsored during the 109th Congress. Finally, as expected, overall bill-sponsorship activity was significantly and positively related to efforts that placed Latinointerest proposals on the legislative agenda. Because both Latino representatives and Latino constituencies stood out as predictors of Latino representation on the legislative agenda, it is useful to consider the effects of these independent variables in tandem. Figure 4.3 displays a graph based on predicted probabilities derived from the analysis6 and illustrates the sponsorship of Latino-interest bills by Latino and non-Latino representatives in districts where the Latino population ranges from 0 to 80 percent. As the figure shows, sponsorship behavior by Latino and non-Latino representatives diverged as the Latino population increased. In districts where Latinos comprised 40 percent of the population, for example, Latino representatives would be expected to sponsor more than one Latino-interest bill, while non-Latino representatives would be expected to sponsor just .42 Latino-interest bills. Only in districts with Latino populations greater than 70 percent would non-Latino representatives be expected to author more than 1 Latinointerest bill. In such districts, Latino representatives would be expected to sponsor 3 Page 147 →Latino-interest bills. Given that only one non-Latino represented a district where the Latino population exceeded 60 percent during the 109th and 110th Congresses and that only two Latino representatives served districts where the Latino population was under 40 percent, these findings indicate that Latino representatives played not only a significant but a substantive role in placing Latino-interest bills on the legislative agenda. Simply put, Latino representatives were disproportionately responsible for representing Latinos on the legislative agenda during the 109th and 110th Congresses. Fig. 4.3. Predicted Probabilities, Latino-Interest Bill Sponsorship, 109th and 110th Congresses

Latino Representation and Committee Agendas While all members of Congress possess a limited ability to influence the congressional policy agenda through activities such as bill sponsorship, members with control over the activities of congressional committees enjoy distinct institutional advantages in the area of legislative agenda-setting. Long recognized as the venues where the bulk of congressional work is conducted (Fenno 1973; Woodrow Wilson 1981), committees play a major if jurisdictionally limited role in identifying and prioritizing policy Page 148 →problems and debating and formulating proposed policy solutions. Committee work is most visible and measurable during public hearings where representatives gather information, orchestrate political theater to illustrate their policy positions, and consider legislative proposals.

In part because of their public profile, committee hearings can be a powerful catalyst for jump-starting issue attention in Congress. Through hearings, new issues and perspectives can assume prominent agenda positions. And studies suggest that congressional hearings by both full committees and subcommittees influence legislative agendas in ways that stimulate policymaking and policy change (Baumgartner and Jones 1993; Jones and Baumgartner 2005; Jones, Baumgartner, and Talbert 1993; Kingdon 2003; Talbert, Jones, and Baumgartner 1995). Representatives’ institutional positions shape their abilities to influence the agenda. While any representative may sponsor a bill, petition for a hearing, or make a hearing request to committee and party leaders, membership on committees with jurisdiction over representatives’ legislative proposals is important to their ability to promote attention to issues. Committee and subcommittee chairs have substantial ability to control both legislative and nonlegislative hearing agendas at critical early stages of legislative policy development (Evans 1991; Oleszek 2011). Chairs may manipulate policy agendas to bring attention to their preferred issues and to squelch attention to others, effectively prioritizing certain issues for legislative purposes (Baumgartner and Jones 1993; Evans 1991; Krutz 2005). In other words, chairs both initiate agendas and act as gatekeepers who stand in the way of agendas. This fact elevates chairs’ control over the congressional policy agenda as well as the consequences of their actions for shaping the policymaking process. Limited evidence already suggests that Latino committee chairs significantly impact agenda setting in congressional committees (Ellis and Wilson 2013). That analysis examined the impact of Latino, African American, and female committee chairs on committee attention to minority issues such as civil rights, social welfare, and housing between 1979 and 2008. Findings from the study showed that hearings were significantly more likely to address minority-interest topics when Latinos chaired the committees. As discussed in chapter 2, Latino representatives have rarely chaired full committees. Since 1981, only seven different Latino representatives have chaired full committees. Twenty-six different Latino representatives chaired 39 different subcommittees during the same period. Figure 4.4 illustratesPage 149 → the number of Latino chairs and Latino-chaired hearings in the 96th–110th Congresses (1979–2008). Not surprisingly, given that the majority of Latino members of Congress have been Democrats, Latino presence among the ranks of committee and subcommittee chairs has been higher during periods of Democratic control, reaching a peak of 16 during the 110th Congress. As the graph illustrates, Latinos chaired more than 100 hearings during the 98th–103rd Congresses, including a record 178 hearings during the 99th Congress. Latinos chaired 166 hearings during the 110th Congress. During the period of Republican control between 1995 and 2006, Latinos never chaired more than four committees or subcommittees and presided over between 17 and 34 hearings per Congress. Fig. 4.4. Latino Committee and Subcommittee Chairs and Latino-Chaired House Hearings, 96th–110th Congresses (1979–2008). (Compiled by the author from data provided by the Policy Agendas Project.) Given that Latinos have served as committee chairs primarily over the past three decades, my analysis of their use of these positions to influence the congressional policy agenda focuses on committee activities from the 1980s through the late 2000s. According to data obtained from the Policy Agendas Project, which I coded to indicate the Latino ethnicity of committee chairs, between the 96th and 110th Congresses (1979–2008), 84 Page 150 →committees or subcommittees were chaired by Latino representatives, who presided over 394 full committee hearings and 851 subcommittee hearings (about 8.3 percent of all full committee hearings and 3.7 percent of all subcommittee hearings). Analyzing the behaviors of both subcommittee and full committee chairs in the same analysis is appropriate because my focus is the content of congressional hearings rather than the process of legislative winnowing (Krutz 2005). Because full committee hearings stand closer to final decisions, they clearly are likely to have a more direct relationship to legislative outcomes, making agenda contributions at that stage more significant. But because so few Latino representatives have served as full committee chairs, examining subcommittee hearings alongside those of full committees helps to expand the scope of my analysis, creating a fuller picture of how Latino representatives use institutional power to shape legislative agendas. Although committee and subcommittee chairs enjoy a measure of autonomy, hearing agendas are affected by

more than the preferences of committee chairs. Party, for example, circumscribes the universe of potential agendas committees can realistically pursue, particularly in an era of increasing party government (Steven Smith 2007). Committee agendas are even more substantially determined by committee policy jurisdictions. For example, in the U.S. House of Representatives, relatively few agriculture-related hearings occur outside the House Agriculture Committee or its subcommittees. So to understand the agenda-setting influence of Latino chairs, it is important to proceed under the assumption that their impacts on committee hearing agendas are substantially mediated by jurisdictional constraints. The presence of these constraints means that, unlike patterns of bill sponsorship, an activity that offers relative freedom to representatives in terms of the policy agendas they pursue, understanding Latino influence on committee agendas requires important contextual information. I therefore began my analysis of agenda setting by Latino committee chairs from an exploratory perspective rather than with specific expectations about their impacts. One limitation of the approach taken here is that it focuses much more clearly on the initiation of legislative agendas than on the practice of gatekeeping. Simply put, the approach is not very effective for examining what was kept off the agenda. Effective examination of gatekeeping by Latino and non-Latino chairs would likely require extensive interview-based analysis at the committee and subcommittee levels in addition to the archival Page 151 →approach pursued here. While such questions are set aside for future research, my approach does not significantly detract from the larger focus of the study on whether and how Latino chairs assist the process of Latino political incorporation through efforts to secure the inclusion of Latino interest issues on the congressional agenda. The first step in the analysis was to gauge the relative influence of Latino committee chairs on the policy topics addressed in congressional hearings. The Policy Agendas Project, which offers data on the issues addressed during congressional hearings for 225 different topics, provides useful information for such an examination. Hearings chaired by Latinos addressed 151 of the 225 different topics identified by the Policy Agendas Project between the 96th and 110th Congresses, enabling comparisons of agenda setting on those 151 issues by Latino and non-Latino chairs. I used simple difference-of-means tests to gather a general overview of the agenda-setting behaviors of Latino and non-Latino committee and subcommittee chairs. For each of the 151 topics on which Latino chairs held hearings, I compared the agenda-setting behaviors of Latino and non-Latino chairs of all committees and subcommittees that held at least one hearing on the topic during the period in question. Because the only possible outcome in each case is that a hearing either did or did not address an issue, the analysis essentially compares the proportion of relevant hearings chaired by Latino and non-Latino representatives that addressed each issue. This approach is appropriate because it focuses the comparison on chairs with relevant jurisdictions and sets aside the activities of chairs whose committees lacked jurisdiction. So, for example, between the 96th and 110th Congresses, 14 different committees or subcommittees7 held a total of 155 hearings on the U.S. Census. Latino representatives chaired 48 of those hearings, while non-Latino representatives chaired 107. During the period, those 14 committees held a total of 2,281 hearings (about 5.4 hearings annually per committee, on average), mostly on issues other than the U.S. Census. Of the total number of hearings held by those committees, Latino representatives chaired 216, while non-Latino representatives chaired 2,065. So while non-Latino committee chairs with jurisdiction over the issue chaired a larger number of hearings on the Census, a substantially (and significantly) larger proportion of the hearings chaired by Latino representatives addressed the Census. Because Latino representatives who chaired committees that had jurisdiction over Census issues addressed those issues in roughly 22 percent of hearings while non-Latino representatives addressedPage 152 → Census issues in roughly 5 percent of the hearings they chaired, it is reasonable to conclude that Latino representatives prioritized Census issues more highly than did their colleagues and disproportionately influenced the presence of Census issues on committee agendas. Difference-of-means tests reveal no statistical difference between the agenda-setting behaviors of Latino and nonLatino chairs on 97 of the 151 issue topics examined. The agenda setting behaviors of Latino and non-Latino chairs differed significantly on the other 54 topics. Non-Latino chairs held significantly more hearings than Latino chairs on 14 topics.8 While I advance no hypotheses regarding the issues to which Latino chairs gave significantly

less attention, these topics nonetheless may be relevant to understanding the agenda-setting impact of Latinos as part of the broader picture. With the possible exception of higher education issues, the majority of these topics are not typically considered Latino priorities. Instead, they tend to address relatively general interests (e.g., Alternative and Renewable Energy; Natural Resources; Consumer Safety and Consumer Fraud) or narrower interests of mostly non-Latino groups (e.g., District of Columbia Affairs; Native American Affairs; Maritime Issues). The relative lack of attention to these issues by Latino chairs probably resulted either from a relative lack of committee jurisdiction over the issues or from the fact that these issues may not be high priorities in the districts represented by most Latino representatives rather than from intentional neglect. More interesting to the present discussion are the topics on which Latino chairs focused significantly greater attention than their non-Latino counterparts. Linking such attention to conscious agenda setting makes sense if we assume that chairs exercise some independent authority over the topics their committees address and that these agendas reflect the priorities of committee chairs. For reasons similar to those that appear to motivate Latino-interest bill sponsorship, Latino chairs might be expected to hold more hearings on topics related to Latino policy priorities than do non-Latino chairs. However, other factors almost certainly shape the agenda-setting behaviors of Latino chairs as well. Like all members of Congress, Latinos who achieve institutional power as committee chairs are likely to pursue public policies that advance their power and prestige within the institution and the objective of good public policy as they see it. The issue jurisdiction of their committees circumscribes the scope of their agenda-setting abilities. And from time to time, partisan priorities may influence chairs’ agenda-setting Page 154 →behaviors. The difference-of-means tests do not directly examine hypotheses based on any of these theoretical relationships. Instead, by identifying significant differences in agenda setting associated with representative ethnicity, they provide a starting point for exploring the effect of ethnicity on committee agenda setting. Page 153 → Table 4.2. House Committee Agendas Positively Affected by Latino Chairs, 96th–110th Congresses (1979–2008) Hearing Topic Non-Latino Chaired Hearings Latino Chaired Hearings Difference in Means Ag Subsidies 199 of 5,284 18 of 287 0.025** Ag Trade 111 of 3,892 15 of 295 0.022** Age Discrimination 14 of 1,048 13 of 331 0.026** Agriculture (General) 240 of 4,298 69 of 272 0.198*** Banking Regulation 294 of 7,042 63 of 258 0.202*** Census 107 of 2,065 48 of 216 0.170*** Community Development 105 of 3,619 28 of 289 0.068*** (Genl.)# Consumer Finance 97 of 3,591 19 of 378 0.023** Defense# 371 of 5,228 2 of 8 0.179** Disease Prevention 200 of 6,671 15 of 236 0.034** DOD Civilian Personnel 67 of 3,152 3 of 19 0.137*** Elderly Assistance 205 of 5,668 56 of 438 0.092*** Employment Training 121 of 5,932 22 of 397 0.035*** Ethnic and Racial 118 of 6,921 26 of 589 0.027*** Discrimination Gender/Sex Discrimination 42 of 4,298 7 of 184 0.028*** Government Operations 518 of 8,054 59 of 211 0.215***

Health Regulation

40 of 2,635

10 of 344

0.014*

Health Care Reform Homelessness Housing & Community Development

147 of 4,984 34 of 2,641

20 of 443 17 of 341

0.016* 0.037***

61 of 3,257

27 of 532

0.032***

Human Rights # 236 of 4,922 Insurance Reform, Availability 294 of 7,746 & Cost

13 of 108

0.072***

34 of 396

0.048***

International Investment Juvenile Justice # Long-Term Care

46 of 4,945 56 of 2,680 83 of 4,613

8 of 243 8 of 39 52 of 387

0.024*** 0.184*** 0.116***

78 of 3,213

48 of 422

0.089***

226 of 5,540 80 of 6,388 125 of 5,773 47 of 2,378 14 of 1,385 16 of 2,375 607 of 9,784 88 of 5,419 195 of 5,277 130 of 5,038 113 of 4,513 101 of 8,227 23 of 2,536

17 of 237 1 of 16 1 of 8 6 of 27 2 of 18 8 of 275 48 of 175 3 of 70 12 of 41 4 of 25 6 of 34 7 of 230 11 of 91

0.031** 0.050* 0.103** 0.202*** 0.101*** 0.022*** 0.212*** 0.027* 0.256*** 0.134*** 0.151*** 0.018** 0.112***

Low- and Middle-Income Housing Middle East Military Intelligence# Military Personnel# Pest Control Recycling# Rural Housing and FmHA Small Business Issues Trade# Water Pollution Water Safety Weather Forecasting# White Collar Crime Youth Employment#

Note: ***p < 0.001 **p < 0.01 *p < 0.05. # denotes all Latino-chaired hearings by same individual. Each comparison based on all hearings held by committees and subcommittees that held at least one hearing on the topic in question. Hearing topics coded by the Policy Agendas Project. Data compiled by the author. There are 39 topics to which Latino chairs devoted significantly more of their committees’ hearing agendas than did non-Latino chairs. Table 4.2 presents difference-of-means tests on these topics. Many of these differences in topical agenda setting likely stem from committee issue jurisdictions. For example, Latino chairs held a larger proportion of hearings on topics including Agriculture, Agricultural Trade, and Subsidies to Farmers and Ranchers than did non-Latino chairs. These differences are largely explained by the fact that four different Latino representatives chaired agriculture subcommittees and that Eligio “Kika” de la Garza served a fourteenyear stint as chair of the full House Agriculture Committee. Similarly, the significant differences between Latino and non-Latino chairs with regard to issues such as Africa and the Middle East relate to Ileana RosLehtinen’s agenda-setting efforts as chair of the Committee on International Relations and several of its subcommittees. In these and a handful of other examples, the agendas of Latino chairs appear to have been driven largely by the jurisdictional orientations of committees under their supervision. Just as jurisdictional authority opened some agenda-setting opportunities for Latino committee chairs, it likely prevented other opportunities. For example, a number of important Latino interest issues such as voting rights and immigration issues are not among those separating the agenda-setting efforts of Latino and non-Latino chairs. In fact, no Latino chair held a hearing on voting rights during the period analyzed. While this at first appears surprising, the explanation is likely that Latinos enjoyed less opportunity to hold such hearings because they did

not chair committees with relevant jurisdiction over these issues. On many issues where significant differences separate the agenda-setting efforts of Latino and non-Latino chairs, Latino chairs appear to have steered their committees’ agendas toward issues that reflect the concerns of vulnerable constituencies. For example, five different Latino chairs held at least one hearing related to ethnic minority and racial group discrimination, and Latinos chaired a total of 26 hearings on those issues. Latinos were also more active than non-Latinos when it came to holding hearings on gender and sexual orientation discrimination. And RepresentativePage 155 → Ed Roybal used his tenure as chair of the Select Committee on Aging to bring attention to age discrimination. The widespread focus of Latino chairs on discrimination issues across committees with substantially different issue jurisdictions suggests a distinction between their agendasetting efforts and those of other representatives. Latino chairs appeared to use their discretion to direct committee agendas toward addressing discrimination more reliably than did their non-Latino counterparts. Several other differences in committee hearing agendas reflect chairs’ efforts to steer committee agendas toward issues with implications for Latino representation. Since Latinos are the largest minority group in the United States and those numbers are continuing to rise rapidly, Latino chairs’ disproportionate efforts to bring attention to Census issues represents a critical Latino interest. The importance of Census data to a range of programs that assist the poor and disadvantaged and to the legislative and congressional representation of Latinos means that gathering accurate and extensive information about the expanding Latino population is essential to enhancing inclusion along a number of dimensions. Latino chairs’ disproportionate focus on housing and community development, consumer finance, and low- and middle-income housing programs and needs indicates the use of committee gavels to steer attention (primarily on the Banking and Financial Services Committee and its subcommittees) away from the interests of their more powerful constituents such as banks and other financial institutions and toward issues that affect vulnerable consumer groups such as Latinos. Representative Henry B. GonzГЎlez (D-TX), who chaired the Banking and Financial Services Committee from 1989 to 1994 after chairing several banking subcommittees, was among those who played a major role in orchestrating such hearings. Hearings on youth employment and youth job corps programs as well as on employment training and workforce development also reflect concerns about the economic survival of vulnerable individuals, many of whom are Latino. Overall, approximately half9 of the topics on which Latino chairs were more active agenda setters than their non-Latino counterparts address the concerns of vulnerable populations—bringing attention to interests that by most accounts are underrepresented in Congress. Although not definitive, these findings suggest the possibility that the ethnicity of committee chairs shapes agenda-setting patterns by promoting the inclusion of topics that disproportionately affect vulnerable populations such as Latinos. To gain a perspective on the extent to which Latino and non-Latino Page 156 →committee chairs focus hearing agendas specifically on Latino-interest issues, I examined the topics and transcripts of hearings held during the 110th Congress—to date the Congress during which the largest number of Latino representatives held committee leadership positions. Latinos chaired 166 of the 1,394 hearings identified by the Policy Agendas Project. Using the same coding techniques employed to identify Latino-interest bills, I reviewed 752 hearing descriptions from the committees and subcommittees of all House committees on which a Latino representative served as chair of the full committee or any subcommittee. From this sample of hearings I identified 75 that addressed Latino-interest issues. Latino representatives chaired 20 of those hearings, indicating that the portion of the committee agendas addressing Latino interests in the sample was slightly higher for panels chaired by Latinos (12 percent) than those chaired by non-Latinos (just over 9 percent). One way to assess the quality of Latino representation occurring in hearings addressing Latino-interest issues is to examine transcripts for evidence that participants (committee members and witnesses) explicitly addressed Latino concerns in their statements, questions, or testimony. By going beyond the topics addressed to explore the problems and proposals driving committee attention, the extent to which Latino interests gain inclusion on a committee’s agenda can be more fully appreciated. To gather information about the representation of Latinos during the 75 hearings that addressed Latino-interest issues, I examined whether and how committee chairs, witnesses, Latino members of the committee, and non-Latino members of the committee discussed Latinos or Hispanics as a constituency in relation to the policies discussed during the hearing. The descriptive analysis of

these hearings that follows reveals potentially instructive differences in the dialogue and agenda-setting patterns of committee hearings on Latino-interest issues, depending on the ethnicity of the committee chair. Hearings on Latino-interest issues chaired by Latino and non-Latino chairs tended to proceed differently. First, in contrast to non-Latino chairs, Latino chairs often brought attention to Latino interests. Second, although witnesses before both Latino and non-Latino chairs discussed Latinos’ interests during these hearings, they did so more often in hearings chaired by Latino representatives. Latino chairs discussed Latinos as a constituency in half of the Latino-interest hearings they chaired (10 of 20), and witnesses before these panels did so during 65 percent of those hearings (13). In one Page 157 →hearing chaired by a Latino representative during which the chair failed to mention Latinos as a constituency, another Latino representative did so. These patterns suggest that attention to Latino interests increased when Latino chairs set the agenda and that Latino chairs often orchestrate hearings to bring attention to Latino priorities. By contrast, in the 55 Latino-interest hearings chaired by non-Latino representatives, the chair discussed Latinos as a constituency only once, while witnesses discussed Latinos as a constituency 26 times (47 percent). During 12 of the 55 hearings chaired by non-Latino representatives, Latino representatives discussed Latinos as a constituency. Five of those contributions came when neither the chair nor witnesses discussed Latinos. During 11 of the 55 Latino-interest hearings chaired by non-Latino representatives, other non-Latino representatives discussed Latinos as a constituency, including 2 in which witnesses did not discuss Latinos. While the sample of hearings examined here is small, it provides evidence to suggest that Latinos receive greater attention and therefore stand to achieve greater prominence on the congressional agenda when Latino representatives chair committee hearings. In comparing the remarks of committee chairs alone, the contrast is striking. Non-Latino chairs almost never mentioned Latinos as a constituency, even in hearings addressing issues of disproportionate importance to Latinos. For example, in a hearing on Comprehensive Immigration Reform: Labor Movement Perspectives, chair Zoe Lofgren (D-CA) focused almost exclusively on the economic impact of proposed temporary immigrant worker provisions (Comprehensive Immigration Reform 2007). The perspective of organized labor was well represented in testimony before the committee, as might have been expected given the hearing’s title. But there was no discussion of the interests of undocumented workers. Rather than bringing attention to comprehensive immigration reform efforts in ways that would place Latino-interest policy proposals on the agenda, the hearing revealed divisions between major Democratic constituencies with regard to how reform—particularly proposals for legalizing undocumented workers—should look. Latino representatives on the panel spent most of their time defending Latino-interest proposals advocated by the CHC rather than pursuing an agenda that would further Latino-interest immigration reform efforts. A hearing of the House Committee on Education and Labor Subcommittee on Early Childhood and Elementary and Secondary Education, Improving Head Start for America’s Children, chaired by Representative Dave Page 158 →Kildee (D-MI) similarly addressed an issue of high importance to Latinos. But Kildee’s statement focused primarily on the importance of the program in the context of a “budget that reflects the values of the American people” and did not focus explicitly on any racial or ethnic constituencies of the program (Improving Head Start 2007, 3). Only Latino committee member Raul Grijalva (D-AZ) explicitly mentioned Latino interests during that hearing. By contrast, Latino committee chairs frequently acted to ensure the inclusion of Latino interests on committee agendas. For example, as chair of the House Agriculture Committee’s Subcommittee on Department Operations, Oversight, Nutrition, and Forestry, Representative Joe Baca held a hearing to Review the Federal Food Stamp Program and Its Impact on Children’s Health, and emphasized in his opening statement that rates of diabetes and childhood obesity among Hispanics in his district motivated his interest in the topic (Review the Federal Food Stamp Program 2007, 2). As chair of the House Small Business Committee’s Subcommittee on Regulations, Health Care, and Trade, Representative Charles Gonzalez held a hearing on Minority and Hispanic Participation in the Federal Workforce and the Impact on the Small Business Community in which he placed special emphasis on Hispanic hiring deficits (U.S. Congress, House 2008, 1–2). As chair of the House Education and Labor Subcommittee on Higher Education, Lifelong Learning, and Competitiveness,

Representative Ruben Hinojosa traveled to Austin, Texas, to hold a field hearing on colleges that serve disproportionately minority populations. His statement emphasized the challenges facing Hispanic and other minority students and his initiative to assist with the establishment of graduate programs at HSIs (Higher Education Act 2008, 5). In these and other cases, Latino chairs made creative use of their jurisdictions to bring attention to Latino-interest issues. These efforts frequently helped to instigate legislative agendas that continued beyond the committee hearings.10 The testimony of witnesses also differed dramatically in hearings on Latino-interest issues chaired by Latino and non-Latino representatives. Panels chaired by non-Latinos sometimes heard witnesses mention policy impacts on Latinos, but Latinos did not appear central to the statements of or questions posed by most non-Latino hearing participants, including chairs. Latino members of committees often appeared to bear responsibility for explicitly linking Latinos to policies in such hearings. By contrast, Latino chairs often organized panels of witnesses that extensivelyPage 159 → addressed Latino interests. For example, in the hearing chaired by Representative Baca, two witnesses specifically addressed the nutritional needs of Latinos. In the hearing chaired by Representative Gonzalez, all four witnesses addressed different aspects of Latino representation in the federal workforce. Although the hearings discussed in this section come from only one Congress and therefore provide only limited evidence regarding the impact of Latino chairs on agenda setting, they nonetheless suggest that Latino representatives set a different congressional agenda from their non-Latino colleagues. These findings appear consistent with previous research on Latino committee chairs (Ellis and Wilson 2013). Assuming that the dynamics captured by these brief case studies reflect a broader pattern of agenda setting, Latino representatives play a disproportionate role in the representation of Latinos in processes of agenda setting. These representatives’ efforts to highlight Latino interests by linking Latino concerns to broader policy considerations also presage their role in representing Latinos in processes of congressional debate (see chapter 5). As the following section illustrates, efforts to place Latino interests on the agenda by holding hearings or sponsoring bills are only part of long-term, collective efforts to set a Latino-interest agenda.

The CHC and Immigration Reform: Agenda Setting for the Long Haul During the Republican presidential primary campaign of 2012, few political observers would have predicted that just a year later, the Senate would easily pass a bipartisan comprehensive immigration reform bill containing a host of liberal reforms, including a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants. At the time, Republican presidential candidates were competing to present the most conservative immigration platform to GOP primary electorates. Efforts by Florida Senator Marco Rubio to steer Republicans toward a scaled-back version of the DREAM Act that would allow certain undocumented youth to acquire legal status but not citizenship met with little enthusiasm (Weisman 2012). Ultimately, Mitt Romney emerged from the Republican nomination battle victorious, having advocated “self-deportation” by undocumented immigrants (L. Madison 2012). For their part, few Democrats seriously discussed liberalizing immigrationPage 160 → policy in 2012 beyond the popular DREAM Act, which proposed an expedited pathway to citizenship for some undocumented child immigrants. In a June 2012 move that reflected both political savvy and realism about the meager prospects for comprehensive immigration reform legislation, President Barack Obama announced new rules to defer deportation for qualified undocumented youths, implementing Rubio’s legislative proposal before it was ever put on paper (Caputo 2012). Passage of a comprehensive immigration bill, S. 744, the Border Security, Economic Opportunity, and Immigration Modernization Act, sponsored by Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY), by a supermajority vote in June 2013 marked a potential shift in immigration politics. The bill included an earned path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants, stronger employee verification procedures, special citizenship pathways for undocumented child immigrants and agricultural workers, greater prioritization of family reunification, improved employee protections for native workers, and enhanced labor rights for immigrant workers. Although the bill was

never debated or voted on by the Republican-controlled House during the 113th Congress, it symbolized major progress toward the adoption of a set of policies that bear striking resemblance to the immigration agenda of the CHC. The parallels between CHC priorities and the immigration agenda in the 113th Congress are more than mere coincidence. The CHC played a key role, especially from the 109th Congress (2005–6) onward, in setting an agenda on immigration reform that structured the content of policy proposals that would later dominate debate. The CHC articulated Hispanic immigration preferences and defined the strategic options available to partisan negotiators. The gradual culmination of CHC agenda-setting efforts in shaping the contours of contemporary debate over immigration policy illustrate how agenda setting often occurs over long periods of time and relies not just on individual efforts but also on sustained collective campaigns. The CHC played a role in steering Congress toward the current policy debate and much of the policy content that now appears central to the trajectory of comprehensive immigration reform. The CHC and its members have been important players on immigration policy since the 1980s. But agreement on fundamental elements of immigration policy and cohesive legislative strategies came slowly to the organization. Consideration of the Simpson-Mazzoli immigration bill, which occurred over several Congresses in the 1980s, provides some good Page 161 →examples. Members of the CHC unanimously opposed the bill in 1983, influencing Speaker Thomas P. “Tip” O’Neill’s decision to pull it from floor consideration (Vega 1990; Vega and Peters 1996; Vigil 1996). But CHC members did not oppose the legislation for the same reasons (Vega 1990; Vigil 1996). While most Latino members supported amnesty provisions of the bill, at least one preferred conservative limitations on the legalization of undocumented immigrants. And while most CHC members opposed significant penalties for employers who knowingly hired undocumented immigrants either out of concern for migrant workers or business interests, Representative Henry B. GonzГЎlez (D-TX) supported the sanctions (Vigil 1996, 89). When the Simpson-Mazzoli Immigration Reform and Control Act finally passed in 1986, CHC members split their votes, indicating the substantial divisions within the caucus over immigration issues and the weakness of the organization as a legislative coalition. The major issues at stake during that debate—the fate of undocumented immigrants and the imposition of employer sanctions—ultimately continued to shape the tenor and substance of immigration reform debate in subsequent Congresses and to limit the CHC’s cohesiveness on immigration for more than a decade. In 1990, CHC members11 attempted unsuccessfully to remove employer sanctions from the Immigration Reform and Control Act after a number of the representatives became concerned that the provision had resulted in discrimination against Hispanic workers by employers. They had greater success opposing a provision of the Immigration Reform Bill of 1990 that proposed a pilot program for a tamperproof driver’s license that would have been used for employee verification purposes. Although CHC concerns centered on the possibility of employment discrimination against Hispanics, documented or not, the winning argument tied the program to fears of a Big Brother government (Vigil 1996, 90). In 1996, Congress passed the Immigration Control and Financial Responsibility Act as part of H.R. 3610, the Omnibus Appropriations Act of 1997. The bill, which was originally considered under a restrictive rule as H.R. 2202, substantially curtailed government services available to undocumented immigrants and expanded grounds for their deportation. A number of CHC members protested being shut out of the amendment process by Republicans, and all but two voted against the bill. As expected, deportations of undocumented immigrants increased steadily after implementation of the bill, reaching record levels in 2010 (U.S. Department Page 162 →of Homeland Security 2011, table 36). That 1996 legislation helped draw the battle lines over which all subsequent immigration battles have been fought and produced policy outcomes that gradually drew CHC members into a cohesive coalition on immigration. Leading immigration reform proposals in Congress became increasingly conservative following the September 2001 terrorist attacks. The apex of this trend came with the House passage of H.R. 4437, the Border Protection, Anti-Terrorism, and Illegal Immigration Control Act of 2005. Among its more controversial provisions, H.R. 4437 sought to declare undocumented presence in the United States a felony, thus criminalizing an estimated 11

million people. Although the bill never became law, it catalyzed mass demonstrations across the country that involved millions of Latino participants (Watanabe and Becerra 2006). The bill was opposed by all but one member of the CHC. Articulating the concerns of many CHC members, Representative Linda SГЎnchez (D-CA) (2005) argued on the House floor prior to the vote that the bill “opens the door for witch hunts of anyone who looks foreign andВ .В .В . erodes basic civil liberties and human rights for migrants, legal immigrants, and even citizens.” The political fight over H.R. 4437 coincided with the beginnings of an appreciable coalescence of CHC preferences on immigration issues and of the organization’s more proactive agenda-setting strategy on immigration. For example, growing CHC support for penalizing employers who knowingly hired undocumented workers was evident during the 2005 debate over H.R. 4437. Representative Charles A. Gonzalez (D-TX), who like his father and predecessor favored stiff penalties for employers who failed to comply with employee verification, sponsored legislation to impose a civil penalty of $50,000 per violation and later introduced similar language as an amendment during the markup of H.R. 4437. Gonzalez argued the proposal was essential to addressing illegal immigration because lax enforcement of employee verification encourages the hiring of undocumented workers and therefore illegal immigration. Republicans viewed Gonzalez’s proposal as a threat to business interests, and the amendment was soundly defeated. But it attracted the votes of eight CHC members. Two years later, the Security through Regularized Immigration and a Vibrant Economy (STRIVE) Act, a comprehensive immigration reform proposal endorsed by the CHC and cosponsored by 18 of its members, included similar provisions. Also in 2005, four members of the CHC, including Representative Luis Page 163 →GutiГ©rrez (D-IL), cosponsored H.R. 2330, the Secure America and Orderly Immigration Act, a comprehensive immigration reform bill that included a pathway to legalization for undocumented immigrants. Sponsored by Republican Jim Kolbe (R-AZ), the effort was notable as an early example of a truly bipartisan immigration reform effort. Since the 109th Congress, the CHC has increasingly pursued an agenda-setting strategy that has included a consistent push for “comprehensive” immigration reform legislation and efforts to reach across the partisan aisle. These strategies have been based on assumptions that legalizing the estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants in the country would be politically impossible as a stand-alone proposal and that necessary Republican votes could be attracted only by legislation that also promised enhanced border security. In the spring of 2007, there was great optimism among CHC members that the organization would assume greater prominence and influence as Democrats took control of Congress. President George W. Bush appeared receptive to compromise on immigration and was viewed as a potential legislative partner. Led by Representative GutiГ©rrez, the CHC backed the STRIVE Act, which included provisions that have generally defined the policy preferences expressed by the organization ever since. The nearly 700-page bill sought to increase border enforcement capabilities, improve interior enforcement of immigration laws, ensure compliance with employee verification requirements, create an orderly immigrant worker program that would address American labor requirements, provide a flexible cap on foreign workers, increase labor protections, address visa backlogs and streamline the immigration process, provide an earned path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants, and incorporate the DREAM Act (GutiГ©rrez 2007). Representative GutiГ©rrez introduced the bill with support from 29 original cosponsors, including 6 Republicans and a high-ranking member of the Democratic leadership team. To generate momentum, the CHC aggressively pursued cosponsors and in just over a month had won the endorsement of an additional 49 members, mostly Democrats. While immigration reform was a top priority for CHC members at the start of the 110th Congress, many nonLatino Democrats were wary of the issue. The tenuous 233-seat Democratic majority included a large number of new “majority makers” who represented competitive districts. Democratic leaders sought to shield them from controversial votes (Peters and Rosenthal 2010, 107). The situation made issues such as immigration Page 164 →reform politically unattractive. Still, the apparent willingness of the Bush administration to embrace a comprehensive reform plan offered what many considered a unique opportunity. Those political dynamics were on display during an informal June 2007 strategy meeting between CHC members

and House Democratic Caucus chair Rahm Emanuel (D-IL), a STRIVE cosponsor. In Emanuel’s view, divided government offered a fleeting opportunity to pass immigration reform. Only under cover of the Bush administration’s endorsement could Republican votes be secured for immigration reform. And given that more than 30 Democrats had supported H.R. 4437 in the previous Congress, Emanuel held out little hope that Democrats could pass immigration reform on their own. He estimated that at least 60 Republican votes would be needed to pass a reform package and had already expressed his hopes to top Bush administration officials that the White House would provide a Republican whip operation should immigration reform make it to the House floor. To the chagrin of the CHC members, it became increasingly clear that passing immigration reform under this scenario would require major concessions on core CHC immigration principles, including the DREAM Act, prioritization of family reunification, and the process and outcome of status adjustment for undocumented immigrants. The sobering recognition that policy success might come at a cost CHC members were unwilling to pay marked the beginning of the end of comprehensive immigration reform efforts in the 110th Congress.12 The CHC’s efforts failed to produce immigration reform in the 110th Congress but established a base from which the organization continued to advance its agenda. Along with a bipartisan group of 91 original cosponsors, including most CHC members, Representative Solomon Ortiz (D-TX) sponsored H.R. 4321, the Comprehensive Immigration Reform for America’s Security and Prosperity Act of 2009 midway through the 111th Congress. The legislation, which eventually garnered 103 cosponsors, proposed a set of policies similar to those in the STRIVE Act. On the other side of Capitol Hill, Senator Robert Mendez sponsored S. 3932, a companion bill to H.R. 4321. Although neither bill saw the legislative light of day, observable progress was made on one key CHC immigration priority during the December lame duck session of the 111th Congress. By a margin of 216 to 198, the House passed a motion to amend a Senate amendment to H.R. 5281, the Removal Clarification Act of 2010, to incorporate DREAM Page 165 →Act provisions into the compromise bill. The bill later fell just 5 votes short of the 60 needed to defeat a Republican Senate filibuster. The DREAM Act came tantalizingly close to passage in the 111th Congress, but the return of Republican control in the 112th Congress offered little hope for further progress on the CHC’s immigration agenda. Rather than expend precious resources on a doomed legislative effort, the CHC spent time criticizing Republican immigration policies at all levels and clarifying Hispanic immigration preferences. The campaign included press releases and events opposing Alabama’s H.B. 56, which requires police during any legal stop, detention, or arrest to determine the legal status of any person suspected of undocumented presence (Congressional Hispanic Caucus 2011b). The CHC also criticized anti-immigrant rhetoric by Representative Duncan Hunter (R-CA) (Congressional Hispanic Caucus 2011a) and presidential candidate Mitt Romney’s opposition to the DREAM Act (Congressional Hispanic Caucus 2012). As the winds for immigration reform shifted perceptibly in the days following the 2012 election, the CHC released a platform of nine core principles. The document reaffirmed policy positions that the CHC had pursued since its failed 2007 effort to pass the STRIVE Act. But while the CHC immigration reform agenda has largely fallen on deaf ears in recent Congresses, there was substantial evidence in the spring of 2013 that the organization’s core principles for comprehensive immigration reform had finally penetrated the congressional policy agenda. Unlike previous years, CHC members took a backseat to the president and members of the Senate in the public debate over immigration during the 113th Congress. Other than a late January 2013 meeting with President Obama, during which CHC members reiterated their positions, the organization kept a low profile, emphasized bipartisan cooperation, worked behind the scenes to negotiate a compromise, and took steps to ensure that emerging Hispanic political clout would continue to add urgency to the debate. For example, the CHC used its financial arm, the Building Our Leadership through Diversity Political Action Committee, to bolster the organization’s political position. The political action committee helped elect nine new CHC members in 2012. Immigration reform efforts in 2013 provided opportunities to raise unprecedented sums for 2014 races, helping to back up the CHC’s conciliatory rhetoric on immigration with an electoral big stick (Carney 2013). The June 2013 passage of Senator Schumer’s Page 166 →bill, S. 744, the Border Security, Economic Opportunity, and Immigration Modernization Act, by a Republican-controlled Congress showed that a political consensus on the central tenets of comprehensive immigration reform long advanced by the CHC is possible.

By the late summer of 2014, it had become clear that passage of comprehensive immigration reform would once again elude CHC members. The return of election-year politics was accompanied by a predictable reversion to anti-immigrant rhetoric during the GOP primary season, assuring that Republicans would fail to participate in reform efforts. Even so, on the political scorecard that registers small victories and accommodates a long game, progress was made toward CHC immigration preferences. CHC members played important agenda-setting roles in making this happen. Working across multiple Congresses with multiple bills sponsored by multiple authors and multiple hearings they chaired and attended, Latino representatives have made important strides on their most prioritized issue. The issue attention and ultimately the legislative initiative that came close to producing comprehensive immigration reform in 2013 resulted from a shared effort to identify and define problems, set priorities, and develop solutions. Perhaps most important, Latino representatives have collectively helped to identify and define Latino interests on immigration policy and provided a set of reform policies that Latinos embrace. It seems increasingly likely that the next major immigration policy signed into law will embrace those policies as well.

Representative Ethnicity and Agenda Setting This chapter has sketched the role Latino representatives play at perhaps the most critical stage in the representative process, that of agenda-setting. Although the analyses provide nothing close to a comprehensive examination of the topic, they reveal the impact of Latino descriptive representatives in a range of agenda-setting behaviors and provide consistent evidence that Latino representatives matter. From sponsoring legislation to committee leadership to long-term collective initiatives for major policy change, Latino representatives appear to consistently outpace their non-Latino colleagues in prioritizing Latino-interest issues and ensuring Latino inclusion on the congressional policy agenda. Page 167 →Latino representatives’ bill-sponsorship activities are important not because they compel action on behalf of Latino interests but because they enable such action. One of the major deficiencies in the representation of marginalized groups has been a lack of representation in problem identification and policy development. Groups such as Latinos tend to see the problems of other groups prioritized and to have little say in the development of policy solutions. The sponsorship of Latino-interest bills provides an essential foundation for advancing attention to both Latino problems and policy solutions preferred by Latinos. Although both Latino and non-Latino representatives increase their efforts to set a Latino-interest agenda when they represent larger Latino constituencies, as might be expected, Latino representatives appear to pursue such initiatives with far greater energy, all else being equal. Evidence that Latino representatives sponsored fewer bills overall than non-Latino representatives but still significantly outpaced their colleagues with respect to the sponsorship of Latino-interest bills suggests that these initiatives are central to their legislative agendas. By contrast, Latino interest legislation appears to be relatively incidental in the portfolios of most non-Latino representatives. The energetic advocacy Latino representatives provide as bill sponsors supplies a substantial catalyst in Congress for action on behalf of Latino interests. When Latino representatives acquire institutional power as committee chairs, they appear to take Latino-interest agenda setting to the next level by using their power to bring committee attention to Latino interests via committee hearings. Although the evidence is only preliminary, given the relatively short history of Latino committee leadership, there is growing reason to conclude that Latino representatives influence committee agenda setting by bringing greater attention to issues that impact vulnerable groups and that impact Latino interests in particular. The qualities of the hearings chaired by Latino representatives also appeared to differ in the data examined. Unlike their non-Latino colleagues, Latino committee chairs often appeared to organize hearings in ways that would place focus squarely on Latino interests. This occurred through their emphasis on Latino concerns in statements and questioning as well as in testimony given by witnesses invited to appear before those panels. In some cases, Latino committee chairs appeared to push the boundaries of their committees’ jurisdictions to accommodate discussions that prioritizedPage 168 → Latino issues and concerns. I found little evidence that non-Latino representatives were similarly inclined to use their prerogatives and resources to prioritize Latino interests during

committee hearings. Finally the collective efforts of Latino representatives to set an agenda on immigration illustrate a long-term effort that non-Latino representatives would be unlikely to pursue, much less sustain. Although the ranks of non-Latino representatives certainly include sympathizers and even champions of Latino immigration interests, it is difficult to conceive of a sustained and organized effort by non-Latino representatives on immigration reform over the course of many Congresses. Here again, Latino representatives appear to play an essential role if we are to assume that sustained advocacy is important to Latino representation in agenda setting. Taken together, the analyses in this chapter strongly suggest that the actions of Latino representatives alter the congressional agenda. Their efforts increase the likelihood that Latino issues receive attention, that policy solutions representing Latino interests are offered, and that Latino-interest policies emerge from the legislative process. Although much work lies ahead before Latino interests occupy space on congressional agenda that is proportionate to societal demand, Latino representatives are playing a disproportionate role in bringing that pluralist ideal closer to reality. These efforts also take a requisite step toward Latino influence in public policymaking. Simply put, the realization of Latino political incorporation in the context of congressional policymaking cannot happen without the inclusion of Latino priorities and interests on the agenda, and Latino representatives are the critical agenda setters.

Page 169 →

Chapter 5 Speaking for Latinos A Voice for Latinos in Political Debate Latino Representatives and Immigration: A Different Perspective Although Latino concerns exist on a wide range of issues in contemporary American politics, no issue arouses Latino political passions more than immigration. Immigration arguably affects Latinos in larger and more disproportionate numbers and receives greater public attention than other Latino interest issues. Debate over immigration is divisive and contentious, and with millions of undocumented immigrants from all over Latin America now living in the United States and substantial uncertainty about their ultimate legal fate, representatives across the political spectrum voice with increasing urgency the need to reform immigration policy. Immigration also surpasses most other Latino-interest issues in its capacity to unite Latinos, including those in Congress. For many Latino representatives, concerns about immigration policy are intensely personal. Former Representative Ciro Rodriguez (D-TX), for example, was born in Mexico. Former Representative Lincoln DГ-azBalart (R-FL) was born in Cuba. Many other Latino representatives share recent familial immigration experiences characteristic of Latinos nationwide. So, in addition to the fact that most Latino representatives are elected in districts with large Latino and foreign-born populations, Latino representatives tend to be “existentially close” to the issue of immigration and appear especially well positioned to represent Latino immigration interests (Mansbridge 1999, 636). Page 170 →Despite the generally divisive nature of immigration debates in Congress, there is no other issue on which Latino representatives appear to share a more consistent attitude regardless of ethnic origin, region, ideology, or political party. According to one Latino Republican, attitudes toward immigration tend to transcend differences among Latinos: “Regardless of whether you’re Puerto Rican (they’re not affected at all; they’re U.S. citizens) or Cuban American, with a different immigration status [than most other immigrants from Latin America], you’re still concerned about the issues of immigration” (Representative F 2007). A major reason for Latino representatives’ concerns and for relatively consistent attitudes toward immigration reform is the frequently hostile and negative portrayal of immigrants in political discourse and the association of Latinos as a group with the issue. The Latino Republican speculated that “even those [Latinos] who are not affected [directly by current immigration policies] I think show great solidarity with those who are affected because of the tone and because frankly how the debate is going over the last few years.” Rather than viewing immigrants as economic threats or a drain on public services, the representative preferred that immigrants and Latinos be viewed as “family-oriented with a very, very strong work ethic.В .В .В . That’s the way immigrants have always been in this country, and the Hispanic population tends to be that way in this country as well” (Representative F 2007). The views expressed by this Latino Republican were far from unique. My interviews with other Latino representatives and my subsequent observations suggest that Latino members of Congress tend to share a positive view of immigrants. Furthermore, they generally share goals of accommodating, including, and incorporating immigrants politically and the understanding that immigration reform must be comprehensive rather than focused solely on border security and enforcement. In the view of many Latino representatives, the Republican-controlled 109th Congress marked a low point for immigration reform efforts. Passage of H.R. 4437, the Border Protection, Anti-Terrorism, and Illegal Immigration Control Act of 2005, in the House was met with widespread protests in Latino communities for its harsh policies toward undocumented immigrants. The ascension of Democrats to majority status in the House following the 2006 elections fostered Latino representatives’ hopes for a clear change in direction on immigration policy. But they quickly became frustrated with continued and largely unchallenged negative portrayals of immigrants by

some House Republicans. During Page 171 →meetings of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus (CHC), Latino representatives expressed a general uneasiness with the direction of the debate over immigration and a feeling that persistent negative portrayals of immigrants would all but doom any effort to reform immigration laws in a form they could accept. Concerns that negative portrayals of immigrants would prevent a fair and successful debate over immigration reform motivated a number of CHC members, led by Representative Charles Gonzalez (D-TX), to go the floor of Congress on the evening of May 14, 2007, to offer an alternative perspective on immigrants.1 During a daily period known as “special orders,” the representatives delivered a prime-time message intended to emphasize that immigrants should be viewed as patriotic and hardworking rather than as criminal, subversive, or parasitic, as some in the media and Congress suggested. To maximize the rhetorical appeal of the message, each member focused on a surprisingly large and undeniably patriotic segment of the immigrant population: noncitizens serving in the U.S. armed forces. Representative Gonzalez prefaced the series of speeches as a stand against hostile portrayals of immigrants that promote misunderstanding, characterizing such anti-immigrant rhetoric as the politics of fear. Gonzalez urged a change in the tone of the debate over immigration and an end to “venomous and inapt rhetoric” that ostracizes immigrants. He related a story about Lance Corporal JosГ© Antonio GutiГ©rrez, a Guatemalan national who became the first U.S. fatality of the Iraq War. Referring to the nearly 5 percent of the military (approximately 69,000 soldiers) born abroad, Gonzalez asserted, “These immigrant soldiers are among the most prominent faces of immigration today, but they are not uncharacteristic of the larger immigrant population. They represent the honest work ethic, the ambition and the patriotism characteristic of immigrants of all national origins and across all eras” (Congressional Record, May 14, 2007). Representative Solomon Ortiz (D-TX), dean of the Hispanic Caucus, spoke next: “The voices of these immigrant soldiers are remarkably missing from the debate on the value of immigrants in this nation. I would like to add their voices today.” Honoring Private Ray Cuervo, a Mexican immigrant killed in Iraq, Ortiz remembered attending a ceremony to confer posthumous citizenship on Cuervo, who was survived by a pregnant wife. “Yes, so far to the price of citizenship,” he concluded, “now so close to God, so that you and I and the rest of the citizens of this great country Page 172 →could enjoy the freedoms and privileges and liberties that we have today” (Congressional Record, May 14, 2007). Representative John Salazar (D-CO) honored the service of Lance Corporal Evenor Christopher Herrera, who had emigrated from Honduras with his parents when he was nine and who was killed by an improvised explosive device in Iraq. Representative Joe Baca (D-CA) honored Corporal Douglas Jose Marencoreyes of Nicaragua and Sergeant Jorge Alberto Molinabautista of Mexico, both killed while serving abroad: “There are many who want to diminish or even deny the great contributions of immigrants to our nation’s history, economy, and culture, [but many] have contributed and continue to contribute to our country because they believe in this country.” Representative Ciro Rodriquez (D-TX) honored Sergeant Israel Devora Garcia, who was awarded citizenship shortly before he was killed and was posthumously awarded the Purple Heart and the Bronze Star. “His story,” said Rodriguez, “like the stories my colleagues are sharing tonight, are stories of immigrants in this country. This evening we share those stories of individuals that are out there giving their all.В .В .В . [T]he American public must understand and recognize that noncitizens have served and have died for our country, not only during the Iraq and Afghanistan war, but during every single war during this country’s struggle” (Congressional Record, May 14, 2007). Representative Grace Napolitano (D-CA) related a story about a decorated veteran of the Vietnam War to illustrate the lingering difficulties many Latinos have with issues of citizenship and inclusion in American society. When trying to renew his driver’s license in 2003, Sergeant Henry Marez discovered that he was incorrectly listed as a Mexican national, not a U.S. citizen. Although he was born in El Paso, he had no birth certificate to prove it. Marez’s petition for citizenship was initially denied on the grounds of his “illegal voting history” and was only later approved on appeal. Marez’s ordeal underscores the common identification and conflation of immigrants and Latinos in American society, and Napolitano urged listeners to

“embrace” immigrants and Latinos: “What matters is their loyalty to our country and their undying love for it” (Congressional Record, May 14, 2007). Representative Gonzalez later returned to the floor to conclude the series of speeches with the story of Specialist Rodrigo Gonzalez-Garza, a native of Mexico also killed in Iraq. Among Gonzalez-Garza’s survivors were his three brothers, who were also serving in the U.S. armed Page 173 →forces: “One would find it difficult to find a family more devoted to the United States and our American way of life than the Gonzalez family,” the congressman suggested. In closing, he addressed one of the day’s earlier speakers, who “felt great pride that a town in the State of Texas had passed a law that will make it an offense to rent accommodations to undocumented individuals”: What pride can be derived from a law of that nature? Who are you shutting the door to? In whose face are you slamming that door?! I’ll tell you. You are slamming it in the faces of Lance Corporal GutiГ©rrez, Specialist Gonzalez-Garza, Lance Corporal Evenor Herrera, Sergeant Israel DevoraGarcia, Sergeant Henry Marez, Corporal Douglas Jose Marencoreyes, and PFC Rey Cuervo. Those are the individuals.В .В .В . Our obligation as Members of Congress is to pass just and fair lawsВ .В .В . not those that will demonize, criminalize and punish individuals that are coming to this country at our behest. And make no mistake about that. They are coming because we are asking them to come and to be employed by fine, upstanding Americans. And so they come, not to take but to give, to contribute. What we are attempting to do tonight is put a human face on this immigrant that so often is criticized, demonized, characterized as a threat to our way of life.В .В .В . Is the face of America changing? That should not be our concern. Is the heart, and the spirit, and the soul of America changing? That should be our concern. While immigrants make up a large and growing sector of American society and therefore a growing set of political interests, the image of the immigrant is not one most representatives in the contemporary Congress rush to embrace. Few Republican members of Congress, for example, would see their electoral interests—particularly in primary elections—well served by sticking up for immigrants. Some Democrats in swing districts likely fear backlash from native-born working-class constituencies and therefore avoid advocacy of policy proposals such as comprehensive immigration reform. Yet in this instance, members of the CHC stood firmly on the side of immigrants and sought to alter the public perception of immigrants by providing positive examples to counter negative stereotypes. This series of speeches offers anecdotal evidence of a connection between descriptive representation and the substantive representation of LatinosPage 174 → in an important political debate. But does this example constitute an isolated incident, or are Latino representatives systematically more active when it comes to representing Latinos in political debate? In this chapter, I examine three sets of evidence that shed light on contributions to political debate that represent Latinos as a means of assessing the impact of Latino representatives on these patterns of communication. The first comes from floor speeches delivered before the U.S. House of Representatives during the 109th Congress. This analysis compares the speech patterns of Latino and non-Latino representatives with large Latino constituencies in an effort to determine the extent to which descriptive representation shapes Latino representation in this important deliberative forum. I complement this analysis with evidence from “Dear Colleague” letters circulated by Latino representatives during the 109th Congress. Finally, I employ a case study that illustrates the CHC’s collective effort to articulate Latino perspectives related to social exclusion, patriotism, and ultimately the public recognition of Latino veterans. The incident illustrates how Latino representatives play important roles in public as well as legislative debates. The case focuses on the CHC’s response to controversy surrounding Ken Burns’s documentary The War, which chronicles the stories of several World War II veterans. The film initially failed to feature any Latino veterans, an omission that was widely viewed as an affront in the Latino community but went largely unnoticed among nonLatinos. In part through the efforts of the CHC and its members, the film was ultimately altered, as almost certainly were the understandings of many non-Latinos with regard to issues of inclusion and due recognition of Latino contributions.

These three sets of evidence provide snapshots of Latino representatives’ impact in different deliberative forums and combine to suggest that these legislators amplify Latinos’ voices and contribute disproportionately to Latino representation in political debate. The information presented here also helps to illustrate the role Latino representatives play in the broader process of Latino political incorporation. Not only do the contributions Latino representatives make help to establish a presence for Latinos in political debates, they enable receiver communities—in Congress, in government, and among the public—to better recognize, understand, and appreciate Latino interests and concerns. These two functions are critical to Latino inclusion when it comes to political debate and constitute prerequisites if Latinos are to influence the directions those debates take. Page 175 →

Latino Representation in Political Debate Scholars have long viewed debate as fundamental to representation. For example, John Stuart Mill wrote in Considerations on Representative Government, I know not how a representative assembly can more usefully employ itself than in talk, when that subject of talk is the great public interests of the country, and every sentence of it represents the opinion either of some important body of persons in the nation, or of an individual in whom some such body have reposed their confidence. A place where every interest and shade of opinion in the country can have its cause even passionately pleaded, in the face of the government and of all other interests and opinions, can compel them to listen, and either comply, or state clearly why they do not, is in itself, if it answered no other purpose, one of the most important political situations that can exist anywhere, and one of the foremost benefits of free government. (1991, 117) Contemporary theorists who argue that “deliberative democracy” is increasingly essential in an age of growing democratic diversity echo Mill’s emphasis on debate animated by a diversity of viewpoints. Especially in democracies where majority rule results in the systematic exclusion of marginalized interests, like those of women and minority groups, more inclusive deliberation facilitates broader social knowledge, mutual understanding, and decision making that represents a broader spectrum of societal interests (Gutmann and Thompson 2004; Habermas 1984, 1996; Phillips 1995; Young 2000). A number of researchers suggest that descriptive representatives can enhance the representation of minority groups in processes of deliberation and that the impact of descriptive representatives is most evident in their contributions to deliberation. Representatives from politically marginalized groups such as Latinos introduce the perspectives, concerns, and experiences of these groups to deliberative processes where they were previously peripheral or neglected. When representatives give greater, more authentic voice to groups through the representation of social perspectives, they “enlarge” the representation of those groups (Walsh 2002). Representing the perspectives of marginalized groups is particularly important in contexts Page 176 →of “uncrystallized” interests, where group interests are not evident to members of other groups or to society in general (Mansbridge 1999). Representing the perspectives of groups such as Latinos adds “additional questions and fuller social knowledge” to deliberative processes that might otherwise exclude Latino viewpoints (Young 2000, 141). In the context of the broader representative process, deliberation is most often conceived in terms of the debate surrounding major issues on the policy agenda. Processes of deliberation help to identify key problems and alternatives. They help to frame debates and determine the meaning of policy initiatives. Deliberation helps to define key stakeholders or interests. For Latino representation, then, deliberation is important to the extent that it identifies the impacts of policies on Latinos, identifies and emphasizes Latino priorities, or explains the meaning of policy issues from a Latino perspective. Such contributions are essential if Latinos are to have a seat at the table during policy debates. Although I focus empirically on contributions to political debate in this chapter rather than on processes of deliberation per se, the relevance of research on deliberation to this inquiry is clear, as is the

potential for Latino representation in debate to impact Latino inclusion and influence in Congress.

Latino Representation in Speeches to the U.S. House of Representatives “On entering the House of Representatives of Washington one is struck by the vulgar demeanor of that great assembly,” Alexis de Tocqueville scoffed in his 1835 classic, Democracy in America (2000, 234). Debate on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives holds no historical position of high repute. Even if decorum in the House has improved since the early nineteenth century, the quality of debate may not be significantly better. As David Canon notes, “Speeches on the floor are typically made in front of a nearly empty chamber” (1999, 187). In spite of these shortcomings, speeches retain a position of rhetorical importance in the contemporary Congress and offer insight into both patterns of representation in congressional debate and the relationship between descriptive representation and substantive representation. Representatives—some more than others—spend significant amounts of time on the House floor debating legislation, offering tributes, criticizing the presidential Page 177 →administration, and adding new issues to the congressional agenda. The speeches they give are closely monitored by at least one audience—the staffers in congressional offices across Independence and Constitution Avenues from the Capitol. C-SPAN now brings congressional speeches into homes across America, exposing the public to daily floor proceedings in a way the Congressional Record alone never could. A brief review of literature offers support to the argument that floor speeches provide significant windows on representative behavior and can offer important insight into patterns of Latino representation. Despite the lonely atmosphere in which most floor speeches are delivered, Canon asserts that floor speeches shed light on the perspectives representatives hold on issues related to race and representation. Echoing Hall (1996), Canon argues that “activities such as speaking on the floorВ .В .В . reveal something important about member preferencesВ .В .В . consistent with Richard Hall’s theory of participation with its focus on вЂrevealed intensities’” (1999, 188). Canon’s work demonstrates that a substantially larger portion of the speeches given by African American representatives contain racial themes than do speeches delivered by white representatives (189–90). Research also indicates that African American representatives make unique deliberative contributions in statements made in committee. Katrina Gamble shows that black representatives raise minority issues related to policies that lack overtly racial implications but nevertheless disproportionately affect minorities by voicing support for civil rights with greater consistency and force (2005, 110, 111). Gamble also demonstrates that black representatives are more likely to defend minority interests in cases where doing so is not politically advantageous, not unlike Latino representatives with their defense of immigrants (111). In her analysis of speeches during debate over major issues before the 104th Congress, Katherine Cramer Walsh similarly argues that “women enlarge the scope of representation in Congress by bringing perspectives to House floor debate that are not as readily or as authentically presented by their male colleagues” (2002, 390). To explore how Latino descriptive representation is associated with the substantive representation of Latinos in congressional speeches, my analysis examines the speech patterns of 78 representatives from districts where Latinos constituted at least 20 percent of the population during the 109th Congress. This sample included all 27 Latino representatives who served in the 109th House of Representatives and constitutes the population of legislators who served districts with Latino populations exceeding Page 178 →the national average by 50 percent. (Latinos comprised approximately 12.5 percent of the U.S. population at the time of the 2000 Census.) Not unlike my analysis of Latino representation in press releases in chapter 3, this sample is designed to focus comparison between the Latino representatives and non-Latino representatives with the greatest incentives to represent Latino constituents. Of the 27 Latino representatives, 6 were Republicans and 21 were Democrats. The remaining 51 representatives (19 Republicans and 32 Democrats) were non-Latinos. A total of 3,791 policy speeches were accessed through the Government Printing Office’s Congressional Record service online and coded for analysis. Nonpolicy speeches, such as those relating to procedural matters, were excluded from consideration. Multiple contributions made by a speaker during a single legislative debate and given during a single legislative day, were considered as single speeches. Because the Printing Office website returned only 200 results per search, search results for 15 representatives were effectively capped, and it is likely that not all policy speeches for these members were identified.2 But because this problem was associated with less

than a fifth of cases, and given the relatively large sample of speeches obtained for these members, it is likely that a reliable sample of speeches given by each representative in the sample was obtained. For most members in the sample, all policy speeches given during the 109th Congress were identified. As in my analysis of press releases in chapter 3, each speech was coded according to whether it represented a Latino Interest or a Latino Perspective. Speeches represented a Latino Interest when representatives took positions on policies that would both impact Latinos disproportionately compared to more privileged groups and impact Latinos positively. Speeches represented a Latino Perspective if Latino concerns were employed to frame discussions of issues, if they emphasized the impacts or potential impacts of policies or proposals on Latino populations, or if they employed Latino experiences to explain the meaning or purpose of policy positions. Within the sample, 449 speeches were identified as representing Latino interests, and 213 speeches were identified as representing Latino perspectives. A total of 158 speeches represented both. Latino representatives gave 213 of the speeches that represented Latino interests (47 percent) and 151 of the speeches that represented Latino perspectives (71 percent).3 Figure 5.1 provides a snapshot of the issues addressed in Latino-interest speeches. Ninety-two of 449 Latino interest speeches (just over 20 percent) Page 179 →addressed immigration. Seventy-four speeches (more than 16 percent) addressed civil rights or discrimination issues. Seventy-one Latino-interest speeches (about 16 percent) were symbolic tributes. Sixty-six speeches (nearly 15 percent) addressed labor and economic issues. About 11 percent of Latino-interest speeches addressed foreign affairs issues, 9 percent addressed education issues, 7 percent addressed health issues, and 6 percent addressed other issues. Fig. 5.1. Latino Interests in Floor Speeches, Selected Members, 109th Congress A speech by Representative Gene Green (D-TX) illustrates the representation of a Latino perspective through a discussion framed by Latino concerns. In a speech supporting hate crimes legislation, Green emphasized a Latino viewpoint on the issue: “The history of immigrants coming to this country teaches us that when one particular ethnic group comes to this country in large numbers, that group becomes the target of false suspicions and contempt.” The bigoted characterization of immigrants, Green stressed, like that depicted in a video game where players are supposed to shoot “caricatures of Mexicans crossing our borderВ .В .В . only incites needless hatred and creates more confusion on an issue that is already complicated” (Congressional Record, June 13, 2006 [H3797]). While hate crimes may be committed against individuals from many different groups Page 180 →for many different reasons, Green’s speech illustrates their meaning from a Latino point of view, underscoring the concerns of Latinos in relation to prejudice-based violence. A speech by Representative Hilda Solis (D-CA) opposing privatization of Social Security illustrates the representation of Latino perspective through a discussion of policy impacts. According to Solis, 46 percent of older Latinas depend entirely on Social Security in retirement; only 33 percent of Latinas have retirement income from savings or assets; and 60 percent of Latinas over the age of 65 would live in poverty without Social Security.В .В .В . Latina moms rely heavily on their Social Security monthly benefits to provide for their families, especially if their husbands become injured or die.В .В .В . The work injury rate for Latinos in 2000 was 16.7 percent compared to 11 percent overall. In 2003, the rate of fatalities for Latino workers was 13 percent higher than the rate for all workers. (Congressional Record, April 28, 2005) Solis’s speech illustrates what social security means to Latinos as a population employed in disproportionately dangerous occupations and with disproportionately fewer savings. Finally, a speech by Representative Solomon Ortiz (D-TX) illustrates the representation of Latino perspective through speaking from experience. To clarify his support for extending the Voting Rights Act, Ortiz recalled the challenges he faced during his first campaign for public office. “My public service,” he said, “began before some of you were born.В .В .В . My mother took out a $1,000 loan—a fortune for a migrant family in

1964—to bankroll my first campaign. The money was mostly to help offset the poll tax for Hispanic voters, whose priority was putting food on the table for their families.” Ortiz segued from discriminatory poll taxes to a provision in the bill that addressed a contemporary barrier to access—guarantees of ballots in languages other than English. “This provision” he argued, “helps citizens navigate complicated rules and ballot language. This House should pass the billВ .В .В . so it will continue to provide justice to communities that have long suffered from discrimination” (Congressional Record, July 13, 2006). Each of these speeches makes clear how in addition to taking positions that represent Latino interests, the representation of Latino perspectives Page 181 →may serve an important representative purpose in congressional deliberation. Beyond marking out their author’s policy preferences, these speeches add important elements that show how Latinos perceive discrimination in certain aspects of popular culture, explain the dependence of many Latinos on major government programs, and articulate how Latinos view the legacy of voting rights in America. The speeches help to clarify and crystallize Latino interests by providing an important frame of reference, by establishing empirical relationships, or by explaining the social meaning of a policy. Such contributions appear essential to giving Latinos representation not just in terms of support for their policy preferences but by amplifying their voices in political debate. I analyze speech patterns using negative binomial regression to estimate the number of speeches representing Latino interests or perspectives. Similar to the models used in previous chapters, I examine the effects of independent variables that indicate whether speeches were delivered by a Latino Representative, the Latino Population proportion of each representative’s congressional district, whether the representative was a Republican, Black Representative, or Female Representative, and the Constituency Conservatism of each representative’s district. In addition, I control for the Number of Speeches identified for each representative, because more prolific speakers had greater opportunity to represent Latinos. Table 5.1 illustrates that Latino members of Congress represented both Latino interests and Latino perspectives in more speeches than did their colleagues. These differences were greatest, in terms of both magnitude and significance, with regard to the representation of Latino perspectives. Predicted probabilities derived from the analysis reveal that on average, Latinos represented Latino interests in 4.4 speeches and Latino perspectives in 2.7 speeches. By comparison, non-Latinos in the sample represented Latino interests in 2.7 speeches and Latino perspectives in just .6 speeches. Figure 5.2 displays predicted probabilities by both party and ethnicity. Not surprisingly, the Latino population in congressional districts was also a major predictor of Latino representation in congressional speeches. On average, each increase of .1 in Latino population proportion was associated with an increase of approximately .85 speeches that represented Latino interests and .33 speeches that represented Latino perspectives. These findings indicate that standard electoral incentives substantially shape responsiveness to Latinos in congressional deliberation. Two important ideological indicators—whether the representative in Page 183 →question was a Republican and the conservatism of district constituencies—also affected Latino representation in congressional floor speeches. On average, Republicans gave approximately three fewer speeches that represented Latino interests than their Democratic colleagues. Meanwhile, a 10 percent increase in President George W. Bush’s 2004 vote share was associated with a an approximately .25 drop in the number of speeches that represented Latino perspectives. Page 182 → Fig. 5.2. Latino Representation in Speeches, 109th Congress Table 5.1. Latino Representation in Congressional Speeches, 109th Congress Negative Binomial Regression Latino Interest Latino Perspective Latino Representative 0.468* 1.474***

Latino Population Republican Black Representative Female Representative

(0.205)

(0.265)

2.081*** (0.611) в€’1.132*** (0.319)

2.365** (0.784) в€’0.883 (0.480)

0.096 (0.320) в€’0.217

0.097 (0.378) в€’0.393

(0.181) Constituency Conservatism в€’1.288 Number of Speeches Constant lnalpha Number of Observations Pseudo R-Square

(0.739) 0.021*** (0.002) 0.115 (0.368) в€’1.985*** (0.524) 78 0.225

(0.278) в€’2.183* (0.950) 0.025*** (0.003) в€’1.349* (0.585) в€’1.766*** (0.445) 78 0.290

Note: *p < 0.05 **p < 0.01 ***p < 0.001. Two-tailed significance tests. Standard errors in parentheses. Neither race nor gender significantly affected Latino representation in the speech patterns examined. As expected, Latino representation in speeches was positively associated with the number of speeches given by representatives. Figures 5.3 and 5.4 illustrate the tandem effects of descriptive representation and Latino population in congressional districts on speeches that represent Latino interests and perspectives.4 As figure 5.3 shows, in districts where Latinos made up 20 percent of the population, Latino representatives gave nearly three speeches representing Latino interests, while non-Latino representatives in such districts gave fewer than two speeches representing Latino interests. Representation of Latino interests in speeches increased with Latino population for both groups and diverged only slightly. For example, in districts where Latinos comprised 60 percent of the population, Latino representatives gave slightly more than six Latino-interest speeches, while non-Latino representatives delivered approximately four Latino-interest speeches. Differences based on representative ethnicity were greater with regard to the representation of Latino perspectives. As figure 5.4 shows, in districts where Latinos comprised 20 percent of the population, Latino representatives delivered approximately 1.7 speeches that represented Latino perspectives, while non-Latinos gave fewer than .4 speeches that represented Latino perspectives. Only in districts where Latinos comprised more than 60 percent of the population did non-Latino representatives give at least one speech representing Latino perspectives. By comparison, Latino representatives in such districts gave an average of more than four speeches representing Latino perspectives. Consistent with the preceding analyses in this book and given the fact that the largest Latino populations tend to be represented by Latino representatives, these findings suggest that Latino members of Congress are disproportionately responsible for representing Latinos in floor speeches, particularly with regard to the representation of Latino perspectives. The Page 185 →findings further suggest that instances where Latino representatives represent Latinos on the House floor, such as those highlighting immigrant contributions to the armed forces, are not merely isolated incidents. Rather, they constitute part of a systematic pattern. Page 184 → Fig. 5.3. Representing Latino Interests in Floor Speeches, 109th Congress Fig. 5.4. Representing Latino Perspectives in Floor Speeches, 109th Congress

Reaching Out to House Colleagues through “Dear Colleague” Letters Each day, congressional interns arrive at their desks to find stacks of mail and faxes and E-mail in-boxes bursting with correspondence. Along with constituent mail and interest group propaganda, “Dear Colleague” letters are ubiquitous among these mountains of written communication. The “Dear Colleague” letter is official correspondence circulated within the U.S. House and/or Senate by members, committees, or officers of these institutions. Those authored by U.S. representatives and senators often seek support and cosponsorship of yet-tobe introduced legislation, support for or opposition to bills or amendments looming on the legislative calendar, and to raise awareness about major public policy issues either directly or by advertising educational events. Such letters help not only to build momentum behind certain policy proposals but also to identify their authors with the issues, positions, and information they discuss and to contribute to the broader process of policy deliberation. “Dear Colleague” letters have been in common usage for at least a century but gained popularity in the House after rules changes permitted members to cosponsor legislation (Straus 2008, 2–3). H.Res. 42, which passed the House during the 90th Congress (1967–69), permitted bill sponsors to add up to 25 cosponsors. H.Res. 86, passed in 1979, made cosponsorship in the House unlimited. Although “Dear Colleague” letters continue to circulate through the internal mail system on Capitol Hill, they are increasingly circulated electronically through E-mail and by posting them on a public exchange folder that is accessible to both representatives and staff. In 2007, more than 12,000 “Dear Colleague” letters were sent electronically in the U.S. House (Straus 2008, 5). “Dear Colleague” letters serve a number of purposes related to legislative representation. Obviously they identify a representative’s priorities and positions—much as do speeches and other activities, including bill sponsorship. So to some extent, these communications are useful to Page 186 →agenda-setting efforts because they call attention to policy issues. Because the primary purpose behind most “Dear Colleague” letters is to build supportive policy coalitions, they also serve a purpose in legislative decision making (see chapter 6). But more relevant here are qualities that illustrate the contributions “Dear Colleague” letters make to legislative debate. These letters present important arguments that make persuasive cases for support. Unlike floor speeches, which are delivered to both congressional and public audiences via C-SPAN, “Dear Colleague” letters are primarily intended for consumption by representatives and their staffers. The interests and perspectives represented thus offer a useful indicator of the arguments that representatives wish to communicate in processes of horizontal deliberation with their fellow legislators. In sum, these letters clearly come closer than most other publicly available documents to illustrating how representatives prioritize issues and constituencies and how they attempt to influence their colleagues’ policy thinking and legislative support. Based on my findings regarding patterns of Latino representation in floor speeches, Latino representatives might be expected to represent Latinos in their “Dear Colleague” letters by prioritizing Latino-interest issues, taking Latino-interest positions, and articulating Latino perspectives. The remainder of this section examines examples of letters sent by Latino representatives to corroborate this notion.5 The “Dear Colleague” letters I examine were distributed during the 109th Congress (2005–6) and were obtained in August 2007 from the public exchange folder accessible to U.S. representatives and their staffers. As was the case with bill sponsorship and floor speeches, Latino representatives addressed a wide array of issues in the “Dear Colleague” letters they authored. And as with other indicators examined for this project, Latino-interest issues featured prominently among their subjects. For example, Representative Hilda Solis (D-CA) sent letters discussing violence against women in Guatemala, reproductive rights in Latin America, Hispanic immigrants affected by Hurricane Katrina, a proposed Salvadoran American Day resolution, and the Communities of Color Teen Pregnancy Prevention Act, among others. Rep Joe Baca (D-CA) sent letters bringing attention to the ill treatment of Latino forestry workers, opposing a budget reconciliation bill that proposed cuts to food stamps, and discussing the importance of the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children. Representative Ruben Hinojosa (D-TX) and Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL) collaborated across party Page 187 →lines on a letter inviting colleagues to a briefing on the impact of Talent Search, Upward Bound, and GEAR UP education programs in the Hispanic community. Representative Raul Grijalva sent a letter

cosigned by Representative Ros-Lehtinen and Delegate Luis Fortuno (R-PR) seeking cosponsors for the Families Learning and Understanding English Together (FLUEnT) Act, H.R. 2923. These and other similar letters distributed by Latino representatives to their colleagues demonstrate their efforts to reach out to colleagues on a range of issues important to Latinos. Letters seeking cosponsors on Latino-interest legislation often contained important information designed to increase readers’ understandings of the needs and interests of the Latino community. Grijalva’s letter encouraging support for his FLUEnT Act noted that 11 million U.S. adults struggle with language barriers, that 17.9 percent of U.S. households speak a primary language other than English, that nearly 5 percent of U.S. adults do not speak English well or at all, and that studies indicate that adults in family literacy programs are more likely to remain employed. These pieces of information illustrate the needs of limited English proficient individuals about whom many members of Congress were likely uninformed. The letter suggests that literacy programs, such as the one proposed by the legislation, can have impacts that representatives are likely to favor regardless of their ideological leanings. In sum, the letter strikes a clear, conciliatory tone designed to portray immigrant populations as communities that do not desire to Balkanize America society but rather seek to join and prosper in it. Solis sent letters inviting colleagues to join her sponsorship of the Cesar E. Chavez Study Act, a bill to examine the possible incorporation of sites associated with the labor leader into the National Park System, and a resolution (H.Con.Res. 90) condemning the widespread abduction and murder of young women in Ciudad JuГЎrez, Mexico, across the border from El Paso, Texas. Both letters sought to inform a wider congressional audience about struggles that are relatively unknown outside the Latino community. In the case of the Chavez Study Act, Solis’s letter provided a brief biography of Chavez and a description of his work for better wages and working conditions on behalf of mostly Latino migrant farmworkers. In tribute to a man who “honored the land and those who diligently worked to grow its fruits,” Solis sought greater congressional recognition of a figure who stood up for many of the Latino community’s most vulnerable members. Solis’s letter seeking cosponsors on H.Con.Res. 90 discussed the more than Page 188 →470 unsolved murders and abductions in Ciudad JuГЎrez between 1993 and 2005. The horrific crimes committed just across the border from El Paso provide an important example of the adversity faced within Mexican communities. Such humanitarian crises illustrate the desperate conditions that often encourage emigration northward from Latin America. Hinojosa wrote to colleagues seeking cosponsors for the Next Generation Hispanic-Serving Institutions Act. During the 108th Congress, the same legislation secured 115 cosponsors. During the 109th Congress, Hinojosa sought to further expand awareness and understanding of Latino educational needs. His letter noted that by 2025, Latinos would account for half of all new hires. For this Latino workforce to be productive, the letter implied, serious progress had to be made in terms of Latino higher education. Although Hispanics comprise a rapidly growing proportion of college-age individuals, the letter noted, they “continue to have the lowest levels of education attainment of any group in the country. In the 1999–2000 academic year, Hispanics earned only 6 percent of bachelor’s degrees, 4 percent of the master’s degrees, 3 percent of doctor’s degrees, and 5 percent of first professional degrees.” Failure to increase Latino educational attainment, the letter warned, would put the country’s economy at risk. By illustrating the need for educational investment in Hispanicserving institutions and tying this need to future economic growth, the letter helps readers to see the connection between Latinos’ need for education and broader economic concerns. Latino representatives also used “Dear Colleague” letters to communicate with their colleagues about the substance of upcoming votes. During the Republican-controlled 109th Congress, these letters often sought opposition to policy proposals. For example, Baca’s letter opposing budget reconciliation sought to clarify “misinformation” by some Republicans that undocumented or “illegal” immigrants were receiving food stamps. The falsehoods, Baca charged, could “confuse Members into punishing legal permanent residents, many of whom are in the process of becoming citizens.” Republicans had proposed tighter eligibility for food stamps that would leave out many legal immigrants. By proposing to increase the waiting period for immigrants to attain food stamp eligibility from five to seven years, Baca argued, Republicans issued an “insult to the many Legal Permanent Residents who are fighting and dying for us in Iraq. To equate Legal Permanent Residents with illegal immigrants is wrong and especially offensive to the many members of Congress

who earned their citizenship Page 189 →from this immigration status.” Baca’s letter clearly sought to counter, in both fact and tone, comments that conflated immigration statuses for the purpose of curtailing food stamp eligibility. Further, the letter sought to build momentum against a budget reconciliation bill that would endorse such a policy. On another Republican-sponsored immigration bill, H.R. 4437, the CHC sent a “Dear Colleague” letter urging representatives to oppose the bill. The letter criticized H.R. 4437 as an “attack on immigrants,” arguing that it “curtails immigrant and refugee rights, makes being an undocumented immigrant a crime, virtually eliminates due process by expanding the number of immigrants who can be detained without bond and deported without seeing a judge, restricts citizenship and creates new and unprecedented grounds for deportation and denial of admission.” Instead, the CHC urged Congress to consider comprehensive immigration reforms “committed to fixing the issues at hand and make immigration law reflect the real needs of families and businesses while reflecting America’s history of valuing the contributions of immigrants.” Here, Latino representatives sought not only to build opposition to an immigration proposal but to alter the tone, tenor and direction of the immigration debate by joining together to speak on this issue. Whether seeking supporters or building opposition, these letters share certain attributes related to Latino representation. Beyond expressing preferences, they offer reasons and contain substantial information to inform readers about Latino concerns. Some “Dear Colleague” letters were specifically devoted to enhancing the quality of deliberation about Latino issues. Representative Solis’s letters related to violence against women in Guatemala and immigrants affected by Hurricane Katrina, for example, sought to more fully inform representatives and their staffers about underreported issues affecting Latinos. The first invited readers to a briefing on the failure of the Guatemalan police to investigate, prosecute and punish those responsible” for more than 2,000 recent murders of Guatemalan women. The letter ultimately sought to build understanding and support for foreign policy initiatives that could force greater accountability on the part of Guatemalan authorities. The letter on Latinos affected by Hurricane Katrina directed readers to a New York Times article, “Double Trap for Foreign Workers.” “More than 150,000 Hondurans, 100,000 Mexicans, and thousands of others live and work in the Gulf Coast,” Solis wrote. Many whose economic situation had been precarious prior to the storm Page 190 →now found themselves jobless, penniless, homeless, wary of arrest, and uncertain about what to do next for fear of being deported or separated from family members. The broader point, Solis implied, was that vulnerable immigrant populations were suffering in the wake of the disaster and that their suffering would be especially crippling given a broken immigration system that forced many to live in the shadows. Hinojosa wrote to invite representatives and staffers to a briefing on the impact of federal education programs for Hispanic students. Cosigned by Ros-Lehtinen, the letter noted, Last year alone, [Talent Search, Upward Bound and GEAR UP] programs helped nearly 2 million students become academically prepared to enter into and succeed in college. Not providing funding for these key programs significantly decreases the likelihood of college access, enrollment and graduation for many minority and low-income students. For the Hispanic community, elimination of these programs would be especially devastating. Hispanic students have experienced the largest gains from participation in programs such as Talent Search, Upward Bound and GEAR UP. This is especially important in light of the fact that Hispanics are the fastest growing segment of the American population and yet only 10% complete a four-year degree. The letter offers a sense of urgency and a perspective that unites the impacts of federal programs on Latinos with broader concerns about socioeconomic trends. These and other letters illustrate that Latino representatives’ impact on the representation of Latinos in congressional deliberation extends beyond the House floor. Many of the “Dear Colleague” letters authored by Latino representatives take congressional policy deliberation in directions it does not normally go—to issues, positions, and perspectives that receive little advocacy from non-Latino representatives.6 This adds one more piece of evidence that Latino representatives play an important role in representing the interests and perspectives

of Latinos in congressional deliberation. These efforts can be found in collective as well as individual patterns of deliberative contributions and may have consequential effects on perceptions, attitudes, and even policies. Page 191 →

PBS’s The War and the CHC’s Fight for Latino Inclusion “Take a bow, Hispanic activists,” grumbled the Washington Times editorial board on May 24, 2007. “Not only did you persuade Ken Burns to tamper with his already completed 14-hour World War II documentary The War, but you have also set a precedent under which filmmakers will never be certain whether their work is their own or the virtual property of pressure groups” (Washington Times Editorial Board 2007). Hispanic advocacy organizations, prominently aided by the CHC, had lobbied hard throughout the spring to secure representation of Hispanic veterans of World War II in the upcoming Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) documentary. Fueled by justifiable indignation, Hispanic veterans wondered why their experiences received not even a mention in the original film. But their ire was directed more generally at a pattern of exclusion and neglect in popular media that time and again rendered their contributions invisible. “Our country’s historians have, either by omission or neglect, excluded our accomplishments from our history books,” charged Antonio Morales, national commander of the GI Forum, a Hispanic veterans’ organization. “Our sacrifice in WWII is too important for too many people to be ignored” (C. Rodriguez 2007a). Washington’s conservative paper was, perhaps not surprisingly, unsympathetic. But although the efforts of the GI Forum, CHC, and other organizations failed to win unanimous approval in the court of public opinion, one thing was certain: America heard their message. Frustration about exclusion from The War was deep-seated for many Latino veterans. As advocates repeated throughout the effort to secure Hispanic inclusion in the film, Latinos had played an important role in World War II. Somewhere between 250,000 and 500,000 Latinos—no official records exist to confirm an exact number—served in the U.S. military during the war, a number disproportionate to the share of Hispanics in the U.S. population at the time. “Hispanic participation was higher than any other minority group,” asserted a March 29, 2007, press release from the office of Representative Ciro Rodriguez (D-TX) (2007a), which continued, “Hispanics earned more medals of Honor, per capita, than any other minority group. There were 13 medals of Honor awarded to Latinos in WWII.” The American GI Forum stated strong opposition to the film in light of its omissions. “The PBS documentary The War must be re-edited and re-cut to include the voices and narratives of Hispanic WWII veterans Page 192 →and accurately reflect their contributions and sacrifices,” the organization asserted. “If they refuse, the broadcast of the Ken Burns documentary during Hispanic Heritage Month must be stopped” (Morales 2007). The organized effort to raise awareness about the omission of Hispanic soldiers from Burns’ documentary began after a November 2006 event at the National World War II Museum in New Orleans that featured a trailer for The War. During a question-and-answer period following the screening, several audience members asked the film’s codirector/producer, Lynn Novick, whether the film featured the stories of female, Native American, or Latino members of the U.S. armed forces. In each case, Novick answered that the film did not include such stories, and a subsequent communication from Burns’s publicist to Dr. Maggie Rivas-Rodriguez, a University of Texas journalism professor, author, and director of the U.S. Latino and Latina World War II Oral History Project, confirmed the omissions. Rivas-Rodriguez, whose organization had been working to collect and archive oral histories of Hispanic veterans of World War II since 1999, quickly began to alert leaders in the Hispanic veteran community. “I sent out maybe 25 E-mails to people I thought would know how to stop this train wreck,” Rivas-Rodriguez (2014a) recalled. One of the first individuals Rivas-Rodriguez contacted for help in publicizing the issue was Gus Chavez, a veteran and volunteer with U.S. Latino and Latina World War II Oral History Project. “Gus Chavez was key, as he has a great instinct for organizing. He is the one who contacted the GI Forum,” Rivas-Rodriguez (2014a) explained. Also among those Chavez in turn contacted was his congressman, Bob Filner (D-CA), chair of the House Veterans’ Affairs Committee. Filner (2007) responded with a February 21, 2007, letter to PBS

president and CEO Paula Kerger that urged the network and Burns to reconsider the omission of Hispanics from the film. Around the same time and with some prodding from Rivas-Rodriguez and other activists, the issue began to receive attention in the press. On February 9, 2007, Carlos Guerra (2007b) published a story in the San Antonio Express News that reviewed the contributions of Latinos during World War II and Rivas-Rodriguez’s extensive work documenting that history and related how activists had learned that Latinos received no attention in Burns’s upcoming documentary. The story was picked up by other papers and received attention in cities from New York to Denver to San Diego (Huff 2007; Mariscal 2007; Ostrow 2007). As word spread Page 193 →and advocacy organizations began contacting their representatives in Congress, members of the CHC took note. Over the next six weeks, through meetings with stakeholder organizations, the CHC began to formulate a strategy to influence PBS to take notice of the issue and bring about a resolution that would satisfy Latino veterans. In late March, the CHC met with representatives from PBS to discuss Latino concerns about the Burns film. During the meeting, the CHC emphasized PBS’s responsibility to serve the public by providing accurate information, a responsibility that included ensuring that minority viewpoints were portrayed alongside more dominant narratives. Incorporating Latino viewpoints into the upcoming World War II documentary, they stressed, was part of this responsibility (Congressional Hispanic Caucus 2007). PBS responded on April 11 with a proposal to improve its relationship with the Latino community and to listen to suggestions for incorporating Latino perspectives in the film. The proposal met with skepticism from a number of Latino organizations unsure whether it meant that Latinos would be included (Gamboa 2007). The CHC convened meetings with 11 different Latino advocacy organizations over the following week and compiled a list of recommendations (Congressional Hispanic Caucus 2007). Latino advocacy organizations left an April 17 meeting with PBS officials “gratified by apparent assurances that changes to the main documentary were forthcoming.” But on April 18, PBS appeared to change course when programming director John Wilson clarified that although Latino documentarian Hector GalГЎn had been hired to assist in the production of material for the project that featured Latinos and the new footage would be broadcast along with the film, The War was complete and would not be recut to include Latino perspectives (Farhi 2007b). Kerger (2007) clarified the broadcaster’s positions in an April 20 letter to Ciro Rodriguez of the CHC’s Veterans Task Force. Although new content would be created with “the same aesthetic scheme, music and overall appearance as the rest of the film” and would be “a permanent addition to the series in all its forms, ” she wrote, “the already completed film remains intact. The addition can be incorporated without recutting the existing film because there is room available to present the new content within the time that had been scheduled for the broadcast.” The major sticking point in subsequent negotiations related not so much to whether Latinos would be included but to how they would be Page 194 →included. Although Wilson asserted that “to the viewer at home, [the additions] will be part of the same contiguous experience [with] the same tone and tenor and production qualities” (Farhi 2007b) as the rest of the film, the compromise disappointed Latino advocacy groups. The organizations desired a seamless integration of Latino stories into the film rather than inclusion in footage outside its main body. As Raul Tapia of the GI Forum told the Washington Post, “It does not satisfy our concerns to be an amendment or some kind of addendum. [Latino veterans of World War II] are not an addendum. They stood up for their country and we are standing up for them” (Farhi 2007b). In a letter to the CHC, the GI Forum’s Morales (2007) appealed for assistance in pressuring PBS to make deeper concessions on the issue. “Mr. Burns has proposed a solution that will in effect segregate our stories,” Morales wrote. In a nod to the serious freedom-of-speech issues intertwined in the larger debate, Morales asserted that PBS also had the responsibility to provide inclusive programming: “PBS—an American institution with a public mission—appears to have abdicated its responsibility to provide historically accurate programming under the banner of вЂartistic license’ to Mr. Burns. This lack of accountability in the use of public funds is unacceptable to us and we believe it is also unacceptable to you.”

The pressure from Latino advocacy organizations put the CHC in a compromising position. In addition to clear and legitimate issues related to artistic freedom, some at the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) also questioned whether congressional involvement in the issue constituted improper federal interference with the public corporation’s mission to provide content independently (Jensen 2007). And CHC members did not desire a direct confrontation with PBS that would weaken the institution. Along with most Democrats, the CHC generally supported PBS’s mission. Although some advocates urged the caucus to focus on the public mission—and public funding—behind the film, the CHC was loath to escalate the confrontation to leverage further concessions on the documentary. As one staffer who worked closely on the CHC’s strategy recalled, “At no time did the caucus as a whole threaten PBS’s funding.В .В .В . [T]hat’s something that would have set off a totally different dynamic” (Staffer E 2007). Unwilling to open up a broader conflict with PBS (and provide ammunition for Republican efforts to defund PBS), the CHC pursued direct dialogue with PBS and worked to publicize the issue and expand interest group participation in negotiations regarding Latino inclusion. Page 195 →The CHC responded to Kerger’s April 20 letter the same day, taking the position that “the only appropriate course of action is that the documentary entitled The War fully incorporate within the body of the documentary the integral role of Hispanics” (Baca and Rodriguez 2007). PBS’s proposal is a “profound disappointment,” the letter asserted, and “fails to appropriately acknowledge the story of the Hispanic soldier.” Senators Ken Salazar (D-CO) and Robert Menendez (D-NJ) met with Kerger the following week to reinforce the CHC message (C. Rodriguez 2007b). Behind the scenes, the CHC and Latino advocacy organizations contacted major corporate sponsors of The War. Anheuser-Busch and General Motors had contributed approximately $5 million of the film’s total $8 million budget. The Hispanic Association on Corporate Responsibility, representing 14 other Latino business organizations, met with representatives of the corporations in Miami on May 1 to urge them to withdraw sponsorship from the project. Continuing with corporate sponsorship of an unaltered film, suggested association chair Manuel Mirabal, would not go unnoticed among Latinos. “If they plan to do so, to put it bluntly, they will not be held harmless,” he indicated, implying that Latinos might boycott the corporate sponsors (Farhi 2007c). The CHC took a similarly stern tone in a May 3 meeting in Washington with representatives from General Motors, Anheuser-Busch, the Bank of America, and the CPB, asking for their assistance in negotiating a more satisfactory compromise with Burns on the inclusion of Latinos. In an “emotional” meeting, the CHC reiterated that corporate support for an unaltered film would be unacceptable to Latinos. CPB president Patricia DeStacy Harrison told reporters after the meeting that it was clear that “as individuals and as a group, [Latinos] are going to have a long memory” (Jensen 2007). Anheuser-Busch contacted Burns the same day to urge further discussions with the CHC, GI Forum, and corporate sponsors (C. Rodriguez 2007b). General Motors spokesperson Ryndee Carney echoed those sentiments, saying, “We strongly encourage all parties to continue discussions” (Jensen 2007). On May 10, Burns met with the Hispanic Association of Corporate Responsibility and the American GI Forum to seek a resolution to the controversy. With the unanimous support of the CHC, representatives of the two organizations negotiated with Burns for twelve hours, eventually emerging with an agreement that “enabled both sides to declare victory” (Farhi 2007a). Burns described the plan to add new content as “an additionalPage 196 → layer of story telling” and expressed confidence that the new stories could be “incorporated in a way consistent with the film’s focus on individual experiences and in a way that means nothing in the film that already exists will be changed.” Not all activists were satisfied with the vague terms of the agreement. Rivas-Rodriguez, who had helped instigate the protest, said, “I’m not sure how [Burns’s] position has moved from what he said last month.В .В .В . [U]ntil we get some clarification, we’ll withhold judgment” (Farhi 2007a). Although the agreement essentially ended the showdown between the CHC and PBS, it did not end controversy over the film. Immediately after the agreement, a chorus of critics raised questions about what the agreement actually meant. In a May 12 column for the San Antonio Express News, Carlos Guerra quoted GalГЎn, whom

Burns and Florentine Films had hired to assist in creating the new Latino veteran content: “As far as placement and all those concerns, I have been asking but no one can give me a clear answer.” “We’ll wait and see,” Guerra concluded. “And we hope this is a lesson Burns and PBS won’t have to learn again” (Guerra 2007a). Burns ultimately added approximately 29 minutes of footage to the film, including interviews with two Hispanic veterans and one Native American veteran. The additional footage aired in short segments at the end of three of the series’ six episodes following the appearance of text on the screen: “More than sixteen million American men and women would serve in uniform during the War. They came from everywhere and each had a story to tell.” Burns characterized the change as “more than we were asked and expected to add” and suggested the Hispanic groups had erred in assuming that the film was intended to be a comprehensive history of the war. “We made a film in which we were not attempting to find out what made people distinct and different but what made them the same,” he said. For many Latino activists and CHC members, inclusion in the film represented a victory, although the appearance of the new footage outside the main body of the episodes, like Burns’s assessment of the controversy, rang hollow. In a handwritten note to staffers scrawled on a July 12, 2007, Washington Post clipping that discussed the resolution, Representative Charles Gonzalez wrote, “Circulate this to the CHC with my observation that Burns’ quotes are disappointing.” This saga is noteworthy for a number of reasons, not the least of which is that many members of Congress and congressional staffers devoted substantial time and effort over a period of months to a nonlegislative initiativePage 197 → that was ultimately resolved in a way that fully satisfied no one. Why would Latino members devote such energy to this issue given that many others were competing for their attention? If Latino representatives recognized the importance of the issue to their Latino constituents, why did more similarly situated non-Latino representatives not become involved? And what, aside from the limited additions of Latino content to the film, was achieved through the efforts of the CHC and Latino activist groups? Interviews with representatives and congressional staffers help to shed light on the motivations behind CHC involvement in the issue. According to a staffer who served a central role in coordinating the CHC actions issue, the common attitude among CHC members was a sense of obligation to stand up for Hispanic veterans: “The caucus felt that it was their responsibility to assist. The CHC said, вЂDo you know what? If we as Hispanic members of Congress don’t do it, if we don’t put our foot down and say this is enough, who is going to do it for us?’” (Staffer E 2007). Such feelings of obligation are cited frequently in research on the relationship between descriptive and substantive representation that argues that group consciousness and associated feelings of linked fate compel representatives to act for the groups they represent descriptively (Minta 2011; Dawson 1994). Several Latino representatives echoed the staffer’s observation that they automatically recognized the issue of inclusion in The War as a priority. One member related, What you saw with the Ken Burns documentaryВ .В .В . it was so uniformly understood that all the Latino members, regardless of where they’re from, felt slighted that Latinos would be neglected when they have served to the degree that they have defending this country. Some things are real basic to Latino communities, and service in the army, navy, air force, marines—it doesn’t matter—it’s huge! We immediately came together because that’s a sensitive issue and everyone [in the CHC] relates to it. Was it really something with great impact on social or economic policy? Probably not, but we understood it was so important to the mental, emotional well-being of all Latinos not to be slighted, not to be segregated, not to be left out of such an important piece of work. (Representative J 2007) Another Latino representative expressed the attitude that the CHC was essential to publicizing Latino exclusion from The War because non-LatinosPage 198 → would not do it. “No [non-Latino representative] would pick [the issue] up,” he asserted. “It wouldn’t have any play because [many non-Latino] people don’t know the history.” According to this representative, protesting Latino exclusion from the film formed part of a

more comprehensive effort to ensure that Americans recognized Latino service in the U.S. military dating back to 1812, a phenomenon that has essentially been ignored because “whoever is in control tells the history,” and Latinos had never had much ability to shape historical narratives. Getting Latino history right, the member implied, was essential to improving contemporary attitudes toward Latinos and to allowing Latinos to claim their rightful place in American society (Representative Q 2007). The notion that Latino representatives were essential actors in the effort to publicize Latino exclusion from The War was apparent in my discussions with non-Latino representatives. One non-Latino Democrat had previously been unaware of the controversy and interpreted the CHC’s interest in the issue in terms of interest group politics: This is true for every special interest group. Usually you’ve got an organization that only survives by folks contributing to it, and if you’re not doing anything, then folks aren’t going to be a member and aren’t going to support you, and therefore you’ve got to be perceived as doing something.В .В .В . You’ve got to be perceived in this case as representing the interests of the Hispanic community, and this is probably a pretty good issue to be working on. (Representative X 2007) Representative X implied that he recognized the politics of the issue but did not share the same visceral sense of responsibility toward Latino veterans that was evident in the words and actions of Latino representatives. When asked if he thought the issue would have received congressional attention without the actions of CHC members, another non-Latino Democratic representative responded, Probably not. My guess is it would take an organization like the Congressional Hispanic Caucus to raise such an issue. I don’t know that Anglos would quite understand the matter or be as motivated by it as the Hispanic representatives. There might be some non-HispanicsPage 199 → who would, but I don’t think with the same intensity. (Representative I 2007) This observation describes well the participation in the effort I observed from non-Latino representatives. After all, the first official congressional act to urge Latino inclusion in The War came from Representative Filner, an Anglo. But although he expressed genuine interest in and sympathy for the Latino veterans’ cause, his participation in the effort was not sustained. Later in the interview, Representative I emphasized that non-Latinos would be unlikely advocates on issues like Latino exclusion from The War primarily because such issues are not highly prioritized by non-Latinos: “Most members would say вЂI’ve got lots of stuff to work on. I’m solving problems with Iraq, I’m solving energy problems,’ and this would not necessarily be a priority for most politicians” (Representative I 2007). The representative’s assessment was particularly interesting given his perception of Latinos as a constituency. He observed, The Hispanics in Texas, and I think this is true in other states, are very pro-national-defense, very patriotic—much like your white constituents. When I did all the work for the National Veterans’ Cemetery and would have press events, the Hispanic press would always show up and cover what I was doing for the veterans because the Hispanics took such great pride in their service. (Representative I 2007) That the representative could on the one hand recognize the importance of veterans’ issues to Latinos but on the other acknowledge Anglo representatives’ lack of interest in issues like The War points to the importance of experience as a key factor linking descriptive and substantive representation. For while Latinos’ interest in veterans’ issues may have been apparent to any representative who was paying attention, the real underlying issues surrounding The War were discrimination, exclusion, and lack of recognition. Latino representatives who had not served in the military shared the critical feeling of exclusion with Latino veterans as a consequence of personal experiences with unequal treatment.

While the evidence suggests that Latino representatives were more motivated to secure Latino inclusion in The War, it is not entirely clear Page 200 →whether their efforts had a substantive effect and if so, exactly what that effect was. According to several interviewees, the effort to secure greater Latino inclusion in the film was part of a broader assertion of the importance of considering Latinos when depicting historical events. For example, one staffer who worked closely on the issue related, In the long term, the goal is full inclusion. Now, the directors and corporate sponsors know that they need to do everything possible—especially if they’re going to be doing a documentary on such a topic—to go to the communities and truly incorporate everything they can. They don’t want this to happen to them—to be put in the same position as Ken Burns.В .В .В . The CHC truly put pressure on some of these corporate sponsors, and the sponsors didn’t anticipate the amount of controversy. One in particular has already said to Ken Burns that they were going to fund his next documentary but to ensure that [he] includes every single minority community in the film. (Staffer E 2007) The staffer acknowledged the thin line between demanding inclusion and infringing on artistic freedom but defended the caucus’s strategy because the organization worked indirectly through the media and corporate sponsors rather than directly attempting to control the filmmaking process. Like the Anglo member who questioned whether Latino inclusion in The War would constitute a priority for most representatives, this staffer expressed mixed feelings about whether the issue warranted the substantial CHC effort it received: “I never envisioned it to be the long-standing issue it became. This really engulfed about two months of my time, in addition to all the other stuff I was doing.” But because the issue provided the CHC with a high-profile opportunity to stand up for Latino inclusion and to assert its influence within the new Democratic House majority, he argued that the effort had been worthwhile. Furthermore, he believed that the CHC’s efforts had not fallen on deaf ears. In addition to media coverage, the staffer noted the Latino community “knows that the CHC was there for them and fought for something they felt was necessary.” Moreover, the effort had garnered the attention of non-Latinos in Congress. The staffer mentioned a list of non-Latino representatives, including Mike Honda (D-CA), Filner, and Charles Rangel (D-NY), who supported the CHC’s efforts. Page 201 →From outside Congress, views that the effort raised awareness about Latino inclusion are also evident. Rivas-Rodriguez (2014b), who helped bring initial attention to the lack of Latino content in The War, observed several years later that the issue cut across religious, class, racial, and ethnic lines and crystallized for many the need for greater inclusion. People who had never been activists were mobilized by the efforts of Latino advocacy organizations and the CHC. As a result, PBS has become noticeably more inclusive. Many documentaries and historical programs that would never have aired before were reconsidered and aired by local PBS affiliates. In the future, documentarians will be more mindful of Latino inclusiveness. Viewed from this perspective, efforts to gain Latino inclusion in The War had two important effects that went beyond the initial goal of a broadcast that told a more complete history of the experiences of American World War II soldiers. First, they helped to mobilize certain sectors of the Latino population that are usually apolitical around an issue of discrimination. Second, they led to greater efforts by broadcasters to ensure inclusive programming in general. But did broadcasters indeed begin to air more inclusive or Latino-oriented content? Though it is not possible to prove a direct connection, PBS’s Latino-oriented programming appears to have expanded since 2007. Vme TV, a Spanish-language broadcast network affiliated with PBS, launched on March 5, 2007, about the time controversy over The War began to capture CHC attention. The documentary series American Experience aired Roberto Clemente (2008), a film chronicling the life and career of the Hall of Fame baseball player, and A Class Apart (2010), a film chronicling a critical civil rights victory for Texas Hispanics that stemmed from the Supreme

Court’s Hernandez v. Texas decision (1954). The documentary series Independent Lens has aired short films on America’s first all-female mariachi band (CompaГ±eras, 2008), the bigotry that met Hispanic soldiers on their return from World War II (The Longoria Affair, 2010), the budding career and trying life of rapper Priscilla Diaz (P-Star Rising, 2010), efforts to eliminate Mexican American studies from the Tucson, Arizona public school curriculum (Precious Knowledge, 2012), a Mexican circus family (Circo, 2012), the struggles of Latino/a students in the United States Page 202 →(The Graduates, 2013), and the coming of age of Mexican American girls in Laredo, Texas (Las Marthas, 2014). The news program Frontline featured a program on the sexual abuse of immigrant women working as migrant farmworkers (Rape in the Fields, 2013). And Latino Americans, a sixhour documentary covering the more than 500-year Latino experience in what is now the United States, aired on PBS in September 2013. Funding for many of these films as well as others airing on Point of View, Voces, and other series on PBS comes from Latino Public Broadcasting (LPB), a nonprofit organization funded by the CPB. LPB supports the development, production, and distribution of educational television that represents Latinos or addresses Latino issues. LPB was founded in 1998, and between 1999 and 2013, the organization sponsored 107 films (about 7 per year). Between 1999 and 2007, the LPB sponsored an average of 6.7 films per year, a number that rose slightly to 7.8 films per year from 2008 to 2013. The increase of about 1 film per year provides only limited evidence of increased prioritization of such projects by CPB. The CPB has also focused increasingly on special programs oriented toward increasing program diversity. Beginning in 1990, the Independent Television Service partnered with PBS to fund public television programs with the goals of expanding diversity and promoting innovation. By 2012, that project was funded to the tune of $15 million annually, up from $11.8 million in 2009 (Corporation for Public Broadcasting 2009, 2012). Efforts to increase funding for the National Minority Consortia, of which LPB is a member, have also occurred in recent years. Annual funding for the consortia went from $3.2 million in 2009 to $7.65 million in 2012 (Corporation for Public Broadcasting 2009, 2012). In 2010, the Diversity and Innovation Fund was established as an independent entity, with funding levels of $7 million annually in 2011 and 2012 (Corporation for Public Broadcasting 2011, 2012). Patricia Harrison (2014), the CPB’s president and CEO, recently testified before a House Appropriations subcommittee, “CPB strategically focuses investments through the lens of what we refer to as the вЂThree D’s’—Digital, Diversity and Dialogue. This refers to support forВ .В .В . content that is for, by and about Americans of all backgrounds.” While these projects devoted to Latino history and culture certainly help to improve the profile of Latinos on PBS and other publicly funded media, most are arguably not the type of presentations sought by Latino veterans in the controversy over The War. CHC members and others had argued vigorously for seamless inclusion rather than separate treatment. Page 203 →So increased inclusion of Latinos in projects that appeal to a more general population may provide a better view of the type of inclusion sought. There is some evidence that Burns has become more inclusive of Latinos in his filmmaking. During the controversy over The War, critics pointed out that Latinos were also conspicuously absent from other marathonlength Burns documentaries including the 19-hour Jazz and the18-hour Baseball. New School music professor Bobby Sanabria declared, “Burns doesn’t even acknowledge [Latinos] existed in Jazz”; “Latinos were there from the freakin’ beginning of jazz in New Orleans, and he gave us less than three minutes,” essentially ignoring the influential Latin jazz tradition (Huff 2007). Similarly, Burns devoted just six minutes to Latino players in Baseball. But in his 2010 “10th Inning” update to Baseball, imagery of Caribbean sandlot baseball appears behind the opening credits, presaging a prominent discussion of Latin baseball, Latino stars such as Sammy Sosa, and interviews with Latino players, managers, and fans. One 11-minute segment features a discussion of Dominican baseball that explores both inspiring and exploitative dimensions of Latin baseball recruitment. Such elements are practically unavoidable in a film that chronicles an era in which so many of Major League Baseball’s most dominant players come from Latin America. As the film’s narrator notes, by 1997 “fifteen of the players chosen to play in the All-Star game were Latin.” The prominence of Latin American players in the film provides a fitting portrayal of Latino representation in contemporary professional baseball.

In the end, it would be difficult to argue that Burns and others involved in the controversy fully appreciated Latino concerns related to inclusion in The War. After all, long after he had been apprised of the concerns of the CHC and other Latino leaders, Burns argued that reediting the film “would be destructive, like trying to graft an arm onto your child.В .В .В . It would destroy the film” (Jensen 2007). Still, there are good reasons to see the controversy as a success in the larger effort to ensure Latino inclusion in popular culture and American history. It would clearly be an overstatement to suggest that diversification efforts of program producers, funders, or broadcasters constituted a direct response to the efforts of CHC members to secure Latino inclusion in The War or that CHC members are solely responsible for such trends. The efforts of CHC members on the issue of Latino inclusion in historical portrayals occurred within the context of actors, events, and social change that place them in what are at most supportive roles in this drama. But the broader consequences of their actionsPage 204 → in this case should not obscure the quality of representation they provided on the issue of Latino inclusion. Their actions helped to provide a national forum for the issue and credibility to the Latino activists behind the movement. By their own admissions, sympathetic non-Latino Democrats would have made unlikely leaders on the issue. Beyond the forum of congressional deliberation, the efforts of Latino members of Congress almost certainly had an impact on broader public understandings of Latino inclusion in popular media and history. If the Washington Times’s editorial response to the controversy is any indication, then the incident served the critical purpose of raising awareness about the importance of considering Latino perspectives as part of a broader American perspective. To the extent that such efforts help to ensure Latino inclusion in the future, they also bespeak growing Latino influence in political debate.

Representative Ethnicity and Political Debate Representation in political debate is simultaneously necessary and insufficient to achieving the broader goal of representation in the policymaking process. Only with a seat at the table, a consequential voice, can a marginalized group become an effective participant in policy debate. Still, a seat at the table and a voice in a larger cacophony cannot guarantee that others will hear, much less listen. The analyses in this chapter are more about speakers than about listeners. But tree-falling-in-the-woods analogies aside, it seems likely that Latino representatives amplify Latino voices in ways that will not be ignored. The chapter’s analysis of Latino representation in House floor speech patterns presents compelling evidence that Latino representatives influence the content of congressional deliberation. Not only do they appear more likely than their non-Latino colleagues to discuss issues and take positions that reflect Latino interests, they are also more likely to represent Latino perspectives in their deliberative contributions. This latter finding is especially important and carries both theoretical and practical implications. By framing discussions to emphasize Latino concerns, illustrating the impacts of policies or proposals on Latinos, or using Latino experiences to explain how Latinos view political issues, Latino representatives put forward Latino perspectives, striking to the heart of theoretical arguments that descriptive representatives enhance the substantive representationPage 205 → of marginalized groups. Such contributions build knowledge and understanding about Latino interests and help those unfamiliar with Latino interests more fully recognize and appreciate them. For practical purposes, incorporating Latino interests into contemporary processes of policymaking can proceed only if those interests gain a more equal footing with better established and more widely recognized interests. The fact that Latino representatives appear disproportionately responsible for representing Latinos in ways that can build such social and political understanding is a strong indication of their value to the broader objective of enhancing Latino substantive representation. The subsequent analyses of “Dear Colleague” letters and of the CHC’s efforts to secure Latino inclusion in The War bolster the notions that Latino representatives are especially important to representing Latinos in political debate by illustrating that Latino members of Congress actively represent Latinos in official communications off the House floor as well as on it. Such efforts expose congressional colleagues, the media, and the public to issues, concerns, and viewpoints that might otherwise not have been considered. These contributions likely build support for and understanding of Latino-interest policy positions. And as my analysis of the CHC’s response to The War suggests, they may even alter how congressional colleagues and individuals outside Congress view Latinos and Latino interests.

Further research on the substantive impact of Latino representation in deliberation on policy outputs is clearly warranted. The fact that Latino representatives often speak with a different voice than their non-Latino colleagues does not necessarily mean anyone is listening. But as the Latino population’s voice swells in electoral campaigns and consequently in the halls of Congress, the number of listeners will almost certainly increase. The evidence presented in this chapter suggests that Latino representatives will lead the way in articulating the perspectives and interests of Latinos and will play key roles in ensuring that political debates in both public and legislative arenas advance toward fuller Latino inclusion and that Latino voices grow increasingly influential.

Page 206 →

Chapter 6 Advocates and Defenders Latino Representation and Congressional Policy Decisions Small Victories On May 10, 1994, the Smithsonian Institution Task Force on Latino Issues issued a report charging that the nation’s greatest museum complex “displays a pattern of willful neglect toward the estimated 25 million Latinos in the United States.” The report noted that no Hispanic had ever served on the Smithsonian’s governing board; that the institution had dedicated no museum or permanent exhibit to Hispanic art, culture, or history; that exhibits on Latin America were outdated; and that the Smithsonian “excludes or ignores Latinos in nearly every aspect of its operations.” Alongside plans to build museums on the National Mall dedicated to the histories and cultures of both American Indians and African Americans, the report called the Smithsonian’s lack of attention to the contributions of Latinos in America “glaringly obvious” (Holmes 1994). The symbolic value of Latino inclusion among the Smithsonian’s exhibits is palpable, given that Latino interests in contemporary American politics are animated to various degrees by patterns of societal neglect. For example, according to one Latino representative I interviewed, I never saw people and faces and experiences that reminded me of my experiences or my family’s experiencesВ .В .В . when I would look at my textbooks in school, when I would learn about [American] Page 207 →history in class. I knew [Latino history] was out there, I just didn’t know where it was.В .В .В . I think we need to give Latino Americans more play, and Americans more opportunity to see their fellow [Latino] Americans in action. (Representative A 2007) The representative’s desire to see public recognition of Latino achievements makes sense as part of a broader initiative to achieve greater equality for Latinos in all aspects of American life. Although establishing a Smithsonian Institution museum dedicated to the contributions of Latinos would not directly impact Latinos’ many substantive interests, the message that Latinos comprise a valued segment of the American public whose contributions to American society are worthy of preservation as a national treasure would send a powerful—and empowering—symbolic message. If the past contributions of Latinos to the United States are worthy of a museum, surely their contemporary demands for representation are worthy of public attention as well. Although the task force’s report was an embarrassment for the Smithsonian, nearly a decade passed before the advent of any congressional effort to establish a museum dedicated to Latino culture and history. Representative Xavier Becerra (D-CA) took the first step in 2003, during the 108th Congress, by sponsoring a bill to establish a commission to study the potential creation of a National Museum of the American Latino. The bill, H.R. 3292, went nowhere. Becerra sponsored the legislation again in the 109th Congress, and it passed in the House as H.R. 2134, only to die in the Senate. Legislation to establish the commission finally passed both houses of Congress as part of S. 2739, the Consolidated Natural Resources Act of 2008, and was signed into law by President George W. Bush during his final year in office—nearly 14 years after the Smithsonian task force’s original report. In May 2011, the National Museum of the American Latino Commission completed the tasks Congress had assigned. Its final 118-page report identified collections and potential programming for a proposed museum, established historical justification for housing it within the Smithsonian Institution, identified possible locations, outlined a potential governing structure, and estimated the costs of developing and operating the proposed museum. With the commission’s findings in hand, Representative Becerra and Senator Robert Menendez (D-

NJ) sponsored companion versions of the Smithsonian American Latino Museum Act during both the Page 208 →112th and 113th Congresses. The legislation did not receive a vote in either chamber. Now two decades removed from the initial impetus for the creation of a Smithsonian museum dedicated to the history and culture of Latinos, the legislative treatment of the issue offers important insights into the influence of Latino representatives in processes of legislative decision making. Only rarely does a bill pass that represents Latino interests and that can be easily traced to the legislative efforts of Latino representatives. Such policy victories suggest that Latino representatives can affect policy priorities and preferences at the national level through sustained efforts during the agenda-setting and deliberative stages of the legislative process. But arguments linking Latino descriptive representation to substantive representation in legislative decisions often lack substantial, direct evidence that Latino representatives are disproportionately responsible for public policies that address Latino interests. In part, this reflects broader difficulties in linking major public policy outcomes to the efforts of individuals or groups of representatives. With the exception of legislation that bears the names of prominent sponsors, such as the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002, also known as McCain-Feingold after its leading sponsors, Senators John McCain (R-AZ) and Russ Feingold (D-WI), tracing responsibility for policy outputs in Congress is complicated. The indirect influence representatives typically have on final legislative projects puts a premium on understanding legislative nuances that often occur behind the scenes and are difficult to quantify. The languid pace of progress on the museum effort also illustrates clear limits to Latino representatives’ influence on legislative decisions. No law has authorized the museum. Nor has Congress appropriated funds for the project. No ground has been broken. The slow progress toward establishing the National Museum of the American Latino illustrates that Latino representation in legislative decisions must often be measured in terms of small victories and over lengthy periods of time. Thus, focusing exclusively on major legislative victories or data from individual Congresses will often provide an incomplete account of legislative influence. As one Latino Democrat put it, “It’s very easy to hold press conferences to yell and scream about injustices; it’s a lot harder to do things piecemeal and slowly within the workings of Congress.В .В .В . You’re not going to change the way this place works. So you better figure out how it works in order to develop your influence” (Representative J 2007). In an institution that by its nature Page 209 →moves slowly and in an era that finds Congress frequently paralyzed by partisan polarization and political calculation, opportunities to establish a new public policy that is of low priority to most members of Congress are few and far between. Patience in the contemporary Congress—especially for members of the minority party—is a virtue. Finally, the establishment of the National Museum of the American Latino Study Commission and other cases of legislative success tell only part of the story when it comes to understanding Latino representation in legislative decisions. Upholding the status quo in the face of threating policy changes may be every bit as important to Latino representation as passing new legislation. Resistance to legislation that would discriminate against immigrants or language minorities or that would curtail voting rights, for example, can be essential to Latino representation in legislative decisions. Referring to conservative proposals on a range of issues, one Latino Democrat characterized Latino policy successes in exactly this way: “We’ve been playing defense. Our accomplishments [during previous Republican-controlled Congresses] were measured by what didn’t happen.В .В .В . So we can’t point to a piece of legislation” (Representative J 2007). But efforts to defeat policy proposals generally receive less attention and leave fewer paper trails than efforts that shift the public policy status quo. Such cases provide another category of representation in decision making where there is substantial decoupling between the observable efforts of legislators and policy decisions. In this chapter I examine Latino representation in legislative decision making. I define Latino representation in legislative decision making as the extent to which legislative decisions appear to comport with the preferences of a majority of Latino representatives and to which the efforts of those Latino representatives appear to have been pivotal to a particular outcome. Evidence of Latino representation in decision making is strongest when Latino representatives act together to influence legislative decisions, non-Latino representatives do not put forth comparable effort, and a lack of collective effort by Latino representatives could have changed the outcome of a decision. While some may quibble with my conflation of Latino preferences with the collective actions of Latino

representatives, the balance of the evidence presented in earlier chapters suggests that Latino representatives are reliable advocates on Latino priorities and that strong coalitional behavior on their part provides a solid barometer for understanding Latino representation. This chapter extends what we know about Page 210 →the many efforts of Latino representatives to ensure Latino inclusion and enable Latino influence on the policy agenda and in debate to the decisions that can, and sometimes do, shape policy outcomes. As in previous chapters, I pursue a multipronged approach that examines both individual and collective aspects of legislative behavior. Behaviors associated with legislative decision making are typically examined in studies of representation to demonstrate policy congruence between individual legislators and their constituents. Behaviors such as legislative voting are easily observable and widely analyzed. However, as the analysis in chapter 1 demonstrates, such measures are also unsatisfying, both because they produce limited evidence of a relationship and because they possess limited validity for understanding representation that yields political incorporation. Other measurements of influence in legislative decision making are subtler and difficult to quantify but produce better insight into questions about how and why Latino representatives matter in the American political system. I first explore representatives’ perceptions of their influence—this time in relation to legislative decisions that represent Latinos. This approach, used effectively by scholars to study the influence of Latino state legislators, produces a nuanced view and realistic set of expectations about the impact of Latino representatives in Congress on legislative decisions (Casellas 2007; Fraga et al. 2006; Rouse 2013). Generally, interviews revealed the interrelated nature of representation at the agenda-setting, deliberative, and decision-making stages of the legislative process, suggesting that Latino influence in legislative decisions is shaped by efforts to secure Latino inclusion at earlier stages of the process. My interviews with representatives and staffers also made clear that influence in legislative decision making is about both individual and collective effort. Because influence over legislative decisions often (perhaps usually) involves collective efforts to persuade colleagues and build supportive or oppositional coalitions, it is important to consider Latino representation in legislative decisions as a collective enterprise. To this end, I employ both quantitative and qualitative data to illustrate coalition building by Latino representatives—mostly Democrats in the Congressional Hispanic Caucus (CHC), and primarily during the 110th and 111th Congresses (2007–10). While most analyses in this book employ an explicitly comparative perspective to illustrate differences in the behaviors of individual Latino and non-Latino representatives, the section on coalition building focuses Page 211 →mostly on examples of CHC successes and failures with regard to influencing legislative outcomes. Quantitative comparisons are touched on only briefly and relatively abstractly. This portion of the analysis is, therefore, more about understanding the dynamics under which Latino representatives appear to affect legislative decisions than about comparing the influence of Latino and non-Latino representatives. Together, these analyses help to round out the broader picture of Latino representation presented in preceding chapters, illustrating how legislative decision making fits within a larger constellation of legislative behaviors that contribute to substantive Latino representation in Congress.

Influence in Legislative Decisions: The Culmination of a Process As was the case with Latino representation in agenda setting and deliberation, the observations of those closest to the legislative action—staffers and representatives who witnessed deal making behind the scenes—proved useful for understanding the roles played by Latino representatives. I frequently began interviews by asking representatives to discuss their proudest legislative accomplishments. On one level, I was interested in exploring the types of policies that Latino and non-Latino representatives would cite as their most important contributions. But on a more general level, the question was essential for gaining a fuller grasp of the influence legislators perceive themselves as having on legislative outputs—influence that might not be fully evident in the public record. The response of one Latino Democrat illustrates the argument that influence in the legislative process cannot be easily measured using a universal indicator. Nor is legislative influence necessarily observable—at least in the

most readily available data. Following more than a decade of Republican control that during its final year produced an immigration bill (H.R. 4437) that Latinos widely despised, this representative’s statement illustrates how one’s position in the institution shapes his or her perspective on legislative influence. Simple changes in the direction of debate or the apparent removal of threatening policy proposals from the agenda are often considered a victory: Twelve of the 14 years that I’ve been here have been served in the minority, and it’s tough to do a whole lot in minority. You look for Page 212 →small victories. I’d say that the efforts to try to move the debate on immigration reform to the point where we could come up with a comprehensive immigration reform bill have perhaps been the most gratifying. Yet in many respects they are some of the most concealed victories because they are not very obvious. In fact some people say, “Well, you’ve actuallyВ .В .В . lost ground.” .В .В . But I’d argue that given when I came here we had Proposition 187 in California, which was a proposition to deny all sorts of services to undocumented immigrants—starting there at that scenario to where we are today, we’re talking about a comprehensive bill that would address the 12 or so million undocumented immigrants. We’ve made some progress. (Representative A 2007) The representative also viewed his role in defeating President Bush’s initiative to partially privatize social security as a legislative success: I was very involved, for example, on social security—trying to help prevent privatization of social security. So while there wasn’t a bill that I can talk about, I can talk about the defeat of a bill to privatize social security. And I was very involved inВ .В .В . going around the country to talk about that. (Representative A 2007) The same representative also cited accomplishments that address narrow but important parochial issues in his district. In this case, he referred to environmental issues that tend to disproportionately impact communities of color in terms of both health issues and lack of community development. According to the representative, I’ve done some work in the area of brownfields, which are contaminated sites that require remediation in order to be redeveloped. [My district] has a lot of these areas in and around the city.В .В .В . We’ve made some progress to try to make it possible to provide incentives for the business community to restore the sites so they can be used again.В .В .В . We’ve provided some tax credits for those who go in to clean up the site; we’ve allowed, through the tax code, an accelerated depreciation of the cost of cleanup—things that make it more attractive for somebody to go in and remediate the site. (Representative A 2007) Page 213 →This statement reflects the pragmatism of a minority-party member in measuring policy successes that represent Latinos. Restoring brownfields certainly could be considered more directly important to the interests of local business communities, and protecting social security is an interest of many non-Latinos. Yet to the extent that the representative’s efforts improved living conditions in poor Latino neighborhoods, and because Latinos rely disproportionately on social security for retirement income, Representative A’s efforts can be considered realistic achievements for Latino representation by a Latino Democrat with little ability to advance his preferred policy agenda in a Republican-controlled legislature. Representative A’s perception of progress on immigration policy was widespread among Latino representatives and their staffers. For example, a staffer for another representative related, “I have seen progress toward immigration reform every single year. So even though you have to face the failures like the one we went through in the Senate this year [with the defeat of S. 1639 to provide comprehensive immigration reform] we’ve gotten pretty close, and that’s a huge difference from where we were” (Staffer C 2007). Staffer C also indicated that influence on policy decisions must often be measured in small increments over a long period of time: “Every year you seem to take a step closer, despite the occasional setbacks. I wasn’t

around for all of the smaller victories along the way, but [the congressman for whom she works] can rattle off three extensions of” Section I of the Immigration and Nationality Act, which provides for the adjustment of immigration status to permanent residency. Even when Latino Democrats in Congress did not get everything they wanted, as in the Nicaraguan Adjustment and Central American Relief Act (NACARA), which extended permanent residency to a class of Latin American immigrants, passage was viewed as a victory. NACARA more closely reflected the priorities of Latino Republicans than Latino Democrats. The architect and sponsor of the bill, Latino Republican representative Lincoln DГ-az-Balart of Florida, touted its passage among his major legislative accomplishments. Declared DГ-azBalart on his congressional website, One of my proudest days in Congress was November 19, 1997, when the Nicaraguan Adjustment and Central American Relief Act (NACARA), was signed into law. I was the primary author of this legislationPage 214 → which created a process for the obtaining of legal residency for hundreds of thousands of vulnerable individuals who sought safety in the United States for themselves and their families. (2008) Specifically, NACARA permitted Nicaraguans, Salvadorans, Guatemalans, and nationals of former Soviet bloc countries (primarily Cuba) to become legal permanent residents of the United States if they were registered asylum seekers who had arrived in the country prior to December 1995 and remained in the United States for at least five years. Some Latino Democrats were disappointed that the bill did not go further. Staffer C recalled, “A couple of other Central American communities and Haitians got cut out of the deal in the middle of the night. Representative Lincoln DГ-az-Balart and my boss did not get along for a long time after that, because it was DГ-azBalart who cut the deal and cut out the other communities” (Staffer C 2007). But although NACARA fell short of what some Latino Democrats desired and their support for the bill in many cases reflected pragmatism rather than enthusiasm, it also seems clear that Latino representatives generally perceived the policy as a victory. “The first reaction was to be pissed off about [the deal that narrowed the bill’s coverage]. But several hundred thousand people got freedom, so we have to celebrate that.” When asked whether the backroom deal was necessary to get the bill passed, the staffer remarked, “It was a hard lesson about how things were done” in Congress (Staffer C 2007). These statements illustrate the interrelatedness of legislative agenda setting, deliberation, and decision making. Long-term efforts to alter the tone of the immigration debate had sometimes resulted in small, pragmatic policy victories. Aided by a new Democratic majority, Latino Democrats counted a shift in the immigration policy agenda as policy progress. Although such policy victories are incomplete and often unsatisfying, they cannot be completely discounted given that larger victories may have been practically impossible. Influence on legislative decisions that represent Latinos takes many forms, just as it touches many issues and is manifested in both policy support and policy opposition. Latino representatives’ positions within Congress and their expertise offer varied opportunities for legislative influence. The importance of legislative expertise to informing and persuading others was clear when a Latina member of Congress related, Page 215 →You know, typically we haven’t had people with strong corporate backgrounds who are Latinos coming to Congress, so [many Latino members of Congress] tended to be less business oriented.В .В .В . You see a lot of my colleagues doing social justice issues, civil rights issues, housing issues, immigration, labor.В .В .В . Since I have a background that’s completely different than almost any of them, it’s easier for me to talk to Wall Street.В .В .В . I have had colleagues come on the floor because they know my background and ask, .В .В . “Could you give me a tutorial on why this is affecting the stock market?” (Representative U 2007) The congresswoman indicated that the combination of her policy expertise and understanding of Latino concerns

made her an influential voice on issues such as predatory lending. As mentioned in chapter 2, CHC members often took on leadership roles when legislative issues coincided with their committee positions or expertise. Non-Latino representatives and their staffers recognized certain Latino representatives whose expertise and opinions were valuable to crafting legislation that could win the support of other Latino representatives. Examples include Representative Luis GutiГ©rrez (D-IL) on immigration, Representative Ruben Hinojosa (D-TX) on education, and Representative Sylvestre Reyes (D-TX) on border security. One non-Latino Democrat who served a heavily Latino district observed that he needed the backing of CHC members to maintain strong Latino support in his district, and he implied that he often took cues from them on issues such as immigration (Representative G 2007). A staffer in the office of one of the Democratic Party leaders noted that Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (D-CA) office sent staffers to attend CHC meetings. Although this action was probably related to monitoring as well as information gathering, it suggests that Pelosi recognized Latino representatives’ priorities and positions as important to her larger legislative objectives (Staffer O 2007). In other words, the fact that non-Latino representatives often recognized their Latino colleagues as important legislative collaborators on issues in their areas of expertise suggests that building consensus with Latino representatives is important to legislative success, at least on some issues. On some less technical issues, Latino representatives’ efforts to educate other members appeared based more on their status as Latinos than on their policy expertise. One Latino representative framed his successful oppositionPage 216 → to English-only legislation in terms of his efforts to educate non-Latinos about the potential implications of such laws for his constituents: We have worked on many Hispanic causes. [Some members of Congress] were trying to come up with “English only” [laws], and we defeated that with the help of the [Hispanic] Caucus.В .В .В . I’ve told my [non-Latino] colleagues we need to be more tolerant of immigrants.В .В .В . This is something you have to respect—there are a lot of older people who [English-only] would make it very difficult for. (Representative P 2007) The same representative also referred to efforts to influence fellow partisans in the new Democratic majority to help pass policies that would benefit Latinos and the importance of coalition building to those efforts. According to the representative, You still have Democrats who don’t support the immigration billВ .В .В . and might not support the increase of the minimum wageВ .В .В . because some of those Democrats ran in very conservative districts.В .В .В . One of the things we’ve learned is to branch out and network.В .В .В . We learned that we needed a bloc of votes to be able to [influence legislative outcomes]. (Representative P 2007) Because of its small numbers, the CHC frequently teamed up with larger identity-based groups in Congress, including the Women’s Caucus and Congressional Black Caucus, to advance its goals. Anglo representatives also played a critical role in coalitions that support Latino-interest policies. In fact, numerous Latino staffers mentioned the importance of support from Bob Filner (D-CA), Gene Green (D-TX), Lloyd Doggett (D-TX), and others in building successful legislative coalitions. Anglo representatives who have large Latino constituencies can frequently be counted on to endorse Latino-interest policy positions. Support from such representatives appears to broaden the appeal of Latino-interest policy positions to other non-Latino representatives and diminish the extent to which Latino representatives’ policy initiatives are seen only along ethnic cleavages. I frequently observed conscious efforts to bring non-Latino representatives into coalitions on Latino-interest issues, often with the explicit purpose of broadening the political appeal of legislative Page 217 →initiatives. When it comes to decisions that support Latino interests in the contemporary Congress, then, it appears that both Latino and non-Latino representatives may play essential roles in building legislative coalitions. A recurring theme in interviews with staffers and representatives was that while Latino representatives perceive

public policy influence and accomplishments that represent Latinos, they are not always easy to document. Coalition building that occurs by word of mouth and ultimately facilitates the passage or defeat of a policy, for example, is not easily quantifiable. Nonetheless, such influence seems real and tangible. For example, few political scientists would deny the potency of the “Johnson treatment” meted out by Senator Lyndon Baines Johnson toward some of his colleagues to secure acquiescence to his positions. Nor would most deny that the majority of legislative deal making occurs off the record and out of the public eye. Without extensive evidence and high-profile examples of Latino representatives’ influence on “important” policy initiatives, sustaining arguments that link Latino descriptive and substantive representation through the decision-making stage of the legislative process often means focusing on relatively narrow instances of policy influence. Representation in legislative decisions includes influence not only on major decisions to change public policy but also on incremental or symbolic changes and nondecisions that result in the maintenance of the status quo. Although such examples of decision making influence are somewhat underwhelming, they constitute success for legislators who must take a pragmatic approach to policymaking. Individual representatives and even small legislative coalitions such as the CHC have few opportunities to leave behind highly visible legislative legacies. Instead, they must measure their influence in small victories.

Political Context and Collective Influence: The CHC as a Legislative Coalition CHC chair Joe Baca (D-CA) was on the House floor, eyeball to eyeball with Speaker Nancy Pelosi. “You see this board?!” shouted the Speaker, pointing up to the large electronic board which tallies floor votes in the U.S. House of Representatives. “This is against me personally!” she fumed (Yachnin 2007). The November 9, 2007 vote was not going well for the Page 218 →Democratic leadership. The CHC was threatening to derail passage of H.Res. 809, a rule providing for consideration of H.R. 3996, the Temporary Tax Relief Act of 2007. Having just passed a routine motion to close debate and proceed to an immediate vote on the resolution itself, the Democratic leadership was caught off guard by 13 members of the CHC who, in a surprise move, defected to join minority Republicans in voting Nay. Combined with the threat of more CHC defections, the move all but vaporized the small majority Democrats had used throughout the 110th House of Representatives to control legislative proceedings. The rebellious Latino Democrats ultimately changed their votes, securing passage of H.Res. 809 by 220–185 vote, but not before the House majority leader, Steny Hoyer (D-MD), who was also involved in the heated exchange, shouted at Baca, “How dare you destroy this Party?! This will be the biggest loss in the last 10 years!” Baca responded, “And we’re going to keep doing it until you guys get it!” (Yachnin 2007). Baca kept his word. Moments after swerving in the legislative game of chicken over H.Res. 809, he made a motion to adjourn the House. Adjournment would delay final action on the underlying measure, H.R. 3996, until the following week and seriously embarrass a leadership team that usually worked with precision and predictability. Not expecting an immediate vote on adjournment, a number of representatives had already left the House floor. Absent a full Democratic Caucus, and with no time to broadcast the urgency of this legislative emergency, Speaker Pelosi found herself once again besieged by renegade Latino Democrats and in even greater danger of losing control of the House. This time 16 Latino Democrats voted against the wishes of their Speaker, and the CHC came within three votes of shutting the House down before seven CHC members and several colleagues who had joined the protest switched and voted to keep the chamber open (Congressional Record, November 9, 2007; Yachnin 2007). The CHC’s showdown with the Democratic leadership was prompted by a number of causes. The most recent had been a vote the prior evening on appointing conferees to negotiate a conference report on H.R. 3039, the Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act. Tucked into the instructions appointees would carry out in conference committee with their Senate counterparts was a provision accepting Senate language that restricted the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission Page 219 →from prosecuting employers for discrimination on the basis of language. CHC members were furious with their party’s leadership both for accepting a policy they believed would be used to discriminate against Latinos and for failing to inform them

about the provision (Yachnin 2007). Not one Latino representative from either party voted to approve of the appointments, and the measure passed largely on the strength of Republican support, 218–186. The November 8 vote on H.R. 3039 raised the temperature on tensions that had been simmering for some time. Early in the 110th Congress, CHC members anticipated new influence in the Democratic majority. Their hopes had been repeatedly frustrated by the tone-deaf moves of party leaders, who seemed far more interested in bipartisan cooperation and accommodating the electoral interests of conservative Democrats than in the CHC’s policy priorities. The preceding months had left CHC members feeling disrespected and ignored. The caucus was not exercising the influence for which they had hoped. Immigration, a flashpoint in the 109th Congress, was an especially incendiary issue during the 110th. Latino representatives had expected a major change in the tone and direction of policy debate but were repeatedly disappointed. For example, the Democratic leadership had failed to include Latino representatives in negotiations over reauthorization of the State Child Health Insurance Program and removed a provision that would have scrapped a five-year waiting period for legal immigrant children to be eligible for the program. The CHC continued to lobby leadership on the issue for the remainder of the Congress, without success (Soraghan 2008). Party leaders also permitted numerous votes on immigration-related amendments offered by minority Republicans, and even allowed endangered Democrats to demonstrate their conservative bona fides by supporting such measures. For example, Representative Steve King (R-IA) offered numerous amendments during floor consideration of appropriations bills1 to emphasize that no funds allocated by various appropriations bills would go toward the hiring of undocumented immigrants. One staffer speculated that Democratic leaders accommodated such amendment requests because their desire for smooth bipartisan passage outweighed interest in the immigration debate. Focusing on the House Appropriations Committee chair, David Obey (D-WI), the staffer said, “I don’t think he cares that much about immigration one way or another.В .В .В . His goal is to work in as bipartisan a way as possible and to Page 220 →successfully get appropriations bills wrapped up.В .В .В . So his motivations are very different, say, than a number of the CHC members” (Staffer C 2007). Another staffer commented that perceived anti-immigrant amendments were well calibrated to maximize divisiveness within the Democratic Caucus while appealing to the Democratic leadership’s desires to shore up the electoral fortunes of Democrats in swing districts: “Opponents to what the CHC believes in were very well prepared and knew how to couch the issues in ways that made it very difficult for some [Democratic] members” to oppose the amendments (Staffer J 2007). All of these amendments were redundant because such activities were already illegal under federal law, a fact that apparently had little bearing on the measures’ political usefulness. On September 6, 2007, the acting Speaker wearily rejected H.Amdt. 787, which reiterated that “no funds authorized in the bill may be used to hire those people who are not legal to work in the United States” after having accommodated similar amendments to previously considered bills on voice votes. Representative King, the amendment’s sponsor, demanded a recorded vote. The motion carried 263–146, with 80 Democrats voting in favor (Congressional Record, September 6, 2007). Although two relatively conservative Latinos, Representative Henry Cuellar (D-TX) and Representative John Salazar (D-CO), voted in favor of the amendment, most in the CHC opposed it. The constant anti-immigrant drumbeat sounded by such amendments may not have contributed meaningfully to changes in public policy, but many Latino representatives were appalled that their own Democratic leadership would allow the immigration agenda to be controlled by Republicans and furthermore would let Democrats go on record to endorse that agenda. The anti-immigrant votes were particularly galling given that the CHC had worked for months on its own comprehensive immigration reform measure but had been unable to secure party leaders’ support to bring it forward. The seemingly stagnant narrative of the immigration debate, which continued to focus on “illegals, ” “amnesty,” and “border enforcement,” disappointed CHC members who had hoped to move toward more constructive and comprehensive discussions about immigration reform. When Representative Heath Shuler (D-NC) introduced an enforcement-only immigration bill, H.R. 4088, the SAVE Act, on November 6, 2007, the Democratic leadership offended CHC members by failing to rebuke the policy proposal (Yachnin 2007).

The November 8 vote on conference committee appointments to H.R. 3039, which included the instructions to adopt Senate language that would permit employer discrimination on Page 221 →the basis of language, was the last straw. To get the Democratic leadership’s attention and gain influence over policy decisions in the House chamber, CHC members resolved to engage in a collective act of defiance. Such intraparty showdowns were a rarity in the 110th House of Representatives. In fact, 2007 was a banner year for party unity votes.2 That year, 730 votes (60 percent of all recorded votes) occurred along party lines. The Bush administration’s success rate in the Democratic-controlled House was at a record low, just 15 percent. Members voted in agreement with the majority of their party 92 percent of the time, and the majority Democrats emerged victorious on party unity votes 90 percent of the time (CQ Roll Call’s Vote Studies 2014). The CHC’s November 2007 floor protest stands out starkly against such a staunchly partisan backdrop. The event raises important questions about the consistency with which the CHC attempts to influence legislative decisions as well as about the impact of their collective efforts on the decision-making process in Congress. Yet while both the timing and level of conflict in this case of legislative leveraging were exceptional, the broader track record of coalition building and collective pressure by the CHC in processes of legislative decision making are well established. These efforts are thoroughly entwined with and dependent on several institutional factors, among them the partisan status of the CHC as an organization of majority- or minority-party members, the size of the Latino Democratic coalition in relation to the size of the Democratic majority, and the unified or divided nature of party control within the political system as a whole. The balance of this section examines the influence of Latino representatives, primarily the Democratic members of the CHC, on policy outputs during the 110th and 111th Congresses. These two Congresses—the only ones in recent years controlled by Democrats—provide useful cases for examining the dynamics that mediate the influence of Latino representatives over legislative decisions. Members of the CHC find their efforts to collectively influence congressional decisions severely limited when the organization’s members are in the partisan minority. The CHC has comprised only Latino Democrats since the late 1990s, when Latino Republicans left the caucus over differences of opinion on foreign policy toward Cuba. Between 1995 and 2007, Latino Democrats in the CHC had little ability to influence the agendas or decisions of a Republican-controlled House. Achieving policy victories while in the minority generally required substantial work behind the scenes and in committee and laborious bipartisan coalition building issue by issue. When Democrats took control of the House following the Page 222 →2006 elections, the CHC’s ability to collectively influence the interrelated aspects of legislative agenda setting and decision making increased because the organization’s members accounted for a bloc of votes that was critical to enabling the majority Democrats to work their will. As one Latino Democrat put it, “The [Democratic] leadership looks at [the CHC] as a bloc of votes. If you put us all together, we can cause problems for leadership” (Representative J 2007). One of the advantages of being part of a legislative bloc in the majority party, according to Representative J, was that party leaders would sometimes seek out advice from key individuals in the CHC who might not receive the same courtesy without caucus backing: “Suddenly the CHC has something to say about Supreme Court nominees! Never in a million years could a congressman have been invited to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee or effectively blocked an appeals court nominee or been a key player on Census legislation simply because he was Hispanic, but membership in the CHC made those things possible” (Representative J 2007). The attitude that CHC membership enhanced both individual and collective influence was confirmed in a spring 2007 staff meeting I attended during which Democratic Whip James Clyburn (D-SC) discussed the challenge and necessity of uniting a majority party composed of at least seven distinct and critical voting blocs—the Congressional Progressive Caucus, Blue Dog Caucus, Women’s Caucus, New Democrats, Black Caucus, Asian and Pacific Islander Caucus, and Hispanic Caucus. Every group, he suggested, required consideration before leadership could move forward with confidence on a vote. Ironically, the CHC’s impact may be most visible in precisely the situations where it lacks what members view as appropriate or adequate influence—that is, when drastic measures must be taken to gain the attention of a Democratic majority that has ignored the caucus’s wishes. The November 2007 protest suggests that the CHC was not being taken as seriously as its members felt it should have been.

CHC Influence in the 110th and 111th Congresses: Successes and Limitations Before reviewing some of the important albeit less dramatic examples of Latino representatives’ influence in legislative decision making during the Page 223 →110th and 111th Congresses, it is worthwhile to step back and examine the broader impact of Latino representatives on legislative votes. Even when acting together, Latino representatives rarely find themselves in a position to collectively determine legislative outcomes. Only overt legislative brinksmanship is likely to garner much attention, at least from the press. The opportunity for such a legislative showdown was made possible by the relatively unique legislative environment of the 110th Congress: 22 Latino Democrats collectively held the key to legislative victory as a consequence of the Democrats’ slim 233–202 majority. Unlike most recent Congresses, during the 110th Congress Latino Democrats frequently provided the deciding votes on legislation. In fact, the majority coalition of Latino Democratic representatives was larger than the winning vote margin on 118 of the 1,865 votes taken in the House in 2007 and 2008 (just over 6 percent). Eightyone of those votes were procedural roll calls—on motions to adjourn, recommit legislation to committee with instructions, adopt rules governing the debate and amendment process for underlying bills, and so on. Latino support for the Democratic leadership on procedural votes was therefore frequently critical to the majority’s ability to maintain control over the legislative process. Democratic leaders were almost certainly cognizant of this fact, which likely increased incentives to earn the loyalty of Latino Democrats through various accommodations on public policy. The other 37 votes controlled by Latino Democrats involved matters of legislative substance—either bills themselves or amendments to those bills. However, a review of these substantive measures provides little evidence of any pattern of policy influence. Most of the substantive votes decided by Latino Democrats during the 110th Congress reflected deep partisan divisions on issues such as the Iraq War, federal spending, and federal regulations. Only one vote, an amendment sponsored by Representative Cliff Stearns (R-FL) to disallow any funding in the Departments of Commerce and Justice, Science, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act of 2008 for litigation by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission against employers who illegally require that employees speak English, offers a clear-cut case where Latino Democrats cast the deciding votes on a Latinointerest issue. There was also only one case during the 110th Congress in which a majority of Latino Democrats joined with Republicans to deny the Democratic majority a legislative victory. This occurred on September Page 224 →29, 2008, when 14 of 22 Latino Democrats voted against agreeing to a Senate amendment to H.R. 3997, the 2008 Economic Stimulus Relief Bill.3 When the House passed similar legislation as part of H.R. 1424 by a 263–171 vote on October 3, several Latino Democrats changed their positions, and 13 of 22 joined the majority of their non-Latino partisans in support of the measure. The dynamics that governed Latino votes on that issue ultimately related mostly to the tension between desires to rein in Wall Street and protect homeowners struggling with unaffordable mortgages and the need for the House to act to bail out troubled banks to avoid a broader financial meltdown. In contrast to the obvious divisions over the economic stimulus bill, Latino Democrats were united on most votes during the 110th Congress. In fact, they voted unanimously 1,600 times (nearly 86 percent of all votes). At least 90 percent of Latino Democrats voted together on almost 93 percent of votes. This level of unity was high, even during a Congress characterized by historically high levels of partisan unity. Non-Latino Democrats voted in perfect unison on 42 percent of votes. And at least 90 percent of non-Latino Democrats voted together on nearly 91 percent of votes. Given that Latino ethnicity was not associated with ideological voting patterns during the 110th Congress (see chapter 1), the persistent unity displayed by Latino Democrats suggests a pattern of systematic collective behavior in legislative voting. Another question related to the high level of roll call voting agreement among Latino Democrats is whether acting as a coalition had any impact on individual rates of legislative “victory.” In other words, did Latino Democrats find themselves on the winning side more often than non-Latino Democrats? Descriptive statistics reveal that while an average of 94.7 percent of non-Latino Democrats were on the winning side of roll call votes

during the 110th Congress, an average of 95.4 percent of Latino Democrats were on the winning side. A difference-of-means test indicates that the average difference in proportions of Latino and non-Latino Democratic “winners” was significant at the p < .001 level. By banding together, Latino Democrats appear to have slightly increased their rates of legislative victory. Latino Democrats maintained their high rate of unity voting during the 111th Congress. They voted in perfect unison 1,406 times (85.4 percent of all votes), and at least 90 percent of Latino Democrats voted together on 94.5 percent of votes. By contrast, non-Latino Democrats voted in unison Page 225 →43.2 percent of the time, and more than 90 percent of non-Latino Democrats voted together on 88 percent of votes. As in the previous Congress, the average proportion of Latino Democrats on the winning side of votes was also significantly higher than proportions of non-Latino Democrats. During the 111th Congress, 96.8 percent of Latino Democrats cast votes with the winning side of the average roll call vote, while 95.4 percent of non-Latino Democrats did so. Two major changes occurred between the 110th and 111th Congresses. The most obvious was the achievement of unified government by Democrats. Less obvious but perhaps equally consequential for Latino representatives’ influence was the increased size of the Democratic majority in the House. With as many as 258 seats in the majority, the Democratic leadership enjoyed increased options for cobbling together winning coalitions. Small coalitions within the Democratic Caucus were therefore less often in positions to cast deciding votes. The decline in votes decided by CHC members from the 110th to 111th Congresses is a case in point. During the 111th Congress, the CHC cast deciding votes on just 48 roll calls (about 3 percent of the 1,647 total roll calls), down from 118 (6 percent) in the previous Congress. Just 24 of those votes involved substantive questions. However, several votes on which CHC members made the difference were quite prominent. Latino Democrats cast deciding votes on the Affordable Health Care Act no less than four times in 2009 and 2010, making them essential to the Democratic leadership’s and President Barack Obama’s signature policy initiative. Latino Democrats also collectively cast more votes than the margin of victory on H.R. 5175, the Disclose Act, an important campaign finance reform bill; H.R. 2454, the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009, the initiative to establish a cap-and-trade system to address climate change; and a vote to amend a Senate amendment to H.R. 5281 to include provisions of the DREAM Act. All three of those bills later failed in the Senate. The exceptional unity and success of Latino representatives in roll call votes during the 110th and 111th Congresses could correctly be characterized as fealty to the Democratic leadership. Latino Democrats were demonstrably more loyal than their non-Latino counterparts, although the differences were slight in the grand scheme of things. But consistent support as backbenchers reveals little satisfying information about the influence of Latino representatives on legislative decisions. Nor do unique cases of partisan defection shed much light on the influence of Latino representativesPage 226 → on matters of specific interest to Latinos because such protests often occur on decisions that have little or no substantive relationship to the issues over which conflict occurs. Given their relatively unique opportunity and solid record of delivering key votes for Democratic leaders during the 110th and 111th Congresses, what evidence exists that Democratic leaders rewarded those loyalties with opportunities to decide on matters of importance to Latinos? Addressing this question is tricky in the context of two Congresses and without a straightforward method for comparing successes with failures. I therefore rely on several cases where Latino representatives enjoyed some important successes but also endured some legislative disappointments to illustrate their apparent influence over legislative decisions in relatively amenable political environments. This discussion reveals the interrelatedness of agenda setting and deliberation with legislative decision making, the difficulties of tracing legislative influence through the legislative process, and above all how partisan and institutional contexts shape the influence of Latino representatives on Latino-interest policy decisions. Latino representatives achieved success on several key initiatives during the 110th Congress that received substantial attention from the CHC. And the opportunities to decide (or in some cases not decide) were almost certainly facilitated by the sustained representation Latino representatives provided during the agenda-setting and /or deliberative stages of the representative process.

Successful efforts to increase funding and programmatic support for Hispanic-serving institutions (HSIs) of higher learning constitutes one of the most high-profile successes for Latino representatives in recent years and a useful example for illustrating Latino representation in legislative decision making. As discussed in chapter 4, Latino representatives played a central agenda-setting role on the issue of higher education for Latinos, and their actions almost certainly raised the profile and prioritization of the issue. Such efforts were a prerequisite for decisionmaking influence. Without them, the new policies might never have received a vote. Moving HSIs from Title III to Title V during the Higher Education Act (HEA) reauthorization of 1998 marked a major initial victory for supporters of federally supported Hispanic higher education. The legislative basis for this policy change appeared first in H.R. 2495, the Higher Education for the Twenty-First Century Act, which Representative Hinojosa sponsored in September 1997. Sixteen Latino representatives, including Lincoln DГ-azBalart and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL), cosponsored the Page 227 →bipartisan bill. Although H.R. 2495 did not advance out of committee, language establishing Title V of the HEA was incorporated into the House committee report, H.R. 6, the Higher Education Amendments of 1998, which became law in October 1998, a little over a year after Hinojosa initiated the legislative effort. The establishment of Title V offered an opportunity to increase funding for HSIs. From 1995 to 1998, HSIs had never received more than $12 million in annual funding under Title III of the HEA. Considering that more than 170 institutions were eligible to receive those funds, the program clearly lacked sufficient financial support to carry out a meaningful mission. The effort to increase support for greater appropriations was again spearheaded by Latino representatives, including Hinojosa. Republican committee and subcommittee leaders were initially resistant to substantial increases for HSI funding. Hinojosa was told that he could expect at most a 20 percent increase in funding, an amount he rejected as “crumbs” (Representative M 2007). Rather than accept incremental change in the House, Hinojosa sought the help of Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX), an organizer of the Senate Hispanic-Serving Institutions Coalition. She urged more generous appropriations from colleagues on the Senate Appropriations Committee (Representative M 2007). The strategy worked, and $28 million was appropriated in 1998. While he had found opposition in the House, even from Texas Republicans with substantial Latino constituencies, Hinojosa found some senators, including Republicans, more receptive to Latino education objectives. This may have resulted in part from the fact that senators of both parties tend to serve more diverse constituencies and thus find bipartisan cooperation more compelling. Senate members of the coalition continued to cooperate with House backers of HSI funding, and appropriations increased steadily over the next four years (Hutchison 2008). By 2002, the 1998 reauthorization was used to provide $86 million in annual funding to HSIs for 21 new individual development grants, 12 new cooperative arrangement grants, and 157 continuation awards (Wolanin 2003). Although the average size of grants remained modest, support for HSIs was clearly becoming widespread. But when the 1998 reauthorization expired in 2003, Congress was slow to pursue a new reauthorization. While reauthorization of the HEA was being considered in the 108th, 109th, and 110th Congresses, funding to continue HEA programs was provided under the General Education Provisions Act and several Higher Education Page 228 →Extension Acts (Smole et al. 2008). The period was frustrating to Latino representatives who desired to grow rather than simply maintain federal commitments to fund educational opportunities for Latinos. The 110th Congress marked a clear turning point in the effort to increase support for HSIs. As chair of the CHC’s Education Task Force, Representative Hinojosa offered the Next Generation Hispanic-Serving Institutions Act during the 108th, 109th and 110th Congresses. The legislation was designed to expand authorized funding for existing HSI initiatives and to establish a separate program for graduate program funding related to science, technology, engineering, and math. While CHC education initiatives were stymied in the 108th and 109th Congresses, clear progress occurred during the Democratic-controlled 110th Congress. Key to advancing the CHC’s efforts to influence legislation on HSIs was the institutional power that came with majority status. From his new position as chair of the House Education and Labor Subcommittee on Higher Education, Lifelong Learning, and Competitiveness, Hinojosa for the first time had the ability to set an agenda that would shape the policy content of legislative decisions. He made the most of his opportunity. Hinojosa’s primary concern during the 110th Congress was working with Representative George Miller (D-

CA), chair of the Committee on Education and Labor, to reauthorize the HEA. The bill, H.R. 4137, the Higher Education Opportunity Act, built on existing authorizations for HSIs by expanding grant eligibility to include programs providing remedial education and English-language instruction and by expanding efforts to facilitate student transfers from two- to four-year colleges and support for student financial literacy programs. The legislation also established a new competitive grant program for graduate education. These initiatives were, by and large, lifted from the Next Generation Hispanic-Serving Institutions Act. Hinojosa also worked with Miller to pass H.R. 2669, the College Cost Reduction and Access Act. Of particular importance to Latinos was a provision that established and authorized the College Access Challenge Grant program, which would provide an additional $100 million to HSIs annually through FY 2012. The money would be used by HSIs to inform prospective college students about educational opportunities and costs, reach out to atrisk students, assist with federal financial aid applications, provide need-based grant aid to students, assist the efforts of middle and high school guidance counselors, and reduce loan costs. The bill also increasedPage 229 → the maximum amount of Pell Grant scholarships for students with financial need and cut interest rates on needbased federal student loans from 6.8 to 3.4 percent. The strong commitments to HSIs and poor students in these bills contrasted sharply with the neglect of HEA reauthorization in previous Congresses. The efforts of CHC members like Representative Hinojosa to bring attention to HSI funding and to ensure its inclusion and expansion in the HEA reauthorization and College Cost Reduction and Access Act illustrate the influence of Latino representatives on a process that culminated with decisions to invest in Latino education. The representation of Latinos by Latino members of Congress in processes of agenda setting, deliberation, and coalition building behind the scenes clearly helped to structure later choices in adopting those policies. The CHC’s solid coalition-building efforts were also a part of the success. Aided by Hinojosa’s useful institutional positioning as a subcommittee chair, the CHC’s ability to incorporate its policy priorities into major education bills demonstrates members’ influence within the Democratic Caucus. In the words of one staffer for a Latino Democrat, “Had it not been for [Representative Hinojosa] working in committee, advocating for [HSIs] and getting the entire Hispanic Caucus on board, we probably would not be [where we are today in terms of funding]. They were the impetus that got HSI funding up to that level and included in legislation that was then voted on” (Staffer S 2007). The combination of institutional positioning within the committee and the backing of a sizable voting bloc made CHC education priorities impossible to ignore. In addition to important policy victories on higher education, the CHC contributed to the passage of education policy for young children. The caucus heralded H.R. 1429, the Improving Head Start Act of 2007, as a major victory for Latino early education. Noting that 34 percent of Head Start enrollees are Hispanic and that 28 percent are students with limited English proficiency (LEP), the CHC celebrated the inclusion of provisions to set standards for communication with LEP parents, to study how to better serve LEP populations, to enhance Head Start–to–kindergarten transitions for LEP students, and to encourage the hiring of bilingual teachers, among others. The new legislation would help “ensure that the 600,000 eligible Hispanics now un-served by Head Start gain access to a quality pre-school education,” Representative Hinojosa stated in a press release (C. Sanchez 2007b). Page 230 →Although the Farm Bill is not typically viewed as Latino-interest legislation, the CHC ensured that a number of important provisions related to Latino nutritional, educational, and economic interests were incorporated into that omnibus legislation. Key to their efforts was Representative Baca’s “Hispanic Farm Bill,” H.R. 2401. Although Baca’s bill did not make it out of committee, another measure, H.R. 2419, the Food, Conservation, and Energy Act of 2008, contained a number of provisions derived from Baca’s initiatives. These ranged from increasing funding for fresh fruits and vegetables in school lunches and expanding after-school nutrition programs to facilitating access to food stamps and authorizing increased funding for agricultural research at HSIs. The bill also funded programs to increase diversity in farming by supporting programs to assist minority and socially disadvantaged farmers to the tune of $150 million.

One legislative victory related directly to the congressional representation of Latinos, specifically those living in U.S. territories. H.Res. 78, which granted five delegates from American Samoa, the District of Columbia, Guam, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands the right to vote in the Committee of the Whole, passed the House on January 24, 2007. Several Latino Democrats voiced their support for the action in a press release issued by the CHC: “Today we voted to change our rules and give a voice to over 4 million Hispanics in our territories and the District of Columbia” (C. Sanchez 2007a). Although territorial delegates continued to lack full voting rights in the House in the 110th Congress, their ability to vote on amendments on the House floor increased Latino representation and, given that a majority of those delegates caucused with the Democratic Party, strengthened the majority’s hand in controlling the legislative process. The House also passed bills that represented Latino interests related to social inclusion and recognition. These bills included symbolic legislation condemning violence against Guatemalan women (H.Res. 100) and recognizing the significance of Cinco de Mayo (H.Res. 347). In addition, legislation to study the creation of a National Museum of the American Latino and proposing to examine potential historic sites associated with Hispanic labor leader Cesar E. Chavez for designation within the National Park System (H.R. 359) became public laws. Overall, Latino representatives enjoyed broad success in their efforts to pass legislation bringing attention to Latino problems, cultural contributions, and leadership. Although these particular laws and resolutions did not directly affect Latinos’ substantive Page 231 →conditions, their symbolic value is clear. The CHC’s success in passing these initiatives signaled the prominence and influence of Latino interests in the legislative process during the 110th Congress. The CHC also endured legislative disappointments during the 110th Congress that mark progress toward Latino priorities but illustrate the limits of Latino representatives’ ability to influence policy outputs. A number of Latino-interest bills that passed the House, Senate, or both did not become laws. The Children’s Health and Medicare Protection Act (H.R. 1362), which passed both houses of Congress, contained a number of CHC-priority provisions targeted toward improving the health of Latino children. These included enrollment and retention practices to accommodate LEP individuals, restoring to states the option of covering legal immigrants, granting states greater flexibility in determining the citizenship status of child applicants, and providing new measures for assessing program quality for racial, ethnic and language minorities. The legislation also sought to expand financial eligibility for Medicare Parts B and D; required collection of data on health outcomes by race, ethnicity, and primary language; and created a demonstration project for reimbursing services targeted toward linguistic and cultural minorities, among other provisions. Although President Bush vetoed the legislation, the success of Latino representatives in incorporating these provisions provides further evidence of Latino representatives’ influence during the 110th Congress. The CHC initiative to reform immigration policy illustrates the bounds of Latino representatives’ influence. In spite of their substantial efforts (see chapter 4), Latino representatives were profoundly disappointed by Democratic leaders’ unwillingness to move forward with immigration reform during the waning months of the Bush administration. The CHC’s inability to force the issue on its most pressing priority clearly indicates an important limit to Latino representatives’ influence on legislative decision making. Even cosponsorship by several Republicans, including most Latino Republicans in the House, was insufficient to convince the Democratic leadership that voting on the STRIVE Act would not jeopardize the reelection campaigns of vulnerable party members. Still, the coalition the CHC built around the comprehensive immigration reform initiative arguably had other, subtler effects on House decision making. As the list of policy achievements demonstrates, Latino representatives influenced the content of a wide array of measures. Their constant lobbying on the immigration issue almost certainly improved Page 232 →the group’s bargaining position in other areas, given that accommodating Latino priorities on education, health, nutrition, and so on was more politically attractive to Democratic leaders. As the November 2007 floor protest by the CHC illustrated, the organization was interested not only in passing a comprehensive immigration reform plan but also in defeating piecemeal immigration enforcement legislation and keeping perceived anti-immigrant bills off the floor entirely. Initiatives designed to compel local and state authorities to cooperate with federal immigration authorities (H.Amdt. 294 to H.R. 2638), to prevent localities

from passing ordinances that would prevent police officers from reporting immigration information to the federal government (H.Amdt. 676 to H.R. 3093), to facilitate building border fences (H.Amdt. 274 to H.R. 2638), and to “prevent illegal immigrants from owning or renting housing built by funds from the affordable housing fund” (H.Amdt. 216 to H.R.1427) were exactly the types of policies Latino representatives wanted taken off the agenda. When the CHC finally reached its breaking point in November 2007 and openly challenged Democratic leaders, the protest appeared to reinforce the CHC’s broader position on preventing punitive immigration policies from reaching the House floor. The language that brought the confrontation between Latino Democrats and the Democratic leadership to a head ultimately was removed from H.R. 3039 (McCutcheon and Lyons 2009, 154). And the “anti-immigrant” amendments that sparked so much ire among CHC members disappeared from floor consideration for the remainder of the 110th Congress. The CHC’s legislative influence looked somewhat different during the 111th Congress. The CHC’s top priority, comprehensive immigration reform, again went nowhere despite high hopes. The CHC did come very close to passing the DREAM Act. As suggested in interviews with representatives and staff, this narrow loss could in many ways be interpreted as progress. But the failure of Democrats to pass the DREAM Act or other major immigration legislation, even under unified Democratic government, indicates that Latino representation in the substantive sense, like the influence of Latino representatives, remained limited. The CHC took credit for few policy successes that related directly to Latino interests during the 111th Congress. In fact, the few policy victories discussed in CHC press releases were not related to policies that specifically benefited the Latino community. The Small Business Jobs Act and the Affordable Care Act are cases in point. The CHC argued that the Small Page 233 →Business Jobs Act of 2010 (H.R. 5297), which was designed to assist Small Business Administration borrowers by ensuring that they could acquire loan terms that would enable them to repay, would positively affect many Latino business owners (Velasquez 2010). There was no public indication that any policy aimed specifically toward Latinos was contained within the bill. The organization’s support for the Affordable Care Act was tepid, as many of the members desired a more aggressive policy based on stronger public involvement and less reliance on private insurance companies. The CHC chair, Representative Nydia VelГЎzquez (D-NY), for example, spoke at a July 30, 2009, rally of Congressional Progressive Caucus4 and Tri-Caucus5 to assert that the organizations’ members could support nothing less than comprehensive health care reform with a “strong, robust, public option” (Congressional Progressive Caucus on Health Care 2009). Again, support for the ACA among CHC members appeared to be far more about ideological and partisan politics than about Latino representation. Almost without question, the biggest legislative victory on an issue of disproportionate interest to Latinos during the 111th Congress was the passage of DREAM Act provisions in a vote that amended a Senate amendment to H.R. 5281. Latino representatives provided 25 of the Yea votes in a roll call that was ultimately decided by a 216–198 vote. The unanimous support for the measure provided by Latino Democrats, along with the support of three Latino Republicans, made the difference between passage and failure. But the subsequent failure of the measure in the Senate underscores the circumscribed nature of this achievement. At first blush, the fact that the CHC enjoyed relatively few victories during the 111th Congress on issues where Latino interests predominated appears somewhat paradoxical, given that Democrats increased their majority in both houses of Congress following the 2008 elections and achieved unified government with the election of President Obama. One might have expected, as many in the CHC likely did, that Latino priorities would enjoy significant policy success in such an environment. Instead, however, the organization’s diminished clout within a larger House Democratic Caucus and the partisan prerogatives of a unified Democratic government appear to have combined to limit the CHC’s influence on legislative decisions. While diminished clout within the majority party likely reduced CHC influence on the content of legislation—Latinos generally lacked the numbers to cast deciding votes during the 111th Congress—the dynamic of Page 234 →unified government almost certainly compounded the organization’s difficulties. Party loyalty was less openly challenged by Latino Democrats during Obama’s first two years in the White House than it had been during the 110th Congress. Presidential priorities such as health care reform consumed the

policy agenda—and the energies of congressional leadership. While Latino representatives’ votes were at times essential to Democratic policy victories, little evidence indicates that accommodating CHC priorities was part of the coalition-building recipe. For example, CHC members were infuriated by provisions of the Senate version of the Affordable Care Act that barred undocumented immigrants from purchasing health insurance at full cost from state exchanges (Kady 2009; National Immigration Law Center 2014). But in the end, they supported the legislation without so much as a rhetorical concession from the Obama administration on Latino legislative priorities (B. Smith 2010). When contrasted with the legislative victories achieved in the previous Congress, the nature of Latino representatives’ policy successes in the 111th Congress—which occurred primarily as supporters of broader partisan initiatives—illustrates the extent to which legislative and political environments affect and mediate the qualities of Latino representation in legislative decision making. Latino representatives’ diminished willingness to challenge party leadership in Congress during the 111th Congress almost certainly relates to the importance placed by Democrats generally on supporting President Obama’s initiatives during his first term. Embarrassing the House Democratic leadership into running a tighter legislative ship, as Latino Democrats had done during the 110th Congress, was far less audacious than the prospect of derailing the legislative agenda of the first unified Democratic government in 14 years. The gravity of this commitment can be observed in the political risks Latino Democrats took to support their party’s policy priorities. Three Latino Democrats who helped provide crucial votes on major party initiatives such as the Affordable Care Act—Solomon Ortiz (TX-27), Ciro Rodriguez (TX-23), and John Salazar (CO-3)—paid a particularly steep political price and lost 2010 reelection bids at least in part because of their voting records. The dominance of a small number of high-profile issues during the 111th Congress also clearly contrasted with the aggressive and multipronged legislative strategy pursued by Democrats during the 110th Congress. The volume of legislative productivity during the 110th Congress was in some sense predictable given that Democratic agendas had been bottled up for Page 235 →12 years. The legislative initiatives of Latino and non-Latino Democrats alike benefited from this environment. By the 111th Congress, Democrats had already seized many long-awaited legislative opportunities. Still, Latino priorities that remained unaddressed—most prominently, immigration reform—were either intentionally or unintentionally crowded out by other initiatives. In a very real sense, Democratic leaders simply did not view many Latino priorities as essential—or perhaps even helpful—to advancing the party’s interests. The CHC wielded observable but limited influence during both the 110th and 111th Congresses. Although the organization lacked the ability to force through its most controversial priority, comprehensive immigration reform, the CHC achieved legislative victories in a number of other critical policy areas. The organization’s successes in pushing forward its priorities during the 110th Congress stand in contrast both to the gridlock experienced during previous Congresses on issues such as HEA reauthorization and legislation to study a potential National Museum of the American Latino and to the submergence of its priorities during the 111th Congress. The CHC also appears to have been effective in using its numbers to shape the content of congressional legislation by keeping certain policy proposals from coming to a vote. Finally, the overwhelming support Latino Democrats gave to the Democratic agenda in the House during the 110th and 111th Congresses suggests something more than simple loyalty. Rather, Latino representatives acted strategically to extract limited policy accommodations and achieved real if limited legislative influence.

Representative Ethnicity and Legislative Decision Making Observers interested in the impact of Latino representatives tend to gravitate toward one relatively simple question: What difference do they make? Typically, the “difference” of greatest concern relates more to substance than procedure. In other words, the Latino representation in which most observers are interested occurs in substantive public policy outputs more than in procedure and process within legislative institutions. The findings of this chapter suggest that Latino representatives can affect public policy on a substantive level. But the influence they exert over policy outputs is thoroughly intertwined with their efforts to influence legislative agenda setting and deliberation in ways that ensure the inclusion of Latino interests.Page 236 → To appreciate Latino representatives’ influence on legislative decisions, then, one must view decision-making behaviors in the

context of broader legislative and political processes. Representatives and staffers I interviewed supported the notion that legislative influence results from efforts throughout the legislative process. Latino representatives frequently cited their histories of bill sponsorship in conjunction with their discussions of legislative influence. Perseverance over time and a willingness to sponsor similar bills and build coalitions over multiple Congresses often formed a part of this effort. As is the case for representatives generally, Latino representatives’ policy proposals rarely passed intact. When they achieved passage, they usually did so through incorporation into larger, omnibus pieces of legislation. Although the traceability of legislative influence is somewhat hampered by this convoluted process, the disproportionate initiative of Latino representatives in putting forth Latino-interest policy proposals (see chapter 4) suggests that when Congress votes on such proposals, Latino representatives are likely to have been responsible for facilitating such opportunities. Activities following the agenda-setting stage also appear important to Latino representatives’ ultimate influence on legislative decisions. Latino representatives spoke frequently of their legislative successes in terms of their abilities to influence how their colleagues viewed the issues at hand. This influence sometimes melded individual policy expertise with important personal perspectives on Latino interests, offering non-Latinos some insight into how complicated issues might affect the Latino community and therefore into how representatives might best position themselves to represent Latinos. On other issues, the importance of Latino perspectives appeared more fundamental, as in the ways in which Latinos view English-only or certain immigration proposals. Here, Latino representatives often viewed as policy victories their successful efforts to persuade their colleagues to view Latinos from a compassionate and sympathetic standpoint because such efforts built momentum for Latino-interest proposals or against policy proposals viewed as detrimental to Latino interests. Much of Latino representatives’ influence on legislative decisions relates to their collective position within the U.S. House of Representatives. Although they were statistically more liberal than their non-Latino colleagues in a cross-sectional analysis covering 30 years of legislative votes (see chapter 1), during most individual Congresses, they voted in statistically similar ways with their colleagues, controlling for other factors, includingPage 237 → party. Still, Latino Democrats were remarkably united during recent Democratic-controlled Congresses and on an individual basis found themselves on the winning side of votes more often than their nonLatino colleagues. Latino Democrats clearly tended to stick together. Finally, there is strong reason to believe that Latino representatives’ collective efforts to build and maintain a strong coalition paid dividends in terms of policy success as well as reason to think that partisan and governmental environments mediated their collective influence. In the 110th Congress, the CHC’s successes were facilitated in part by an ideal environment in which their limited numbers often collectively constituted a make-orbreak bloc of votes without which the majority would have been unable to work its will. During the 111th Congress, the nature of the CHC’s influence was altered in the face of an empowered and united Democratic government. In this context, the caucus’s role appears to have more closely reflected that of loyal supporter than of legislative collaborator. Looking forward, Latino representatives seem likely to retain only partial control over their influence on legislative decisions. The current Republican-controlled House will likely limit opportunities for most Latino representatives (and the CHC) to influence legislative decisions. When Democrats regain control of the House, as they surely will at some point, Latino influence will likely be predicated at least in part by the ratio of CHC voting strength to the size of the Democratic majority. Regardless of the environment, however, Latino representatives will likely continue to play a disproportionate role in representing Latinos in legislative decisions and in facilitating Latino inclusion and influence in public policymaking.

Page 238 →

Chapter 7 Essential Representatives Latinos in Congress and the Future of Latino Political Incorporation Latino Representatives, Representation, and Political Incorporation In the spring of 2006 Latinos across America took to the streets in massive demonstrations against anti-immigrant legislation (H.R. 4437) in Congress. Over a four-month period, between 3.5 and 5 million Latinos participated in more than 250 marches in 160 American cities from Miami, Florida, to Anchorage, Alaska (Bada et al. 2006). They united under the common slogan “Hoy marchamos, maГ±ana votamos” (Today we march, tomorrow we vote). The implication of their message, however, went far beyond simply voting. Latinos also sought recognition, respect, and representation in the halls of Congress. They sought inclusion and influence in public policymaking. In short, they sought political incorporation in America. Though the desire for political incorporation among Latinos seems evident, the pathway to that goal is less clear. Perhaps the most significant barrier remains a large deficit in terms of Latino political participation. Latinos cast a record 11.2 million ballots in November 2012, nearly three times the number cast by Latinos just 20 years earlier. And Latinos comprised 8.4 percent of the electorate in 2012, up from 7.4 percent in 2008. But more than 23 million Latinos were eligible to vote in 2012, and at 48 percent, Latino voter turnout lagged significantly behind turnout for both blacks (66.6 percent) and whites (64.1 percent). These numbers Page 239 →indicate that the potential of Latino electoral influence remains largely untapped and that Latinos are not adequately achieving political inclusion (M. H. Lopez and Gonzalez-Barrera 2013). The advance of new legal barriers to voting, including voter identification laws and the Supreme Court’s 2013 ruling in Shelby County v. Holder, which significantly weakened protections provided by the Voting Rights Act, will further impede Latino political incorporation in the dimension of political participation (T. Lopez 2014). Low rates of political participation have long been recognized as both a problem for American democracy and a symptom of a political system that fails to fully include all sectors of the potential electorate. E. E. Schattschneider (1960), among others, found fault with both the control of our public policymaking by relatively small groups of privileged special interests and our electoral system that encourages politicians to cater to those interests rather than campaigning to broader swaths of the electorate. His observations presaged later arguments that Latinos are subject to a system of two-tiered pluralism and rarely participate equally when it comes to influencing policymaking, even on issues that interest them (Hero 1992). Latinos’ limited history of political success sows seeds of low expectations for the future, perpetuating inefficacy and slowing progress toward Latino political inclusion and influence. Just as Latinos continue to face deficits with regard to electoral participation and power, Latinos also continue to face an American society that has yet to fully accept their participation as legitimate. Often, as in the case of antiimmigrant rhetoric, Latinos’ exclusion is manifested in openly hostile attitudes. At other times, Latino exclusion from the political system is more benign, reflecting neglect and ignorance rather than outright hostility. Both attitudes constitute barriers to inclusion that must be overcome if Latino incorporation is to be effectively achieved. The analyses in this book suggest that the impacts of Latino representatives in Congress are consequential not just to the immediate substantive representation of Latinos but also because they help to ensure that Latinos are included in politics and policymaking and help to move Latinos from political inclusion to political influence. In this concluding chapter, I situate the preceding study within literature on the relationship between descriptive and substantive representation, debate over the value of Latino representatives to the substantive representation of Latinos in Congress, and the process of Latino political incorporation. Page 240 →

Latino Representatives and the Representative Process Latino members of Congress substantively represent Latinos, building relationships with them and continuing to advocate for their interests through the stages of political agenda setting, debate, and decision making. More than their non-Latino counterparts, Latino representatives reach out to their constituents by emphasizing issues, positions, and perspectives that reflect Latino priorities and concerns and ensuring that they maintain effective contact with Latinos personally and through their staffs. Likewise, Latino representatives sponsor bills and use their institutional powers as committee chairs to bring attention to Latino-interest issues with greater frequency and reliability than do non-Latinos. With regard to discussing issues and debating the merits of public policy proposals, Latino representatives are more likely than non-Latino representatives to make arguments that represent Latino perspectives, bringing Latino points of view into processes of deliberation. And with regard to collective decision making in Congress, Latino representatives expend considerable effort building coalitions to support Latino-interest policies and to defeat proposals that would be detrimental to Latino interests. Although the impact of Latino representatives on Latino representation is consistently visible at the different stages in the representative process, it is not equally evident in every behavior examined here. For example, my analyses suggest that non-Latino representatives are as likely as their Latino counterparts to provide certain aspects of service responsiveness to Latinos—particularly those that rely more on general observations of demographic need rather than experiential understandings of constituency interests. Similarly, when it comes to casting votes, my findings echo previous research by demonstrating that Latino and non-Latino representatives can often be counted on to vote in statistically similar ways after controlling for factors like political party and constituency characteristics. Although those findings appear somewhat contradictory alongside others that illustrate differences between Latino and non-Latino representatives, there are good reasons to think that these apparent inconsistencies are in fact more accurately interpreted as findings that comport with theoretical expectations about how descriptive representatives shape substantive representation. The preceding analyses demonstrate greater differences in the behaviors of Latino and non-Latino representatives in precisely the types of indicators that most rely on Latino experiences, while differences are Page 241 →less apparent or unobserved in behaviors where Latino experience is less essential to substantive representation. As such, they provide an empirical illustration of the relationship between Latino descriptive and substantive representation that should clarify not only scholarly debate about this relationship but also practical considerations about the political relevance of and normative justification for descriptive representation. Representations of Latino perspectives—on websites, in press releases, during committee hearings, and in floor speeches—offer perhaps the best examples of responsive behaviors that rely heavily on Latino experiences (Mansbridge 1999; Williams 1998). These types of deliberative contributions frame arguments, discuss effects, and draw on experiences in ways that illustrate political perspectives that are shaped fundamentally by being Latino. Most non-Latino representatives are simply not equipped to represent Latinos in such ways. Collective efforts to bring attention to Latino perspectives on issues, set long-term policy agendas, or to build coalitions to advance Latino policy interests similarly appear motivated largely by the extent to which representatives share Latino concerns on a personal level. Such efforts comport with arguments that Latino descriptive representatives are motivated by group consciousness and associated feelings of linked fate (Dawson 1994; Minta 2011). By contrast, offering website information in Spanish when district demographics demand it or voting congruently with Latino preferences in cases where Latinos comprise large electoral constituencies are behaviors that sit at the other end of the spectrum. More conventional theories of representative behavior associated with the electoral interests of representatives appear to provide satisfactory explanations for such patterns of responsiveness (Fenno 2003; Mansbridge 1999). Interpreted in this way, my findings take on a strong coherence that illustrates both the strengths and limitations of descriptive representation as a correlate of substantive representation and of the contexts in which Latino representatives are most essential to enhancing the substantive representation of Latinos. Latino representation at any stage of the representative process contributes to Latino representation throughout the process as a whole. This is especially clear with respect to legislative decisions, where Latino influence largely relies on effective responsiveness to Latino interests at earlier stages of the legislative process. More than a matter of aggregating individual votes by representatives, Latino representation in legislative decisions relies on efforts to

build coalitions, influence colleagues through dialogue Page 242 →and deliberation, and set agendas that bring attention to Latino priorities. In short, influencing legislative decisions is largely about structuring the choices with which legislators are presented. Efforts that contribute to structuring legislative choices may occur at a glacially slow pace and may be punctuated by gridlock and setback. But the story of Latino representation in recent Congresses is one of consistent and energetic effort on the part of Latino representatives to alter the status quo at every stage in the process to better represent Latino interests. When viewed individually, these efforts advance Latino representation in small and arguably insubstantial ways. But when viewed together and over longer periods of time, it becomes clear that Latino representatives are likely to be the primary contributors to policy decisions that represent Latino interests and priorities.

Are Latino Representatives Essential to Effective Latino Representation? The findings of this study build a nuanced practical case for Latino descriptive representation in Congress. Debate regarding the importance of descriptive representation to the substantive representation of minority groups has long turned on the question of whether and to what extent increasing descriptive representation might increase or reduce the substantive representation of minority groups. The key pieces of evidence for taking a position in this debate are whether descriptive representatives provide significantly better substantive representation to groups such as Latinos and whether the strategies used to elect descriptive representatives negatively affect responsiveness to such groups at an institutional level. Conventional wisdom on the subject has long recognized a possible inverse relationship between electing minority candidates and the overall responsiveness of congressional delegations to minority-group interests. This is because electing minority candidates has often been achieved through districting schemes that pack minority communities into majority-minority districts and concentrate minority voter influence in a minimal number of congressional races. Such schemes often appear to facilitate the election of larger numbers of representatives who are unresponsive if not outright hostile to minority-group interests. Because these dynamics play out in largely partisan terms, the straightforward argument essentially acknowledges that Democrats tend to receive greater support from minority Page 243 →voters, that Democrats vote more congruently with minority preferences than do Republicans, and that electing minority candidates often comes at the cost of electing larger Republican delegations. Not surprisingly, evidence from studies of legislative voting, which typically show party to be a more consequential predictor of voting behavior than representative race or ethnicity, is frequently cited to support such arguments. The major flaw in arguments that devalue descriptive representation in favor of partisan representation is that they fail to take into account a range of critical factors that are relevant to fully understanding the substantive impact of descriptive representatives. My study shows that for at least two broad reasons, conventional arguments about descriptive representation are incomplete if not altogether wrong when it comes to the substantive representation of Latinos. First, researchers must cast a wider net when considering the impact of Latino representatives—one that accounts for their actions throughout the representative process—to fully appreciate whether descriptive representatives enhance the substantive representation of Latinos. Second, even if one accepts skeptics’ premise that descriptive representation reduces the size of responsive legislative delegations, one must still carefully consider exactly what the consequences to the substantive representation of Latinos might be, given that this objective is mediated by fluctuating partisan contexts and is achieved not just between elections but across years and even decades. The first point urges the broader consideration of what might be lost to Latino representation throughout the representative process without the contributions of Latino members of Congress. When inquiry proceeds from this perspective, it becomes clear that the substantive representation of Latinos would in many respects suffer in the absence of Latino representatives. Whether assessing the relationships between Latino constituencies and their representatives or the representation of Latino concerns and interests in processes of agenda setting, debate, and decision making, Latino representation as a whole would diminish without Latinos in the U.S. Congress. In short, Latino representatives increase many aspects of responsiveness to Latinos that almost certainly contribute to broader patterns of institutional responsiveness, even if larger Latino delegations come at a cost of electing fewer

Democrats. The second point calls into question the extent to which the costs of electing Latino representatives are necessarily too high, whether these costs vary according to partisan context, and whether it makes sense to endure Page 244 →some short-term costs in favor of pursuing long-term progress. The most obvious scenario in which electing Latino representatives comes at a high cost to Latino representation occurs when it directly results in a Democratic failure to win a legislative majority. While electing Latino representatives may at times have contributed to such scenarios, Republican majorities are rarely narrow enough to lend credence to the argument that they resulted directly from majority-minority districting schemes. A more useful way to consider questions about whether electing Latino representatives comes at too high a cost to Latino representation is to ask how Latino representatives impact the legislative process in contexts of both Republican and Democratic congressional majorities. Latino representatives are likely to have more limited impacts on legislative decision making when they are in the partisan minority. But even when Republicans control Congress and most Latino representatives are in the partisan minority, Latino representatives enhance the substantive representation of Latinos. First, not all Latinos in Congress are Democrats. The analyses in this study, most of which control for the effects of political party, show that Latino representatives tend to be more active representatives of Latinos relative to their partisan counterparts. While Latino Republicans have much in common with other Republicans on a broad policy agenda that arguably runs contrary to most Latinos’ socioeconomic interests, issues related to discrimination tend to unite Latino Democrats and Latino Republicans, and they tend to be stronger representatives of Latino interests on such issues than their partisan counterparts. Within both congressional parties, then, Latino members voice Latino concerns and interests most clearly and consistently. Latino representatives may also benefit Latino representation during Republican-controlled Congresses when it comes to education, poverty, and other socioeconomic policy concerns. This is because many enhancements to Latino representation by Latino representatives—in relationship building with Latino constituencies, agenda setting, and debate—continue unabated regardless of partisan context. Such efforts may not produce immediate policy results, particularly when Republicans are in control, but almost certainly pave the way for later policy changes that benefit Latinos. In the absence of Latino descriptive representation, even Democratic congressional majorities would appear less likely to address Latino concernsPage 245 → and interests. Non-Latino representatives sometimes pursue Latino interest policy agendas, speak on behalf of Latinos, and do important work in terms of serving the needs of Latino constituencies. But their efforts appear fewer and qualitatively different from those of Latino representatives. My analysis of Latino representation in legislative decisions made during the 110th and 111th Congresses underscores this point, given that Latinos passed a number of initiatives for which they had pressed during previous Republican-controlled Congresses. This was particularly the case during the 110th Congress, when Latino Democrats in the Congressional Hispanic Caucus collectively held the key to legislative victory by the slim Democratic majority. Because Latino representatives are demonstrably more active when it comes to efforts that structure choices in Congress to facilitate institutional responsiveness to Latinos, there are good reasons to think that electing Latino representatives benefits the substantive representation of Latinos as much or more than it costs in terms of support for Latino policy preferences. The preceding discussion should not be interpreted as justification for continued partisan gerrymanders that reduce, concentrate, and curtail Latino electoral influence. Such schemes remain perhaps the greatest institutional barrier to the effective representation of Latinos. Rather, the advantages of electing Latino representatives for purposes of Latino substantive representation are great and cannot be discounted merely on the basis of their potentially negative impact on legislative voting support for Latino policy preferences. Moving forward toward the goal of proportionate substantive representation for Latinos will depend substantially on more equitable and nonpartisan redistricting methods that expand Latino voters’ influence to larger numbers of congressional districts and in turn expand the playing field on which Latino candidates can succeed.

Latino Representatives and Latino Political Incorporation Although the analyses in this study speak most directly to theories about the relationship between descriptive and substantive representation, perhaps their greatest relevance exists in what this study can tell us about the future of Latino political incorporation. Latino representatives both personify and facilitate Latino political inclusion and political influence. Page 246 →Fully appreciating these effects means viewing Latino representatives as essential actors within a broader process of Latino political incorporation that moves Latinos from inclusion to influence. Latino inclusion in the American political system is a two-way street. On the one hand, it assumes increasing feelings of membership and efficacy and increasing participation on the part of Latinos. On the other, it assumes increasing recognition and acceptance of Latinos’ political legitimacy by insider groups—mostly Anglos who are already largely incorporated in the American political system and are in a position to receive Latinos and other political outsiders (Segura 2013). For their part, Latinos remain a long way from attitudes and behaviors that exemplify inclusion, as the dismal rates of Latino voter participation confirm. Widespread hostility toward Latinos and immigrants from right-wing and anti-immigrant groups and the more benign neglect or ignorance of Latino interests by many other actors in the political system pose serious barriers to Latino inclusion for which those groups already incorporated bear responsibility. Latino representatives facilitate Latino political inclusion by encouraging attitudes and behaviors associated with inclusion and by directly acting to ensure the inclusion of Latino concerns and interests in processes of agenda setting, debate, and decision making. Those efforts are likely to increase incorporated political groups’ receptivity toward Latino political inclusion. In the context of the political incorporation framework presented in chapter 1, this means that these efforts affect inclusion not only in the dimension of representation but also in dimensions of individual political participation and policy outcomes. At least a portion of Latino representatives’ impact on Latino inclusion in the participation dimension stems from their symbolic importance as descriptive representatives. Previous research suggests that racial or ethnic characteristics shared by candidates or representatives and those they seek to represent have a potent impact on the participatory behaviors and political attitudes of minorities. The mobilizing influence of coethnic candidacies on Latino voter turnout suggests that Latino descriptive representation among candidates empowers Latinos (Barreto 2007). This Latino mobilization is likely to be accompanied by increased attitudes of efficacy, both of which are critical antecedents to inclusion. The greater comfort minority constituents feel with representatives and staffers who share their racial or ethnic characteristics echoes this notion (Grose, Mangum, and Martin 2007; Tate 2003). Many Latino Page 247 →representatives and staffers articulated the argument that achievement and leadership by prominent Latinos inspires feelings of political efficacy and the desire to participate among Latinos. The influence of Latino representatives on Latino attitudes and behaviors associated with inclusion is substantive, not just symbolic. As the analyses in chapter 3 illustrate, Latino representatives reach out to Latino constituents through press and web communications that emphasize their priorities and perspectives more often than do nonLatino representatives. My observations suggest that their home styles involve greater contact with Latinos in Latino communities than do those of similarly situated non-Latino representatives. They even tend to surround themselves with more Latino staffers—especially those acting in a policy advisory capacity in Washington. These actions do more than just keep Latino representatives in touch with their Latino constituents: they facilitate connections between Latinos and their government. In addition to their visible legislative advocacy on Latinointerest policies that occur throughout the legislative process, the substantive outreach and symbolic appeal of Latino representatives to Latino constituencies serves the critical purpose of inspiring Latinos to think and act as political participants, inviting Latinos into the political system. Latino representatives’ direct impacts in processes of agenda setting, debate, and decision making are essential to Latino inclusion in the policymaking process. The significant ways in which Latino representatives affect these processes to address Latino interests and concerns indicates that without their actions, Latinos would often be excluded. An extension of Latino representatives’ direct effects on Latino inclusion in the policymaking process is the way in which such contributions facilitate the recognition and acceptance of Latinos as political participants by

non-Latino members of Congress and by the public. The impact of Latino representatives, especially in debate, is fundamental to the legitimation of Latinos as partners in American politics. First, Latinos’ representations of Latino priorities, preferences, and perspectives help to crystallize Latino interests for other representatives and members of the public, many of whom are unfamiliar with those interests. Even those who are relatively receptive toward Latinos as a political constituency can benefit significantly from Latino representatives’ contributions to providing an understanding and appreciation of Latino points of view. While there is never any guaranteePage 248 → that recognition and acceptance from receiver communities will be obtained via exposure to Latino interests and concerns, that acceptance is far less likely to occur without such exposure. To those who take a more oppositional stance toward Latino interests, the contributions Latino representatives make to political debates also serve as a critical counterweight to rhetoric that excludes Latinos. Latino representatives provide perspectives that soften inaccurate and paranoid views of Latinos—most often those associated with immigrants—and enable debate that is both more reasoned and more likely to accommodate Latino perspectives and interests. The deliberative contributions of Latino representatives cannot unilaterally generate recognition and acceptance of Latino membership in the political system, but such contributions do serve as critical prerequisites to these objectives. In sum, the roles Latino representatives appear to play with regard to both encouraging Latinos to pursue inclusion and facilitating the acceptance of Latinos by non-Latinos suggest that they are vital to the gradual process by which Latinos can achieve inclusion and become established members of the American polity. In addition to Latino inclusion, Latino influence is essential to political incorporation. This study provides compelling evidence that Latino representatives enable Latino influence not only by facilitating Latino participation in the political process but also through their actions as legislators. My analyses in chapters 4–6 illustrate that the influence of Latino representatives in shaping policy decisions that represent Latinos goes far beyond the votes they cast. Latino representatives do not generally have the ability to influence the legislative process on their own terms. In a very real sense, Latino influence is predicated on responses of other actors in the political system. As Latino representatives alter processes of legislative agenda setting, debate, and decision making to include Latino interests and concerns, they are in some sense enabling influence by changing the status quo. But throughout the policymaking process, Latino representatives also build collective influence from individual efforts to secure that inclusion. Their actions help to structure policy choices that more effectively represent Latino interests, increasing Latino influence over congressional policy outputs. And Latinos occasionally translate their coalition-building efforts into visible influence in legislative decisions. Although their ultimate ability to wield Latino influence is contextual, it seems likely that Latino representatives Page 249 →will translate efforts to secure Latino inclusion into Latino influence on a growing number of Latino-interest issues.

The Future of Latino Political Incorporation When Latinos took to the streets by the millions in 2006 to protest anti-immigrant legislation, they captured a glimpse of their potential as a political force in American politics. Indeed, shortly after the marches, nearly twothirds of Latinos expressed the view that the immigrant rights marches signaled the beginning of a new Latino political movement that would have lasting impact (Suro and Escobar 2006). Research demonstrating that Latino participation in the marches was broad and was not confined to specific regions or Latino subgroups supported the notion of growing Latino political solidarity (Barreto et al. 2009). Given that Latinos have yet to fully seize this mantle, it should come as no surprise that Latino frustration with the American political system has only increased in the interim. In particular, failure to achieve comprehensive immigration reform on terms acceptable to most Latinos irritates those eager for progress toward policy responsiveness to Latino interests. Activists and pundits alike decry (with substantial justification) congressional gridlock on immigration as well as the administrative policies of recent Republican and Democratic presidents toward undocumented immigrants. President Barack Obama’s record of deportations has been particularly disenchanting for many Latinos who hoped he would follow through on campaign promises to reform

immigration policy. By the fall of 2014, Latinos in Congress had begun to receive criticism for failing to pressure the president to follow through on a plan to adjust the status of many undocumented immigrants and to slow deportation rates prior to the November election. Some even encouraged Latinos to sit out the 2014 election in protest. For example, after calling members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus “do-nothings.В .В .В . for failing to stand up to Obama and demand and end to the deportation juggernaut,” syndicated columnist Ruben Navarrette (2014) warned readers that “Democrats haven’t been there when Latinos needed them. On Election Day, Latino voters are going to return the favor.” The frustration of Navarrette and others is understandable given Page 250 →lengthy congressional inaction and continuing mass deportations despite public support for immigration reform that includes a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants (Preston 2014). But those who blame Latino representatives for this situation largely misdiagnose the problem both by overestimating the potential influence of Latino representatives and by failing to appreciate their efforts to advance Latino-interest policy agendas. Latino representatives may lack influence over the Obama administration and the Republican-controlled House of Representatives, but not because they are “do-nothings.” They were the most outspoken congressional advocates on behalf of Latino interests during the 113th Congress and will remain so in the future. As discussed in chapter 6, Latino representatives face serious obstacles to policy influence even when they are members of the majority in Congress. Their priorities often fail to serve the electoral interests of their non-Latino colleagues, both Democrats and Republicans. In the 113th House of Representatives, most Latino representatives served in the minority Democratic Caucus, severely restricting their abilities to influence policy agendas and outputs. Nonetheless, Latino representatives have been consistent advocates for policy change on immigration and other issues, and their efforts have contributed to shaping an environment where Latino policy preferences now constitute serious alternatives to the status quo. The stage is set for progress on immigration, education, and other Latino priorities. Latino representatives await an appreciative audience on Capitol Hill. Even once a more favorable partisan climate for Latino representation returns to Washington, the path to Latino influence is unlikely to appear in the form of sudden and significant policy change on immigration. Nor are Latino representatives in Congress likely to wield decisive influence over administrative or legislative politics in the short term. Rather, Latino influence is likely to materialize slowly, mostly in the form of small victories and incremental policy changes. When major policy changes such as comprehensive immigration reform occur, shifts in the partisan and electoral interests of non-Latino representatives, not the collective legislative strength of Latino representatives, will be the critical factors that bring them about. But the future shape of policies that affect Latinos, like the agendas and debates that mold the contours of those policies, will almost certainly reflect the handiwork of Latino representatives. Their influence on this policy content not only will appear in some future political climate but is already permeating public and congressional debate on immigration Page 251 →and other policies. The future of Latino influence looks promising, even if it arrives too slowly for some. Even in spite of new legal barriers to political participation, Latino delegations to Congress will grow in tandem with expanding Latino electoral participation, each reinforcing the other. Non-Latino members of the American polity will meet both of these forces with gradually growing recognition and acceptance of Latinos. Finally, larger Latino delegations to Congress will combine with increasing Latino electoral clout to alter the political and legislative calculations of members of Congress, of party leaders, and of presidents. Trends toward policy changes that represent Latinos and convincing evidence of Latino political incorporation will in part depend on the institutional dynamics that can facilitate or inhibit Latino political participation, especially in the near future. Short of the partisan dynamics that permit Latino representatives to collectively alter legislative outcomes, Latino influence in Congress will continue to face serious constraints. Altering the relationship between Latinos and the political parties will be key to diminishing those limitations. Currently, Republicans desperately need to increase their appeal to Latinos if they are to remain competitive in national elections. But Republicans in Congress, who mostly serve safe districts where Latinos exercise little electoral influence, have individual interests that run contrary to the national interests of their party. The fact that conservatives increasingly turn to restrictive voting laws to shore up Republican electoral chances suggests that changes are also in the offing at the state and local levels. Regardless of their immediate impacts, such policies do

not offer a permanent solution to Republicans’ electoral problems. But until Republicans’ divergent electoral interests can be harmonized and more effective outreach to Latinos occurs in the form of meaningful changes in GOP policy positions, Latinos will have limited influence during periods of Republican control. Changes to Latinos’ relationship with Democrats, who can often take Latino support for granted, will also be important. As some Republicans soften their positions on Latino-interest issues, the incentives for Democratic politicians to take Latino voters seriously will increase. Creating more Latino-influence districts where Latinos can neither be ignored by Republicans nor taken for granted by Democrats must be a priority, given that current gerrymandered districts tend to lack serious partisan competitiveness. These and other similar institutional barriers to Latino participation and influence within the major political parties represent Page 252 →perhaps the most significant and complex challenges facing Latino political incorporation. The obstacles to Latino political incorporation remain numerous. They will be overcome only gradually and over years rather than weeks or months. But within this frustrating political environment, people and events are shaping the future of Latino political incorporation. Increasing Latino mobilization and shifts in public opinion point toward developing Latino inclusion in American politics. Latino priorities and positions appear with growing frequency and prominence on political agendas, indicating gradually increasing Latino political incorporation in the halls of Congress. And while the future of Latino policy priorities remains unsettled, the agendas and debates that will shape legislative outputs and public policy outcomes look increasingly favorable to Latino interests. At the nexus of these trends sit Latino representatives: essential trailblazers on the pathway from Latino inclusion to Latino influence.

Page 253 →

Notes Introduction 1. Among those in attendance were representatives Joe Baca (D-CA), Xavier Becerra (D-CA), Raul Grijalva (D-AZ), Linda SГЎnchez (D-CA), Grace Napolitano (D-CA), Henry Cuellar (D-TX), and Ciro Rodriguez (D-TX). 2. This debate can be found in the Congressional Record, January 10, 2007.

Chapter 1 1. In this book, I use Latino interchangeably with Hispanic to refer to individuals of Latin American origin and Spanish linguistic heritage (Garcia and Sanchez 2008). Because the Congressional Hispanic Caucus extends membership to representatives of Portuguese descent, I also consider individuals of that ancestry to be Latino. In certain portions of the empirical analyses I refer to representative ethnicity interchangeably with being a Latino representative. 2. The largest Latino populations, predominantly of Mexican origin, are in California and Texas. Mexican Americans also comprise the majority of Latinos in other southwestern states. The Latino population in Florida, which is the country’s third-largest, has historically been primarily of Cuban origin. But Cubans now comprise a plurality of Florida’s Latino population rather than a majority as a consequence of surging immigration from Mexico and Central America. The fourth-largest U.S. Latino population, in New York, has historically been primarily Puerto Rican, although this population has diversified substantially in recent years. Similarly, although the Latino population in Illinois, the fifthlargest in the United States, has diversified significantly, it remains majority Mexican American. As of 2009, eight different states had Latino populations greater than 1,000,000, while eight others topped 500,000 (Dockterman 2011). 3. Many Mexican Americans have roots in the United States that precede the annexation of southwestern states. Latinos who trace their lineage as Americans back Page 254 →many generations appropriately observe that they did not cross the border—the border crossed them. Puerto Ricans are citizens whether living in Puerto Rico or in one of the 50 states. Cuban immigrants to the United States have received more privileged treatment than Latino immigrants from most other countries by virtue of the antagonistic relationship between the United States and Cuba. 4. Puerto Ricans, who constitute just over 9 percent of the Latino population, are the second-largest Hispanic-origin group in the United States. Salvadorans, who made up 3.6 percent of the U.S. Latino population in 2009, recently surpassed Cuban Americans, who made up 3.5 percent of the Latino population, to become third-largest Hispanic-origin group (Dockterman 2011). Smaller subgroups that comprise the remaining 18 percent of Latinos come from numerous other countries in Central and South America and the Caribbean. 5. For example, median family income for Latinos in 2009, at $40,000, was $15,000 less than the median family income for Anglos (Dockterman 2011, table 36). The Latino poverty rate of 23.3 percent was more than twice as high as the rate for Anglos. More than 30 percent of Latino youth lived in poverty, nearly three times the rate among Anglo children (Dockterman 2011, table 37). Disparities between Latinos and others also appear in terms of wealth and assets (F. Chris Garcia and Sanchez 2008, 67). While the net worth of Anglo households exceeded $113,000 in 2009, the net worth of Hispanic households amounted to eighteen times less: just under $6,000 (Kochhar, Fry, and Taylor 2011). A contributing factor to these economic disparities is the lower level of education attained by the majority of Latinos compared to most non-Latinos. While more than 90 percent of Anglos and 82 percent of African Americans had graduated from high school in 2009, only 61 percent of Latinos had diplomas. And while 31 percent of Anglos and 18 percent of African Americans had college degrees, fewer than 13 percent of Latinos had graduated from college (Dockterman 2011, table 22). Low socioeconomic status among Latinos means a dearth of resources critical for political participation, influence, and representation (Verba, Schlozman, and Brady 1995).

6. See also the essays in Navarro and Rosales 2013. 7. Mixed findings regarding enhanced support for Latino interests in the voting patterns of Latino representatives complement similarly contentious literature on the representation of African Americans (Canon 1999; Lublin 1997b; Swain 1993; Swers 1998, 2002; Thomas 1990; Whitby 1997; Wolbrecht 2002). A number of scholars question findings that black representatives are necessarily better representatives of black interests or suggest that nonminority Democrats may be reliable supporters of minority interests (Swain 1993; Lublin 1997b). 8. District two-party vote data from 1983 to 1994 derived from data collected by David Lublin (1997a). More recent two-party vote data obtained from the Almanac of American Politics (1997–2011).

Chapter 2 1. This number includes three U.S. representatives of Portuguese descent and is based on the qualifications for membership in the Congressional Hispanic Caucus. Page 255 → 2. Representative Solomon Ortiz (D-TX) used a $1,000 loan from his mother to cover the cost of poll taxes in his first political campaign (Ortiz 2006b). 3. Calculations based on U.S. Census data compiled by the author and by David Lublin (1997a). Also available from “Analyzing Characteristics” 2013. 4. Data compiled by the author from multiple sources including Lublin (1997a); U.S. Census; Almanac of American Politics. 5. In 2014, representatives Alex Mooney (R-WV), Jaime Herrera Beutler (R-WA), and Raul Labrador (RID) won in conservative, rural districts with Latino population percentages in the single digits. 6. Data on ethnicity coded by the author. Data on committee assignments from Nelson 1993; Stewart and Woon 2012. 7. This committee typology was developed by Deering and Smith (1997, 64). 8. The Small Business Administration estimated that there were nearly 2,260,000 Hispanic-owned businesses in 2007. Approximately 2,000,000 of these businesses were nonemployment firms, while 250,000 of them paid employees (“Preliminary Data” 2007). The U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce estimated that Hispanic-owned businesses numbered 3.16 million in 2013, and that the numbers of Hispanic-owned businesses were increasing at twice the rate of non-Hispanic-owned businesses (Geoscape and U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce 2013). 9. Hispanic Republicans, of whom there were eight during the 113th Congress, severed ties with the CHC in the mid-1990s over differences of opinion regarding U.S.-Cuba relations and formed the Congressional Hispanic Conference in 2003. Unlike the CHC, the Congressional Hispanic Conference accepts nonHispanic members. The organization is far less active than the CHC and has never asserted a policy agenda or political presence that could be considered comparable to its Democratic Party counterpart.

Chapter 3 1. For more on the interviews, see the note at the end of the References. 2. Latino population estimates are based on data from the 2000 U.S. Census. Focusing on districts where Latinos comprise a substantial share of the population lends itself to isolating the effect of descriptive representation. Congressional responsiveness to Latinos should increase when Latinos comprise a larger share of legislative constituencies, making the representatives included in this sample more likely than their colleagues excluded from the sample to substantively represent Latinos (Bratton 2006; W. C. Wilson 2009, 2010). By comparing Latino representation in speeches of Latino and non-Latino representatives where responsiveness to Latinos should be greatest, the effect of descriptive representation is subjected to an especially conservative test. Canon notes in his study of black representation that such a sample “stacks the deck” in favor of null findings and against hypotheses that descriptive representatives make a difference (1999, 146). Juenke and Preuhs (2012) similarly argue that the effect of descriptive representatives is more apparent in analyses that select cases based on the constituency size, although their state-legislative analysis benefits from sufficient variability to focus on majority-minority districts.

Page 256 → 3. Online data for representatives Lloyd Doggett (D-TX), Joe Crowley (D-NY), and Bob Filner (D-CA) were unavailable. Therefore, these representatives were excluded from the analysis. 4. I use this relatively simple model extensively in the analyses throughout the book. In this case, the limited number of observations makes simplicity necessary. But I also employ the model in a number of subsequent analyses with a larger number of observations to provide a relatively parsimonious and efficient portrait of factors associated with Latino representation and because more complex models generally do not alter the size, direction, or significance of the coefficients I present and do not add much in terms of explanation. 5. Ideology is not analyzed in the following models as a consequence of high correlation with party. Diagnostic analysis showed variance inflation factors (VIFs) above 10, which indicates possible instability as a result of multicollinearity (Chatterjee, Hadi, and Price 2000). Alternative models using an ideology variable based on NOMINATE roll call voting scores developed by Poole and Rosenthal (1997) in place of party produced results similar to those presented in table 3.3. 6. Constituency Conservatism is the share of the two-party vote for President George W. Bush in each congressional district in the 2004 presidential election and was obtained from the Almanac of American Politics (2006). 7. Data were collected and coded in October 2007. As a result of 5 seat vacancies, 430 websites were included in the sample. 8. The common Spanish surnames were GarcГ-a, Martinez, Rodriguez, Lopez, Hernandez, GonzГЎlez, Perez, SГЎnchez, Rivera, Ramirez, Torres, and Gonzales. 9. The common non-Spanish surnames were Smith, Johnson, Williams, Brown, Jones, Davis, Miller, Wilson, Anderson, Moore, Taylor, and Thomas. 10. The six Latino representatives who did not employ a Latino on their legislative staffs during the period in question were Jose Serrano (D-NY), Grace Napolitano (D-CA), Jim Costa (D-CA), Devin Nunes (R-CA), Ed Pastor (D-AZ), and Henry Cuellar (D-TX).

Chapter 4 1. Lobbying efforts by the Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities have also been essential to the establishment and growth of the HSI program. 2. McClain (1993) argues that minority-group interests are rarely viewed as important by nonminority groups and that there is rarely much incentive for representatives of more privileged groups to pursue a minority-interest agenda. Hawkesworth (2003) argues that members of marginalized groups often face patterns of institutionalized discrimination that render them less influential than their colleagues from more privileged group backgrounds. 3. The most commonly used distribution for measuring count outcomes, the Poisson distribution, is inappropriate for this analysis because an underlying assumption of the model (that the variance = mean within the population) is not met. Negative binomial regression adjusts for this skew in distribution, and alpha tests confirm that Page 257 →as a consequence of overdispersion, it is a more appropriate model for this analysis (Long and Freese 2003). 4. Because of high correlation between member ideology and party in the data examined, no control for ideology based on NOMINATE data is included. Alternative analyses that replaced party with ideology performed similarly to those presented. No variable interacting party and ethnicity is considered because inclusion of the variable Latino*Democrat introduced collinearity to the model according to diagnostic tests based on Variance Inflation Factors. 5. Based on support for President George W. Bush in the 2004 presidential election. 6. Probabilities in this and other analyses in this study were predicted using Clarify software designed for STATA by Gary King. 7. The 14 House committees and subcommittees that held hearings on U.S. Census issues between 1979 and 2008 were the Education and Labor Committee’s Subcommittee on Elementary, Secondary, and Vocational Education; the Government Reform and Oversight Committee and its Subcommittees on Legislation and National Security, Commerce, Consumer, and Monetary Affairs, Government Efficiency, Financial Management, and Intergovernmental Relations, National Security, Veterans’ Affairs and

International Relations, Census, and Technology, Information Policy, Intergovernmental Relations and Census; the Post Office and Civil Service Committee and its Subcommittees on Census, Statistics, and Postal Personnel. Investigations, and Human Resources; the Select Committee on Aging; and the Select Committee on Hunger. 8. The specific topics were: Energy Issues (General); Airports, Airlines, Air Traffic Control, and Safety; Higher Education; Natural Resources, Public Lands, and Forest Management; International Affairs and Foreign Aid (General); Alternative and Renewable Energy; Consumer Safety and Consumer Fraud; District of Columbia Affairs; Maritime Issues, including Safety and Security; U.S. Foreign Aid; Worker Safety and Protection (OSHA); National Budget and Debt; Water Resources Development and Research; and Native American Affairs. 9. I identify 18 topics as disproportionately important to vulnerable and underrepresented groups: Age Discrimination; Census; Community Development and Housing Issues; Comprehensive Health Care Reform; Consumer Finance, Mortgages, and Credit Cards; Elderly and Handicapped Housing; Elderly Issues and Elderly Assistance Programs; Employee Benefits; Employment Training and Workforce Development; Ethnic Minority and Racial Group Discrimination; Gender and Sexual Orientation Discrimination; Housing and Community Development; Housing Assistance for Homeless and Homeless Issues; Human Rights; Juvenile Crime and the Juvenile Justice System; Low- and Middle-Income Housing Programs and Needs; Youth Employment and Youth Job Corps Programs. 10. The hearing chaired by Representative Baca was part of a larger effort by the congressman to ensure that Latino interests in agriculture policy were incorporated into the 2007 Farm Bill (H.R. 2419). He sponsored the NOURISH Act of 2007, which proposed a number of policies to address minority nutritional concerns and the economic concerns of disadvantaged and minority farmers. Although the NOURISH Act Page 258 →did not emerge from committee, Baca lobbied behind the scenes to secure the inclusion of legislative language in H.R. 2419 to expand access to funding and eligibility for research and extension dollars for HSIs with agricultural studies programs, to increase access to food stamps, and to improve worker protections for agricultural laborers. In addition to his efforts to raise the profile of Latino interests in government diversity policy, Gonzalez used his hearing to bring attention to legislative initiatives associated with these objectives, specifically H.R. 3774, the Senior Executive Senior Diversity Assurance Act, which ultimately passed in the House in June 2008 but later died in the Senate. A number of recommendations discussed during the hearing chaired by Representative Hinojosa, including language from H.R. 451, the Next Generation Hispanic-Serving Institutions Act, were incorporated in H.R. 4137, the Higher Education Opportunity Act, which became law in 2008. 11. Representative Henry B. Gonzalez withdrew from the CHC in 1987 (Vigil 1996, 92). 12. Author’s notes, June 21, 2007.

Chapter 5 1. For a transcript of these speeches, see the Congressional Record, May 14, 2007. 2. The 15 searches capped at 200 mentions were for representatives Henry Cuellar (D-TX), Tom Delay (RTX), David Dreier (R-CA), Rahm Emanuel (D-IL), Sam Farr (D-CA), Bob Filner (D-CA), Gene Green (DTX), Sheila Jackson-Lee (D-TX), Eddie Bernice Johnson (D-TX), Robert Menendez (D-NJ), George Miller (D-CA), Ron Paul (R-TX), Charles Rangel (D-NY), Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL), and Adam Schiff (D-CA). 3. Chronbach’s alpha for the Latino Interest variable between speeches in the sample and a subsample of 382 speeches (10 percent of the sample) coded by a research assistant was .94, indicating a high level of intercoder reliability. Intercoder reliability for the Latino Perspective variable was similarly satisfactory, at an alpha of .93. 4. Predicted probabilities derived from the analysis reported in table 5.1. 5. The letters examined here serve an illustrative rather than comparative purpose because I focus on those authored by Latino representatives. Statistical comparison proved methodologically impossible because letters were not available from all representatives and because no population of letters exists from which to draw a reliable sample. 6. As was the case with floor speeches and other indicators examined for this project, non-Latino

representatives also represent Latinos in their “Dear Colleague” letters from time to time. But also like most other indicators of Latino representation examined for this project, the efforts of non-Latino representatives to represent Latinos I observed were less frequent and less transparent than those of Latino representatives and were unlikely to replace the enthusiastic efforts of Latino representatives in this deliberative forum. Page 259 →

Chapter 6 1. Examples include H.Amdt. 595, H.Amdt. 636, H.Amdt. 637, H.Amdt. 695, and H.Amdt. 787. 2. A “party unity vote” is defined here as a vote on which a majority of Democrats oppose a majority of Republicans. 3. Roll Call 674. 4. Eight members of the CHC were also members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus during the 111th Congress (McCutcheon and Lyons 2009). 5. The Tri-Caucus is composed of members of the Congressional Black, Hispanic, and Asian and Pacific Islander Caucuses.

Page 260 → Page 261 →

References Adler, Scott, Chariti Gent, and Cary Overmeyer. 1998. “The Homestyle Homepage: Legislator Use of the World Wide Web for Constituency Contact.” Legislative Studies Quarterly 23 (4): 585–95. “Analyzing Characteristics of the 113th Congressional Districts.” 2013. Congressional District Analysis and Insights. http://proximityone.com Baca, Joe, and Ciro Rodriguez. 2007. Letter to PBS President Paula Kerger. April 20. http://defendthehonor.org /wp-content/uploads/2010/03/CHCLettertoPBS_April-20-2007.pdf Bada, Xochitl, Jonathan Fox, Elvia Zazueta, and Ingrid GarcГ-a RuГ-z. 2006. “2006 Immigration Marches Database.” Mexico Institute, Mexican Migrant Civic and Political Participation, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. http://www.wilsoncenter.org Barreto, Matt. 2007. “Si Se Puede! Latino Candidates and the Mobilization of Latino Voters.” American Political Science Review 101 (3): 425–41. Barreto, Matt, Sylvia Manzano, Ricardo Ramirez, and Kathy Rim. 2009. “Mobilization, Participation, and Solidaridad.” Urban Affairs Review 44 (5): 736–64. Baumgartner, Frank, and Brian Jones. 1993. Agendas and Instability in American Politics. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Bratton, Kathleen A. 2006. “The Behavior and Success of Latino State Legislators: Evidence from the States.” Social Science Quarterly 87 (5): 1136–57. Briggs, Xavier de Souza. 2013. “Rethinking Immigrant Political Incorporation: What Have We Learned, and What Next?” In Outsiders No More?, edited by Jennifer Hochschild, Jacqueline Chattopadhyay, Claudine Gay, and Michael Jones-Correa. New York: Oxford University Press. Browning, Rufus P., Dale Rogers Marshall, and David H. Tabb. 1984. Protest Is Not Enough. Berkeley: University of California Press. Burden, Barry. 2007. Personal Roots of Representation. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Burns, Jacqueline, Erin Hromada, Kathleen Johnson, Kenneth Kato, Joshua Litten, and Barry Pump. 2013. Hispanic Americans in Congress, 1822–2012. Washington, DC: Committee on House Administration. Page 262 →Canon, David T. 1999. Race, Redistricting, and Representation. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Capps, Lois. 2007. Capps’ Statement on the Senate’s Preliminary Agreement on Comprehensive Immigration Reform. May 17. https://capps.house.gov Caputo, Marc. 2012. “Marco Rubio’s DREAM Act Plan Might Be Dead This Year.” Miami Herald, June 18. Carney, Eliza Newlin. 2013. “Hispanic Caucus Leverages Latino Power.” Roll Call, March 24. http://www.rollcall.com Casellas, Jason Paul. 2007. “Latino Representation in Congress: To What Extent Are Latinos Substantively Represented?” In Latino Politics: Identity, Mobilization, and Representation, edited by Rodolfo Espino III, David Leal, and Ken Meier. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press.

Casellas, Jason Paul. 2009. “The Institutional and Demographic Determinants of Latino Representation.” Legislative Studies Quarterly 34 (3): 399–426. Chatterjee, S., A. Hadi, and B. Price. 2000. Regression Analysis by Example. New York: Wiley. Comprehensive Immigration Reform: Labor Movement Perspectives: Hearing before the Subcommittee on Immigration, Citizenship, Refugees, Border Security, and International Law of the Committee on the Judiciary, House of Representatives, 110th Congress, 1st Session, May 24, 2007. 2007. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office. Congressional Hispanic Caucus. 2007. “CHC Efforts on PBS’s WWII Documentary, вЂThe War.’” CHC internal memo, April 19. Congressional Hispanic Caucus. 2010. Congressional Hispanic Caucus (CHC) Applauds Passage of Small Business Capital Investment Bill. Press Release. June 18. http://congressionalhispaniccaucus-sanchez.house.gov /media-center/press-releases/congressional-hispanic-caucus-chc-applauds-passage-of-small-business Congressional Hispanic Caucus. 2011a. CHC Chair on Rep. Duncan’s Anti-Immigrant Rhetoric. Press Release. November 2. http://congressionalhispaniccaucus-sanchez.house.gov/media-center/press-releases/chcchair-on-rep-duncan-s-anti-immigrant-rhetoric Congressional Hispanic Caucus. 2011b. Rep. GutiГ©rrez Travelling to Alabama for HB56 Protests. Press Release. October 21. http://congressionalhispaniccaucus-sanchez.house.gov/media-center/press-releases/repgutierrez-travelling-to-alabama-for-hb56-protests Congressional Hispanic Caucus. 2012. Romney’s Plans to Veto Dream Act. Press Release. January 3. http://congressionalhispaniccaucus-sanchez.house.gov/media-center/press-releases/romney-s-plans-to-veto-dreamact Congressional Hispanic Staff Association (CHSA). 2010. “Unrepresented: A Blueprint for Solving the Diversity Crisis on Capitol Hill.” http://media.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/documents /diversity_on_the_hill_report.pdf Congressional Progressive Caucus on Health Care. 2009. Press Conference. Washington, DC: C-SPAN. http://www.c-span.org Contreras, Frances E., Lindsey E. Malcom, and Estela Mara Bensimon. 2008. “Hispanic-Serving Institutions.” In Understanding Minority-Serving Institutions, Page 263 →edited by Marybeth Gasman, Benjamin Baez, and Caroline Sotello Viernes Turner. Albany: SUNY Press. Corporation for Public Broadcasting. 2009. Corporation for Public Broadcasting Appropriation Request and Justification, FY 2010 and FY 2012. http://www.cpb.org Corporation for Public Broadcasting. 2011. Corporation for Public Broadcasting Appropriation Request and Justification, FY 2012 and FY 2014. http://www.cpb.org Corporation for Public Broadcasting. 2012. Corporation for Public Broadcasting Appropriation Request and Justification, FY 2013 and FY 2015. http://www.cpb.org CQ Roll Call’s Vote Studies: Number of Party Unity Votes—2013. 2014. http://media.cq.com Dahl, Robert. 1961. Who Governs? New Haven: Yale University Press. Davidson, Rodger H., Walter J. Oleszek, and Frances Lee. 2010. Congress and Its Members. 12th ed. Washington, DC: CQ Press.

Dawson, Michael C. 1994. Behind the Mule: Race and Class in African American Politics. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Deering, Christopher J., and Steven S. Smith. 1997. Committees in Congress. 3rd ed. Washington, DC: Congressional Quarterly Press. DГ-az-Balart, Lincoln. 2008.Immigration. https://mariodiazbalart.house.gov/issues/immigration Dockterman, Daniel. 2011. Statistical Portrait of Hispanics in the United States, 2009. Washington, DC: Pew Hispanic Center. Dovi, Suzanne. 2002. “Preferable Descriptive Representatives: Will Just Any Woman, Black, or Latino Do? ” American Political Science Review 96 (4): 729–43. Ellis, William Curtis, and Walter Clark Wilson. 2013. “Minority Chairs and Congressional Attention to Minority Issues: The Effect of Descriptive Representation in Positions of Institutional Power.” Social Science Quarterly 94 (5): 1207–21. Eulau, Heinz, and Paul D. Karps. 1977. “The Puzzle of Representation: Specifying Components of Responsiveness.” Legislative Studies Quarterly 2 (3): 233–54. Evans, C. Lawrence. 1991. Leadership in Committee: A Comparative Analysis of Leadership Behavior in the U.S. Senate. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. Farhi, Paul. 2007a. “Burns Agrees to Include Latino Veterans in вЂThe War.’” Washington Post, May 11. Farhi, Paul. 2007b. “Burns Won’t Reedit вЂWar,’ PBS Clarifies.” Washington Post, April 19. Farhi, Paul. 2007c. “Latinos’ Battle with Burns Taken to вЂWar’ Sponsors.” Washington Post, May 3. Fenno, Richard F. 1973. Congressmen in Committees. Boston: Little, Brown. Fenno, Richard F. 1978. Home Style: House Members in Their Districts. Boston: Little, Brown. Fenno, Richard F. 2003. Going Home: Black Representatives and Their Constituents. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Filner, Bob. 2007. Letter to PBS. February 21. http://defendthehonor.org/?page_id=77 Fox, Harrison W., Jr., and Susan Hammond. 1977. Congressional Staffs: The Invisible Force of American Lawmaking. New York: Free Press. Fox, Susannah, and Gretchen Livingston. 2007. Latinos Online. Washington, DC: Pew Hispanic Center. Page 264 →Fraga, Luis R., Linda Lopez, Valerie Martinez-Ebers, and Ricardo Ramirez. 2006. “Gender and Ethnicity: Patterns of Electoral Success and Legislative Advocacy among Latina and Latino State Officials in Four States.” Journal of Women, Politics and Policy 28 (3–4): 121–45. Fraga, Luis R., and Ricardo Ramirez. 2003. “Latino Political Incorporation in California, 1990–2000.” In Latinos and Public Policy in California, edited by David Lopez and Andres Jimenez. Berkeley: University of California Press. Frantzich, Stephen. 1979. “Who Makes Our Laws?: The Legislative Effectiveness of Members of the U.S. Congress.” Legislative Studies Quarterly 4 (3): 409–28.

Gamble, Katrina. 2005. “The Face of Congress: The Impact of Race on Representation and Deliberation.” Ph.D. diss., Emory University. Gamboa, Suzanne. 2007. “Hispanics Still Unhappy with Burns Film.” Associated Press, April 12. Garcia, F. Chris, and Gabriel R. Sanchez. 2008. Hispanics and the U.S. Political System. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson. Garcia, Gilbert. 2009. “Gonzalez’s Health-Care Forum Draws Crowd.” San Antonio Express-News, August 24. GarcГ-a Bedolla, Lisa. 2009.Latino Politics. Cambridge: Polity. Geoscape and U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce. 2013. Hispanic Businesses and Entrepreneurs Drive Growth in the New Economy. http://www.immigrationresearch-info.org/report/other/hispanic-businesses-andentrepreneurs-drive-growth-new-economy Goldschmidt, Kathy, Nicole Folk, Mike Callahan, Richard Shapiro, and Brad Fitch. 2002. Congress Online: Assessing and Improving Capitol Hill Web Sites. Washington, DC: Congressional Management Foundation. Goldschmidt, Kathy, and Leslie Ochreiter. 2008. Communicating with Congress: How the Internet Has Changed Citizen Engagement. Washington, DC: Congressional Management Foundation. Gonzalez, Charles A. 2007. Rep. Gonzalez Leads Special Order Session of US House of Representatives. Press Release. May 14. www.webharvest.gov Grose, Christian R., Maurice Mangum, and Christopher Martin. 2007. “Race, Political Empowerment, and Constituency Service: Descriptive Representation and the Hiring of African-American Congressional Staff.” Polity 39 (4): 449–78. Guerra, Carlos. 2007a. “Questions Remain over How Burns Will Show Hispanics in WWII Film.” San Antonio Express News, May 12. Guerra, Carlos. 2007b. “When It Comes to Latinos’ Part, вЂThe War’ Is Strangely Amnesiac.” San Antonio Express-News, February 9. Guinier, Lani. 1994. Tyranny of the Majority. New York: Free Press. Gulati, Girish. 2004. “Members of Congress and Presentation of Self on the World Wide Web.” Press /Politics 9 (1): 22–40. Gurin, Patricia, Shirley Hatchett, and James S. Jackson. 1989. Hope and Independence: Blacks’ Response to Electoral and Party Politics. New York: Russell Sage Foundation. Gutmann, Amy, and Dennis Thompson. 2004. Why Deliberative Democracy? Princeton: Princeton University Press. Habermas, Jurgen. 1984. The Theory of Communicative Action. Boston: Beacon. Page 265 →Habermas, Jurgen. 1996. Between Facts and Norms: Contributions to a Discourse Theory of Law and Democracy. Cambridge: MIT Press. Hall, Richard. 1996. Participation in Congress. New Haven: Yale University. Harrison, Patricia. 2014. Statement of Patricia Harrison, President and CEO, Corporation for Public Broadcasting, before the Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, Education and Related Agencies,

U.S. House Committee on Appropriations. www.cpb.org Hawkesworth, Mary. 2003. “Congressional Enactments of Race-Gender: Toward a Theory of Raced-Gendered Institutions.” American Political Science Review 97 (4): 529–55. Hernandez v. Texas. 1954. 347 U.S. 475. Hero, Rodney E. 1992. Latinos and the U.S. Political System: Two-Tiered Pluralism. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. Hero, Rodney E., and Caroline J. Tolbert. 1995. “Latinos and Substantive Representation in the U.S. House of Representatives: Direct, Indirect, or Nonexistent?” American Journal of Political Science 39 (3): 640–52. Higher Education Act: Institutional Support for Colleges and Universities under Title III and Title V: Hearing before the Subcommittee on Higher Education, Lifelong Learning, and Competitiveness, Committee on Education and Labor, U.S. House of Representatives, 110th Congress, 1st Session, Hearing Held in Austin, TX, June 4, 2007. 2008. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office. Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities. 2015. “2015 Fact Sheet: Hispanic Higher Education and HSIs.” Washington, DC: HACU Office of Policy Analysis Information. http://www.hacu.net/images/hacu /OPAI/3.%202015%20HSI%20Fact%20Sheet.pdf Hochschild, Jennifer, Jacqueline Chattopadhyay, Claudine Gay, and Michael Jones Correa, eds. 2013. Introduction to Outsiders No More? New York: Oxford University Press. Hochschild, Jennifer, and John Mollenkopf. 2009. “Modeling Immigrant Political Incorporation.” In Bringing Outsiders In, edited by Jennifer Hochschild and John Mollenkopf, 15–30. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. Holmes, Steven. 1994. “Report Criticizes Smithsonian on Hispanic Focus and Hiring.” New York Times, May 11. H.R. 6: Higher Education Amendments of 1998. 1998. https://www.congress.gov/bill/105th-congress/house-bill/6 /text H.R. 1645: Security through Regularized Immigration and a Vibrant Economy Act of 2007. 2007. https://www.congress.gov/bill/110th-congress/house-bill/1645 H.R. 2330: Secure America and Orderly Immigration Act. 2005. https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/109 /hr2330/text H.R. 2495: Higher Education for the Twenty-First Century Act. 1998. https://www.congress.gov/bill/105thcongress/house-bill/2495/text H.R. 4437: The Border Protection, Anti-Terrorism, and Illegal Immigration Control Act of 2005. https://www.congress.gov/bill/109th-congress/house-bill/4437 Huerta, Juan Carlos, and Adolfo Santos. 2006. “Latino Representation in the U.S. Congress: How Much and by Whom?” American Review of Politics 27:115–28. Page 266 →Huff, Richard. 2007. “Latino Group Attacks WWII Film on PBS.” New York Daily News, March 15. Hurtado, Sylvia, and Adriana Ruiz. 2012. Realizing the Potential of Hispanic-Serving Institutions: Multiple Dimensions of Institutional Diversity for Advancing Hispanic Higher Education. www.hacu.net

Hutchison, Kay Bailey. 2008. “Education Is Key to a Prosperous Future.” Johnson City Record Courier, August 21. Improving Head Start for America’s Children: Hearing before the Subcommittee on Early Childhood, Elementary, and Secondary Education, Committee on Education and Labor, U.S. House of Representatives, 110th Congress, 1st session, Hearing Held in Washington, D.C., February 28, 2007. 2007. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office. Jensen, Elizabeth. 2007. “PBS Supports Ken Burns against Latinos’ Complaints.” New York Times, May 5. Jones, Bryan D., and Frank R. Baumgartner. 2004. “Representation and Agenda Setting.” Policy Studies Journal 32 (1): 1–24. Jones, Bryan D., and Frank R. Baumgartner. 2005. The Politics of Attention: How Government Prioritizes Problems. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Jones, Bryan D., Frank Baumgartner, and Jeffery C. Talbert. 1993. “The Destruction of Issue Monopolies in Congress.” American Political Science Review 87 (3): 657–71. Jones-Correa, Michael. 2013. “Thru-Ways, By-Ways, and Cul-de-Sacs of Immigrant Political Incorporation.” In Outsiders No More?, edited by Jennifer Hochschild, Jacqueline Chattopadhyay, Claudine Gay, and Michael Jones-Correa. New York: Oxford University Press. Juenke, Eric Gonzalez, and Robert R. Preuhs. 2012. “Irreplaceable Legislators?: Rethinking Minority Representatives in the New Century.” American Journal of Political Science 56 (3): 705–15. Kady, Martin, II. 2009. “Democratic Defections?” Politico, November 11. Kerger, Paula. 2007. Letter to Congressman Rodriguez. April 20; copy in possession of author. Kerr, Brinck, and Will Miller. 1997. “Latino Representation, It’s Direct and Indirect.” American Journal of Political Science 41 (3): 1066–77. Kingdon, John W. 2003. Agendas, Alternatives, and Public Policies. 2nd ed. New York: Longman. Knoll, Benjamin. 2009. “¿Amigo de la Raza?: Reexamining Determinants of Latino Support in the U.S. Congress.” Social Science Quarterly 90 (1): 179–95. Kochhar, Rakesh, Richard Fry, and Paul Taylor. 2011. Wealth Gaps Rise to Record Highs between Whites, Blacks, Hispanics. Washington, DC: Pew Research Center. Krehbiel, Keith. 1991. Information and Legislative Organization. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. Krutz, Glen S. 2005. “Issues and Institutions: вЂWinnowing’ in the U.S. Congress.” American Journal of Political Science 49 (2): 313–26. Laden, Berta Vigil. 2001. “Hispanic-Serving Institutions: Myths and Realities.” Peabody Journal of Education 76 (1): 73–92. Library of Congress. 2013. “Henry B. Gonzalez.” Hispanic Americans in Congress, 1822–1995. http://www.loc.gov Page 267 →Long, J. Scott, and Jeremy Freese. 2003. Regression Models for Categorical and Dependent Variables Using STATA. College Station, TX: STATA Press.

Lopez, Mark H., and Ana Gonzalez-Barrera. 2013. Inside the 2012 Latino Electorate. Washington, DC: Pew Hispanic Center. Lopez, Mark H., Ana Gonzalez-Barrera, and Eileen Patten. 2013. Closing the Digital Divide: Latinos and Technology Adoption. Washington, DC: Pew Hispanic Center. Lopez, Mark H., Rich Morin, and Paul Taylor. 2010. Illegal Immigration Backlash Worries, Divides Latinos. Washington, DC: Pew Hispanic Center. Lopez, Tomas. 2014. “Shelby County”: One Year Later. http://www.brennancenter.org/analysis/shelbycounty-one-year-later Lublin, David. 1997a. Congressional District and Political Data, 1972–1994. www.davidlublin.com Lublin, David. 1997b. The Paradox of Representation. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Madison, James. 1788. “Federalist 52.” The Federalist Papers. https://www.congress.gov/resources/display /content/The+Federalist+Papers#TheFederalistPapers-52 Madison, Lucy. 2012. “Romney on Immigration: I’m for вЂSelf-Deportation.’” CBSNews.com, January 24. http://www.cbsnews.com Malewitz, Jim. 2015. “Study: Law Discouraged More Than Those without Voter ID.” Texas Tribune, August 6. Mansbridge, Jane. 1999. “Should Blacks Represent Blacks and Women Represent Women?: A Contingent вЂYes.’” Journal of Politics 61 (3): 628–57. Mariscal, Jorge. 2007. “Some of Ken Burns’ World War II Heroes Are Missing in Action.” San Diego La Prensa, February 16. Mayhew, David. 1974. Congress: The Electoral Connection. New Haven: Yale University Press. McClain, P. D. 1993. Minority Group Influence: Agenda-Setting, Formulation, and Public Policy. Westport, CT: Greenwood. McCutcheon, C., and C. L. Lyons. 2009. CQ’s Politics in America 2010 (111th Congress). Washington, DC: Congressional Quarterly Press. Mercer, Charmaine. 2008. Title III and Title V of the Higher Education Act: Background and Reauthorization Issues. Washington, DC: Congressional Research Service. Mill, John Stuart. 1991. Considerations on Representative Government. New York: Prometheus. Miller, Warren E., and Donald E. Stokes. 1963. “Constituency Influence in Congress.” American Political Science Review 57 (1): 45–56. Minta, Michael. 2011. Oversight: Representing Black and Latino Interests in Congress. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Morales, Antonio G. 2007. Letter to the Members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus. April 19; copy in possession of author. Motel, Seth, and Eileen Patten. 2013. Statistical Portrait of Hispanics in the United States, 2011. Washington, DC: Pew Hispanic Center. NALEO at-a-Glance. 2013. http://www.naleo.org/at_a_glance

National Immigration Law Center. 2014. Immigrants and the Affordable Care Act (ACA). www.nilc.org Navarrette, Ruben. 2014. “Latino Reality Check.” Washington Post, October 19. Page 268 →Navarro, Sharon, and Rodolfo Rosales. 2013. The Roots of Latino Urban Agency. Denton: University of North Texas Press. Nelson, Garrison. 1993. “Committees in the U.S. Congress, 1947–1992.” Charles Stewart’s Congressional Data Page. http://web.mit.edu/17.251/www/data_page.html Niven, David, and Jeremy Zilber. 2001. “Do Women and Men in Congress Cultivate Different Images? Evidence from Congressional Web Sites.” Political Communication 18 (4): 395–405. O’Connor, Sandra Day. 1993. Ruth O. Shaw, et al., Appellants v. Janet Reno, Attorney General et al. 509 630 U.S. Oleszek, Walter J. 2011. Congressional Procedures and the Policy Process. 8th ed. Washington, DC: CQ Press. Ostrow, Joanne. 2007. “Ken Burns Documentary Controversy Left out of вЂThe War’: For Colorado Veterans, Snub Is More of the Same.” Denver Post, March 4. Owens, John. 1997. “The Return of Party Government in the U.S. House of Representatives: Central Leadership-Committee Relations in the 104th Congress.” British Journal of Political Science 27 (2): 247–72. Passel, Jeffrey, and D’Vera Cohn. 2008. U.S. Population Projections: 2005–2050. Washington, DC: Pew Research Center. Pelosi, Nancy. 2007. Pelosi: “Increasing the Minimum Wage Is a Victory for America’s Families.” Press Release. January 10. http://www.democraticleader.gov/newsroom/pelosi-increasing-minimum-wagevictory-americas-families/ Peters, Ronald, and Cindy Simon Rosenthal. 2010. Speaker Nancy Pelosi and the New American Politics. New York: Oxford University Press. Pew Hispanic Center National Survey of Latinos, August, 2010. 2010. Washington, DC: Pew Hispanic Center. Pew Hispanic Media Survey, February, 2004. 2004. Washington, DC: Pew Hispanic Center. Phillips, Anne. 1995. The Politics of Presence. Oxford: Clarendon. Pitkin, Hanna Fenichel. 1967. The Concept of Representation. Berkeley: University of California Press. Poole, Keith T., and Howard Rosenthal. 1997. Congress: A Political-Economic History of Roll Call Voting. New York: Oxford University Press. Preston, Julia. 2014. “Poll Shows Path to Citizenship Is Favored.” New York Times, June 10. Preuhs, Robert R., and Rodney E. Hero. 2011. “A Different Kind of Representation: Black and Latino Descriptive Representation and the Role of Ideological Cuing.” Political Research Quarterly 64 (1): 157–71. Ramirez, Ricardo. 2013. Mobilizing Opportunities: The Evolving Latino Electorate and the Future of American Politics. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press. Review the Federal Food Stamp Program and Its Impact on Children’s Health: Hearing before the Subcommittee on Department Operations, Oversight, Nutrition, and Forestry of the Committee on Agriculture,

U.S. House of Representatives, 110th Congress, 1st Session, March 13, 2007. 2007. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office. Rivas-Rodriguez, Maggie. 2014a. E-Mail Correspondence: Ken Burns’ вЂThe War’ and the Congressional Hispanic Caucus. February 12. Rivas-Rodriguez, Maggie. 2014b. Interview. Page 269 →Rocca, Michael, and Gabriel Sanchez. 2008. “The Effect of Race and Ethnicity on Bill Sponsorship and Cosponsorship in Congress.” American Politics Research 36 (1): 130–52. Rodriguez, Antonio. 2012. “DREAMers Deferred Action Workshop.” Nowcast SA. August 6. https://nowcastsa.com/events/dreamers-deferred-action-workshop Rodriguez, Ciro. 2007a. Hispanic Caucus Meets with GI Forum: PBS WWII Documentary Cannot Exclude Hispanic Sacrifice. Press Release. March 29. www.webharvest.gov Rodriguez, Ciro. 2007b. Letter to Members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus: Notes Regarding PBS Next Steps. May 3; copy in possession of author. Romzek, Barbara S., and Jennifer A. Utter. 1996. “Career Dynamics of Congressional Legislative Staff: Preliminary Profiles and Research Questions.” Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory 6 (3): 415–42. Rosales, Rodolfo. 2000. The Illusion of Inclusion. Austin: University of Texas Press. Rosenthal, Cindy Simon, and Lauren Cohen Bell. 2002. “Invisible Power: Congressional Staff and Representation behind the Scenes.” In Women Transforming Congress, edited by Cindy Simon Rosenthal. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press. Rosenthal, Cindy Simon, and Lauren Cohen Bell. 2003. “From Passive to Active Representation: The Case of Women Congressional Staff.” Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory 13 (1): 65–82. Rouse, Stella M. 2013. Latinos in the Legislative Process: Interests and Influence. New York: Cambridge University Press. Rouse, Stella M., Betina Cutaia Wilkinson, and James Garand. 2010. “Divided Loyalties?: Understanding Variation in Latino Attitudes toward Immigration.” Social Science Quarterly 91 (3): 856–82. Rundquist, Paul S., Judy Schneider, and Frederick H. Pauls. 1992. Congressional Staff: An Analysis of Their Roles, Functions, and Impacts. Washington, DC: Congressional Research Service. Sanchez, Carlos. 2007a. Hispanic Caucus Applauds the Approval of H. Res. 78. Press Release. Congressional Hispanic Caucus. January 24. webharvest.gov Sanchez, Carlos. 2007b. Hispanic Caucus Applauds the Passage of H.R. 1429—Bill Improves the Lives of Hispanic Children. Press Release. Congressional Hispanic Caucus. May 2. http://congressionalhispaniccaucussanchez.house.gov/media-center/press-releases/hispanic-caucus-applauds-the-passage-of-hr-1429-bill-improvesthe-lives SГЎnchez, Erika L. 2013. “U.S. Military, a Growing Latino Army.” NBC Latino, January 1. http://nbclatino.com/2013/01/01/u-s-military-a-growing-latino-army/ SГЎnchez, Linda. 2005. Border Protection, Antiterrorism, and Illegal Immigration Control Act of 2005. U.S. House of Representatives, Washington, DC: Congressional Record, December 15, page H11805.

http://thomas.loc.gov Santiago, Deborah. 2011. Hispanic-Serving Institutions (HSIs): 2009–10 Factsheet. www.edexcelencia.org Santos, Adolfo, and Juan Huerta. 2001. “An Analysis of Descriptive and Substantive Latino Representation in Congress.” In Representation of Minority Groups in the U.S., edited by Charles E. Menifield. Lanham, MD: Austin and Winfield. Schattschneider, E. E. 1960. The Semi-Sovereign People. New York: Holt, Reinhart, and Winston. Page 270 →Segura, Gary. 2013. “Behavioral and Attitudinal Components of Immigrant Political Incorporation.” In Outsiders No More?, edited by Jennifer Hochschild, Jacqueline Chattopadhyay, Claudine Gay, and Michael Jones-Correa. New York: Oxford University Press. Smith, Ben. 2010. “A Bone for the CHC.” Politico. March 18. www.politico.com Smith, Stephanie. 2013. E-Mail Correspondence: Citizenship Events. August 6. Smith, Steven. 2007. Party Influence in Congress. New York: Cambridge University Press. Smole, David, Blake Naughton, Jeffrey Kuenzi, and Rebecca Skinner. 2008. The Higher Education Opportunity Act: Reauthorization of the Higher Education Act. Washington, DC: Congressional Research Service. Soraghan, Mike. 2008. “Minority Caucuses to Press for Two SCHIP Provisions.” The Hill, August 12. Stewart, Charles, III, and Jonathan Woon. 2012. “Data Set: Congressional Committee Assignments, 103rd to 112th Congresses, 1993–2011.” Charles Stewart’s Congressional Data Page. http://web.mit.edu /17.251/www/data_page.html Storing, Herbert. 1985. The Anti-Federalist: Writings by Opponents of the Constitution. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Straus, Jacob R. 2008. “Dear Colleague” Letters: Current Practices. Washington, DC: Congressional Research Service. Suro, Roberto. 2005. Attitudes toward Immigrants and Immigration Policy: Surveys among Latinos in the U.S. and in Mexico. Washington, DC: Pew Hispanic Center. Suro, Roberto, and Gabriel Escobar. 2006. 2006 National Survey of Latinos: The Immigration Debate. http://www.pewhispanic.org Survey of Business Owners (SBO), 2007. 2007. Washington, DC: U.S. Census Bureau. www.census.gov Swain, Carol. 1993. Black Faces, Black Interests. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Swers, Michele L. 1998. “Are Women More Likely to Vote for Women’s Issue Bills Than Their Male Colleagues?” Legislative Studies Quarterly 23 (3): 435–48. Swers, Michele L. 2002. The Difference Women Make. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Talbert, Jeffery C., Bryan D. Jones, and Frank R. Baumgartner. 1995. “Nonlegislative Hearings and Policy Change in Congress.” American Journal of Political Science 39 (2): 383–405. Tamerius, Karen. 1995. “Sex, Gender, and Leadership in the Representation of Women.” In Gender Power, Leadership, and Governance, edited by Georgia Duerst-Lahti and Rita Mae Kelley. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.

Tate, Katherine. 2003. Black Faces in the Mirror. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Taylor, Paul, Mark Lopez, Jessica Hamar Martinez, and Gabriel Valesco. 2012. When Labels Don’t Fit: Hispanics and Their Views of Identity. Washington, DC: Pew Hispanic Center. Thomas, Sue. 1990. “Voting Patterns in the California Assembly: The Role of Gender.” Women and Politics 9 (4): 43–56. Tocqueville, Alexis de. 2000. Democracy in America. New York: Bantam. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. 2008. “Characteristics of Minimum Wage Workers: 2007.” March 25. http://www.bls.gov/cps/minwage2007.htm Page 271 →U.S. Congress, House of Representatives. 2008. Subcommittee Hearing on Minority and Hispanic Participation in the Federal Workforce and the Impact on the Small Business Community: Subcommittee on Regulations, Health Care, and Trade, Committee on Small Business, U.S. House of Representatives. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office. U.S. Congress, House of Representatives, Committee on Standards of Official Conduct. 2008. House Ethics Manual. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office. U.S. Department of Education. 2013. Developing Hispanic-Serving Institutions Program—Title V. April 4. http://www2.ed.gov U.S. Department of Homeland Security. 2011. Yearbook of Immigration Statistics: 2010. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Office of Immigration Statistics. http://www.dhs.gov U.S. Small Business Administration, Office of Advocacy. 2007. “Preliminary Data: Firms, Sales, Annual Payroll and Employment by Ethnicity, 2007.” https://www.sba.gov/advocacy/preliminary-informationbusiness-owner-demographics-us-census-bureau Vega, Arturo. 1990. “Congress by Caucus: A Survey of Congressional Groups.” Ph.D. diss., University of Oklahoma. Vega, Arturo, and Ronald Peters. 1996. “Principal-Agent Theories of Party Leadership under Preference Heterogeneity: The Case of Simpson-Mazzoli.” Congress and the Presidency 23 (1): 15–32. Verba, Sidney, Kay Lehman Schlozman, and Henry E. Brady. 1995. Voice and Equality. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Vigil, Maurilio. 1996. Hispanics in Congress. Lanham, MD: University Press of America. Walsh, Katherine Cramer. 2002. “Enlarging Representation: Women Bringing Marginalized Perspectives to Floor Debate in the House of Representatives.” In Women Transforming Congress, edited by Cindy Simon Rosenthal. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press. Washington Times Editorial Board. 2007. “Ken Burns Folds, вЂThe War’ Is Lost.” Washington Times, May 24. Watanabe, Teresa, and Hector Becerra. 2006. “500,000 Pack Streets to Protest Immigration Bills—Los Angeles Times.” Los Angeles Times, March 26. Weisman, Jonathan. 2012. “Rubio, in Appeal to G.O.P’s Conscience, Urges Compromise on Dream Act.” New York Times, April 19. Welch, Susan, and John R. Hibbing. 1984. “Hispanic Representation in the U.S. Congress.” Legislative

Studies Quarterly 65 (2): 328–35. Whitby, Kenny J. 1997. The Color of Representation. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. Williams, Melissa. 1998. Voice Trust and Memory. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Wilson, Walter C. 2009. “Latino Representation on Congressional Websites.” Legislative Studies Quarterly 43 (3): 427–48. Wilson, Walter C. 2010. “Descriptive Representation and Latino Interest Bill Sponsorship in Congress.” Social Science Quarterly 91 (4): 1043–62. Page 272 →Wilson, Walter C. 2013. “Latino Congressional Staffers and Policy Responsiveness: An Analysis of Latino Interest Agenda-Setting.” Politics, Groups, and Identities 1 (2): 164–80. Wilson, Woodrow. 1981. Congressional Government. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Wolanin, Thomas R. 2003. Reauthorizing the Higher Education Act: Issues and Options. Washington, DC: Institute for Higher Education Policy. http://www.ihep.org Wolbrecht, Christina. 2002. “Female Legislators and the Women’s Rights Agenda: From Feminine Mystique to Feminist Era.” In Women Transforming Congress, edited by Cindy Simon Rosenthal. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press. Word, David L., and Colby Perkins Jr. 1996. Building a Spanish Surname List for the 1990’s—A New Approach to an Old Problem. www.census.gov Yachnin, Jennifer. 2007. “CHC Revolts over Leadership Snubs.” Roll Call, November 12. Young, Iris Marion. 2000. Inclusion and Democracy. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Between December 1, 2006, and August 7, 2007, I interviewed 24 current and former members of the U.S. House of Representatives and 26 congressional staffers from 9 states, 1 territory, and 32 congressional districts. I focused on representatives and staffers who served large Latino constituencies (generally greater than 20 percent of their district’s population) and spoke with both Latinos and non-Latinos, Democrats and Republicans, from diverse regions of the country. All but one interview was conducted in person, in a formal office setting. With the exception of several interviews with district staffers in the San Antonio area, the interviews were conducted in Washington, DC. Interview participants knew I was conducting research on Latino representation, and much of each interview was devoted to discussing their perceptions of Latinos as a political constituency, understandings of Latino interests, perceptions of their roles as representatives generally and of the Latino community, and legislative efforts to represent Latinos. Because some respondents asked me to maintain the confidentiality of their comments, all quotations used in this study have been kept confidential. To differentiate representatives and staffers from one another, I assigned each representative and each staffer an alphabetical letter for citation purposes. All information collected during the interview process that could be used to identify individual participants in the study has been kept confidential; no individuals interviewed for the study and quoted in the manuscript are identified by name; and no information was included in the manuscript that would identify participants.

Page 273 →

Index Note: Page numbers in italic refer to tables or figures. Affordable Care Act, 225, 232, 233, 234 agenda setting, policy collective legislative efforts in, 159–66, 168, 241–42 committee assignments and, 60–63, 64–65, 66–70, 79 committee chair leadership and, 69–71, 71, 72–73, 74, 79, 147–52, 149, 153, 154–60, 167–68, 257–58n10 committee hearings and, 148–52, 149, 153, 154–59, 167–68, 241, 257nn7–9, 257–58n10 congressional staffing influence on, 87–88, 119–21 Latino-interest bill sponsorship and, 135–38, 139, 140–44, 144, 145–47, 147, 167, 236, 256n2 and Latino political incorporation, 23, 23, 26–27 majority-minority status and, 131, 160, 166 representative ethnicity and, 133–35, 166–68 substantive representation and, 133–35, 138, 141–42 See also CHC (Congressional Hispanic Caucus) agricultural labor. See labor interests American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009, 225 American GI Forum, 191–92, 194, 195 anti-immigrant legislation, 59–60, 219–21, 232, 238, 249. See also immigration policy anti-immigrant rhetoric, 165, 166, 170–71, 239, 249 Asian and Pacific Islander Caucus, 222, 259n5 Baca, Joe as CHC chair, 217–18 committee leadership of, 67, 72, 158, 159, 257–58n10 and “Dear Colleague” letters, 186, 188–89 and H.R. 2419, 230, 257–58n10 and immigration reform policy, 172, 188–89 Latino-interest legislation sponsored by, 140

in 2007 minimum wage debate, 2 Baseball (documentary film), 203 Becerra, Xavier, 74, 103–4, 140, 207–8, 253n1 Berkley, Shelley, 104 Beutler, Jaime Herrera, 255n5 Page 274 →bill sponsorship, Latino-interest, 135–38, 139, 140–44, 144, 145–47, 147, 167, 236, 256n2 Blue Dog Coalition, 222 Bonilla, Henry, 72 Border Protection, Anti-Terrorism, and Illegal Immigration Control Act of 2005, 162, 164, 170, 189, 211, 238 Border Security, Economic Opportunity, and Immigration Modernization Act of 2013, 160, 165–66 Bratton, Kathleen, 137 Briggs, Xavier de Souza, 17 Browning, Rufus, 17, 30 Burden, Barry, 32–33 Burns, Ken, 78, 174, 191–93, 194, 195–96, 197, 200, 203 Bush, George W., 163, 164, 183, 207, 212, 221, 231, 256n6 Canon, David, 100, 119, 176, 177, 255n2 Canseco, Francisco, 51 Capps, Lois, 102–3 Cardoza, Dennis, 69, 72 Carney, Ryndee, 195 Casellas, Jason, 58 Cesar E. Chavez Study Act, 187 Chavez, Cesar E., 230 Chavez, Gus, 192 CHC (Congressional Hispanic Caucus) collective influence of, 29–30, 52–53, 75–79, 160–66, 210–11, 217–22, 233–34 and immigration policy reform, 27–28, 77, 78–79, 159, 160–66, 168, 170–71, 173, 189, 220, 231–32, 249, 235 Latino Republicans and, 221

membership of, 75, 253n1, 254n1, 255n9 mission of, 52–53, 75 during 110th and 111th Congresses, 222–35, 245 during 113th Congress, 75 and perceptions of Latino constituents, 89–90, 94 policy task forces of, 75–76 and The War debate, 78, 174, 191, 192–201, 202–4, 205 Clyburn, James, 222 coalition building in legislative process, 28–30, 186, 210–11, 215–17, 229, 236–37, 240–42, 248–49. See also CHC (Congressional Hispanic Caucus) Coelho, Tony, 72, 74 College Cost Reduction and Access Act, 228–29 committee and subcommittee hearings, 148–52, 149, 153, 154–59, 167–68, 241, 257nn7–9, 257–58n10 committee assignments, 60–63, 64–65, 66–70, 79 committee chair leadership, 69–71, 71, 72–73, 74, 79, 147–52, 149, 153, 154–60, 167–68, 257–58n10 comprehensive immigration reform. See immigration policy Comprehensive Immigration Reform for America’s Security and Prosperity Act of 2009, 164 Congressional Black Caucus, 216, 222, 259n5 congressional committees. See committee and subcommittee hearings; committee assignments; committee chair leadership congressional hearings. See committee and subcommittee hearings Congressional Hispanic Caucus (CHC). See CHC (Congressional Hispanic Caucus) Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute, 130 Congressional Hispanic Conference, 255n9 Congressional Hispanic Staff Association, 125 Congressional Progressive Caucus, 222, 233, 259n4 constituent communication congressional staffing and, 118, 119–20, 121 Page 275 →congressional websites and, 87, 109, 111–18, 113, 116, 117, 126–27, 241, 247

“Dear Colleague” letters and, 5, 8, 174, 185–90, 205, 258nn5–6 policy responsiveness and, 24–25 “constituency committees,” 61, 62–63, 64–65, 66–67 Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), 194, 195, 202 Costa, Jim, 73, 256n10 Cruz, Ted, 51, 66 Cuellar, Henry, 73, 220, 253n1, 256n10, 258n2 Cuervo, Ray, 171–72, 173 Dahl, Robert, 17–18 “Dear Colleague” letters, 5, 8, 174, 185–90, 205, 258nn5–6 debate, policy and “Dear Colleague” letters, 5, 8, 174, 185–90, 205, 258nn5–6 and floor speeches, 5, 173–74, 176–81, 179, 182, 184, 204–5, 241 and Latino political incorporation, 175–76 and policy responsiveness, 27–28 representative ethnicity and, 204–5 substantive representation and, 173–74, 176–77, 197–98, 199–200, 204–5, 241–42 and The War controversy, 78, 174, 191, 192–204, 205 See also immigration policy decision making, policy analysis of, 210–11 CHC and, 217–22 as collective effort, 209–11, 211–17, 217–22, 223, 224, 225, 227, 229, 231, 236–37 Latino Democrats and, 208, 209, 211–16, 221–24, 225–26, 230–37 and Latino political incorporation, 23, 23 Latino representatives’ influence on, 3, 208–17, 218, 221, 222–24, 225–35, 235–-237, 247–49, 250 non-Latino representatives and, 209, 216–17, 235, 237 during 110th and 111th Congresses, 212–13, 217–22, 222–35, 237 in Republican-controlled Congresses, 209, 212–13, 221, 237

substantive representation and, 208, 211, 217, 235–36, 241–42 de la Garza, Eligio “Kika,” 70–71, 72, 154 “deliberative democracy,” 175 Democratic Caucus, U. S. House, 74, 77, 164, 218, 220, 225, 229, 233, 250 descriptive representation in Congress in committee leadership and hearings, 148–50, 149, 151–52, 153, 154–60, 167–68 and congressional press releases, 105–7, 106, 107, 108–9, 108, 110, 247 and congressional staffing, 119–23, 121, 122, 123, 124–25 on congressional websites, 112–14, 112–13, 116–18, 116, 117, 247 and constituency size, 255n2 and floor speeches, 178, 181–83, 182 ideology and, 39, 41–42, 43, 44, 45–46, 47, 48, 170, 236, 256n5, 257n4 and impact on Latinos, 1–6 Latino-interest bill sponsorship and, 136–37, 140–44, 144, 145–47, 147, 167, 256n2 and Latino political incorporation, 35, 49–50, 63, 69 partisan representation versus, 242–45 and perceptions of Latino constituency, 93–94, 96–99, 125–26 policy preferences and, 34, 37, 42, 142, 245, 250 representative-constituent relationships and, 85–86 and service responsiveness, 117–18, 124–25, 126–27, 240 and voting behavior, 41–45, 44, 46, 47–50, 224–25, 240, 242–43, 245, 254n7 See also substantive representation Page 276 →Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors Act. See DREAM Act DГ-az-Balart, Lincoln,69, 73, 169, 213–14, 226–27 DГ-az-Balart, Mario,69 Diaz, Priscilla, 201 “digital divide,” 114–15 district office staffing versus legislative office staffing, 120–21, 121, 122, 122, 123, 124 Doggett, Lloyd, 216

Dovi, Suzanne, 23–24, 34–35, 36, 86, 127 DREAM Act of 2013, 24, 102–3, 116, 159–60, 163, 164–65, 225, 232 Edgewood ISD v. Kirby, 84–85 educational attainment, Latinos and disparities in, 129–31 education policy, 3, 68, 130–33, 158, 190, 215, 226–27, 228–29, 257–58n10 electoral influence, Latino, 55–56, 59–60, 88, 127–28, 238–39, 245, 251 electoral participation, Latino, 3, 17–18, 19, 53, 239, 246, 251 Emanuel, Rahm, 164 ethnic group consciousness, 34 Fair Minimum Wage Act of 2007, 1–2 Families Learning and Understanding English Together (FLUEnT) Act, 187 Feingold, Russ, 208 Fenno, Richard, 23, 37, 85, 111, 127. See also “home styles” Filner, Bob, 192, 199, 200, 216 floor speeches, 5, 173–74, 176–81, 179, 182, 184, 204–5, 241 Foley, Thomas, 74 Food, Conservation, and Energy Act of 2008, 230, 257–58n10 FortuГ±o, Luis, 2, 187 Fraga, Luis, 17, 19, 30 GalГЎn, Hector, 193, 196 Gamble, Katrina, 177 GarcГ-a, F. Chris,15 Garcia, Israel Devora, 172, 173 GI Forum. See American GI Forum Gonzalez, Charles CHC, 76, 77, 258n11 committee chair leadership of, 72–73, 158, 159, 257–58n10 and immigration reform policy, 162, 171, 172–73 in press releases, 104

and representative-constituent relationships, 84–85 and The War controversy, 196 Gonzalez-Garza, Rodrigo, 172–73 GonzГЎlez, Henry B., 67, 68, 71, 72, 155, 161, 258n11 Green, Gene, 179–80, 216 Grijalva, Raul, 68, 73, 158, 187, 253n1 Guerra, Carlos, 192, 196 Guinier, Lani, 36–37, 57, 60 GutiГ©rrez, JosГ© Antonio, 104, 171, 173 GutiГ©rrez, Luis, 68, 72, 77, 93, 162–63, 215 Hall, Richard, 177 Harrison, Patricia, 195 Hawkesworth, Mary, 256n2 HEA. See Higher Education Act health care policy, 3, 75, 83–85, 94, 95, 101, 125, 131, 225, 233 hearings, congressional. See committee and subcommittee hearings Hernandez v. Texas, 201 Hero, Rodney, 26, 42, 134 Herrera, Evenor Christopher, 172, 173 Higher Education Act (HEA), 68, 131–33, 226–28, 229, 235. See also HSI program Higher Education Act reauthorization of 1998. See Higher Education Opportunity Act of 2008 Higher Education for the Twenty-First Century Act of 1998, 132, 226–27 Higher Education Opportunity Act of 2008, 226–28, 257–58n10 Page 277 →Hinojosa, Ruben committee chair leadership of, 72, 158, 215, 228–29, 257–58n10 committee membership of, 68 “Dear Colleague” letters by, 186–87, 188, 190 and education policy, 68, 131, 132, 133, 158, 190, 215, 226–27, 228–29, 257–58n10 Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities, 130, 256n1

Hispanic Caucus. See Congressional Hispanic Caucus (CHC) Hispanic-owned businesses, 67, 233–34, 255n8 Hispanic Republicans, 255n9 Hispanic-serving institutions (HSIs). See HSI program Hochschild, Jennifer, 17, 18 “home styles,” 7, 23–24, 85, 88, 111, 136, 247 Hoyer, Steny, 218 HSI program, 131–33, 158, 226–29, 230, 256n1, 257–58n10 Huerta, Juan Carlos, 136 Hunter, Duncan, 165 Hutchison, Kay Bailey, 227 ideology, Latino representation and, 39, 41–42, 43, 44, 45–46, 47, 48, 170, 236, 256n5, 257n4 immigration assistance, congressional websites and, 111, 112–13, 115–16, 116 Immigration Control and Financial Responsibility Act of 1996, 161–62 immigration policy and anti-immigrant legislation, 59–60, 161–62, 212, 219–21, 232, 238, 249 CHC and, 27–28, 75, 76–77, 78, 159, 160–66, 170–71, 173, 189, 220, 231–32, 234, 235 and collective efforts in Latino-interest agenda setting, 75–79, 159–66, 168 comprehensive immigration reform and, 27–28, 68–69, 102–4, 137, 157, 159–65, 169–73, 213–14, 232, 249, 250 in congressional press releases, 102–5, 102 DREAM Act and, 24, 102–3, 116, 159–60, 163, 164–65, 225, 232, 233 Latino representatives and perspective on, 169–74 Latino representatives’ influence on, 3, 71, 74, 249–51 Latino Republicans and, 159, 160, 169, 170, 170, 213–14, 231, 233 legislation on, 24, 68–69, 102–3, 116, 159–60, 162–63, 164–66, 170, 189, 211, 213–14, 225, 231, 232 and noncitizens serving in U.S. armed forces, 171–73 in 109th and 110th Congresses, 219–22 and policy responsiveness, 27, 249

STRIVE Act and, 68–69, 103, 162, 165, 163, 164, 165, 231 See also undocumented immigrants Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1990, 161 Improving Head Start for School Readiness Act of 2007, 68, 229 interest-group voting, 40–41 Jackson-Lee, Sheila, 3 Jazz (documentary film), 203 Jones-Correa, Michael, 17–18, 20 Juenke, Eric, 255n22 Kerger, Paula, 192, 193, 195 Kerr, Brinck, 42 Kildee, Dave, 157–58 King, Steve, 219, 220 Kingdon, John, 133–35 Knoll, Benjamin, 42 Kolbe, Jim, 163 labor interests, 66–67, 92–93, 103–4, 157, 160, 161, 179, 257–58n10 Labrador, Raul, 255n5 Page 278 →Laden, Berta Vigil, 132–33 Latino and Latina World War II Oral History Project, 192 Latino constituents, representative perceptions of, 88–99, 89, 125–26 Latino Democrats and CHC collective influence, 217–22 and committee chair leadership, 149, 154–56, 158–59 in Congress, 1877–2013, 54–55, 55 and congressional press releases, 107–8, 107, 108 and congressional staffing, 121, 121 and congressional websites, 115, 116 and “Dear Colleague” letters, 186–90

education policy and, 130, 131, 133, 228–29 and floor speeches, 178, 181, 182 immigration reform and, 161, 162–63, 164–65, 169–70, 171–73, 213, 214 and Latino-interest bill sponsorship, 138, 140, 143, 144, 145 Latino Republican consensus with, 244 Obama administration and, 233–34 policymaking influence of, 208, 209, 211–16, 221–24, 225, 230–37, 250 2012 elections and, 51 in 110th and 111th Congresses, 222–28, 234–35, 245 voting patterns and, 42, 236–37 See also Congressional Hispanic Caucus (CHC) Latino-interest legislation. See bill sponsorship, Latino-interest Latino political inclusion and influence. See political incorporation, Latino Latino population diversity, 14–15, 253–54nn2–4 Latino population growth, 53, 55–58, 56, 94 Latino Public Broadcasting (LPB), 202 Latino Republicans CHC and, 221 and committee chair leadership, 149 in Congress, 1877–2013, 54–55, 55 and congressional press releases, 107–8, 107, 108 and congressional staffing, 121, 121 on congressional websites, 115, 116 “Dear Colleague” letters and, 186–87 and education as priority issue, 131 electoral demographics and, 59 floor speeches and, 178, 181, 182 immigration reform and, 159, 160, 169, 170, 213–14, 231, 233 Latino Democrats’ consensus with, 244

and Latino-interest bill sponsorship, 143, 144, 145 in 113th Congress, 51 and perceptions of Latino constituency, 91–92, 95–96, 98 Lazaro, Ladislas, 58, 70–71 legislative process, Latino representation in. See agenda setting, policy; debate, policy; decision making, policy legislative voting. See voting behavior, legislative Lofgren, Zoe, 157 Lublin, David, 38, 58 majority-minority districting, 5, 38, 55–58, 242–43, 244, 251, 255n2 Mansbridge, Jane, 34–35, 37 Marencoreyes, Douglas Jose, 171, 173 Marez, Henry, 172, 173 Marshall, Dale Rogers, 17, 30 Martinez, Mel, 51–52, 63, 72 McCain, John, 208 McClain, P.D., 256n2 Menendez, Robert, 66, 164, 195, 207–8 migrant labor. See labor interests Mill, John Stuart, 175 Miller, George, 228 Miller, Will, 42 minimum wage debate, 1–2, 3, 101, 104, 216 Minta, Michael, 34 Mirabel, Manuel, 195 Mollenkopf, John, 18 Page 279 →Molinabautista, Jorge Alberto, 172 Mooney, Alex, 255n5 Morales, Antonio, 191–92, 194 NACARA (Nicaraguan Adjustment and Central American Relief Act), 213–14

NALEO (National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials), 3, 130 Napolitano, Grace, 2, 73, 2, 172, 253n1, 256n10 National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials (NALEO), 3, 130 National Museum of the American Latino, Commission to Study Potential Creation of the, 140, 207–8, 209, 230, 235 Navarrette, Ruben, 249–50 New Democrat Coalition, 222 Next Generation Hispanic-Serving Institutions Act, 188, 228, 257–58n10 Nicaraguan Adjustment and Central American Relief Act (NACARA), 213–14 non-Latino representatives collaborative efforts of, 215 and committee hearings, 148–50, 149, 151–52, 153, 154–58 and committee leadership, 151–52, 153, 154–56, 157–60, 167–68 and congressional press releases, 105, 107, 108, 108, 110, 247 and congressional staffing, 121, 121, 122, 123, 124–25 and congressional websites, 112–14, 116–18, 116, 117, 247 and floor speeches, 181, 182, 183 Latino-interest bill sponsorship and, 136–37, 143–44, 144, 145, 146–47, 147, 167, 256n2 and perceptions of Latino constituencies, 96–99, 125–26 and service responsiveness to Latinos, 117–18, 124–25, 126–27, 240 and voting behavior, 41–42, 224–25, 240 NOURISH Act of 2007, 257–58n10 Novick, Lynn, 192 Nunes, Devin, 73, 256n10 Obama, Barack, 83, 85, 116, 160, 165, 225, 233, 234, 249–50 Obey, David, 219–20 Omnibus Appropriations Act of 1997, 161–62 O’Neill, Thomas “Tip,” 161 Ortiz, Solomon, 72–73, 77, 164, 171–72, 180, 234, 255n2 party leadership, Latinos and, 52, 60, 69–70, 74, 79. See also committee chair leadership

Pastor, Ed, 69, 256n10 PBS, 78, 191–92, 193–96, 201–3 Pelosi, Nancy, 1, 74, 215, 217, 218 policy agendas. See agenda setting, policy “policy committees,” 61–62, 63, 64–65, 68–69 policy preferences, 34, 37, 40–41, 42, 47–48, 142–43, 181, 245, 250 policy responsiveness, 22, 24–25, 26–28, 60, 87–88, 119–21, 142–43, 249. See also service responsiveness; symbolic responsiveness political incorporation, Latino as collective legislative effort, 217–22 descriptive representation and, 13, 14–17, 22–30, 23, 30–38, 48, 49–50, 52–53, 62, 63, 69, 242–49 future of, 249–52 Latino inclusion and influence in, 13, 14–17, 23, 29, 74, 238–39, 245–46 Latino political attitudes and, 15–16 Latino priority interests and, 14–17 Latino representation dependent on, 5–6 Latino representative perceptions of, 137, 211–17 Page 280 →and Latinos as historically underrepresented, 51–52, 54–55 and Latinos as political outsiders, 2–3, 246 policy responsiveness and, 26–27 political and analytical dimensions of, 17–21, 18, 21, 22, 246–47 representative-constituent relationships and, 88 socioeconomic factors affecting, 15–16, 254n5 substantive representation and, 19, 21, 23–24, 30–38, 49–50, 239, 240–42, 245–47 political participation, Latino and electoral influence, 38, 55–60, 56, 59, 88, 127–28, 238–39, 245, 248, 251–52 legal barriers to, 3, 53, 239, 251 and majority-minority districting, 37–38, 55–58 in model of political incorporation, 20–21, 21, 246–47

and voter turnout, 238–39, 246 poll taxes, 53, 180, 255n2. See also voting laws, restrictive Pombo, Richard, 71, 73 press releases, congressional, 99–109, 102, 106, 107, 108, 110, 241, 247, 255n2 “prestige committees,” 61, 62–63, 64–65, 69 Preuhs, Robert, 42, 255n2 Proposition 187, California, 59–60, 212 public hearings. See committee and subcommittee hearings Ramirez, Ricardo, 17, 19, 30, 59 Rangel, Charles, 3, 200 redistricting, majority-minority, 5, 38, 53, 55–58, 242–43, 244, 251, 255n2 Removal Clarification Act of 2010, 164–65, 225, 233 representative-constituent relationships descriptive representation and, 85–86 Latino political incorporation and, 88 and perceptions of Latino constituency, 86–87, 88–99, 125–26 representative ethnicity influence on, 125–28 representative “home styles” in, 23–24, 85, 88, 111, 136, 247 See also press releases, congressional; staffing, congressional; websites, congressional representative ethnicity and floor speeches, 181–83, 182 and congressional press releases, 105, 107, 108, 108, 110, 247 and congressional staffing, 121, 121, 122, 123, 124–25 and congressional websites, 112–14, 116–18, 116, 117, 247 Latino-interest bill sponsorship and, 136–37, 143–44, 144, 145, 146–47, 147, 167, 256n2 in legislative agenda setting, 149–52, 153–60, 166–68, 153, 157–60, 148–50, 149, 154–58 and perceptions of Latino constituencies, 96–99, 125–26 in policy debate, 204–5 in policy decision making, 235–37

and service responsiveness to Latinos, 117–18, 124–25, 126–27, 240 in voting behavior, 224–25, 240, 243 Republican-controlled Congresses, Latino representation in, 137, 170–71, 234, 244, 251 research evidence and analyses, outline of, 6–9 Reyes, Sylvestre, 71, 73, 77, 140, 215 Rivas-Rodriguez, Maggie, 192, 196, 201 Rivera, David, 51 Rocca, Michael, 136–37 Rodriguez, Ciro, 169, 172, 191, 193, 234, 253n1 Romney, Mitt, 159, 165 Rosales, Rodolfo, 18–19 Ros-Lehtinen, Ileana, 71, 73, 154, 186–87, 190, 226–27 Rouse, Stella, 15, 16, 39–40, 101, 137 Page 281 →Roybal, Ed, 69, 70, 72, 154–55 Roybal-Allard, Lucille, 69 Rubio, Marco, 51, 66, 159, 160 Salazar, John, 172, 220, 234 Salazar, Ken, 51–52, 63–64, 66, 195 Sanabria, Bobby, 203 Sanchez, Gabriel, 15, 136–37 SГЎnchez, Linda, 68, 73, 76, 162, 253n1 Sanchez, Loretta, 73, 77 Santos, Adolfo, 136 SAVE Act, 220 Schattschneider, E. E., 134, 239 Schumer, Charles, 160, 165–66 Secure America and Orderly Immigration Act of 2005, 162–63 Security through Regularized Immigration and a Vibrant Economy Act. See STRIVE Act of 2007 Senate, U.S., Latino underrepresentation in, 51–52, 53, 54–55, 62, 63, 66

Serrano, Jose, 69, 72, 77, 256n10 service responsiveness congressional staffing and, 25, 120–21, 124–25, 126–27 congressional websites and, 87, 111–14, 115–16, 126–27 methods of, 25–26 non-Latino representatives and, 117–18, 124–25, 126–27, 240 Shelby County v. Holder, 239 Shuler, Heath, 220 Simpson-Mazzoli Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986, 77, 160–61 Sires, Albio, 2 Small Business Jobs Act, 232–33 Smith, Lamar, 84, 85 Smithsonian Institution Task Force on Latino Issues, 206–8 Solis, Hilda, 2, 77, 138, 180, 186, 187–88, 189–90 Spanish accessibility, congressional websites and, 87, 111, 112–13, 113, 114–15, 116, 126–27 speeches. See floor speeches staffing, congressional, 88, 118–25, 121, 122, 123, 247 Stearns, Cliff, 223 STRIVE Act of 2007, 68–69, 103, 162, 163, 164, 165, 231 substantive representation in agenda setting, 127, 133–35, 138, 141–42 Latino political incorporation and, 19, 21, 23–24, 30–38, 49–50, 239, 240–42, 245–47 Latino representatives’ role in, 3–5 and legislative decision making, 208, 211, 217, 235–36, 241–42 and political debate, 3, 173–74, 176–77, 197–200, 204–5, 241–42 symbolic responsiveness, 22, 24, 25–26, 27, 87, 125, 126, 127, 217, 247. See also policy responsiveness; service responsiveness symbolic versus substantive policy initiatives, 137–38, 139, 140, 141, 143, 144, 230–31, 145, 146 Swers, Michele L., 135 Tabb, David, 17, 30

Tamerius, Karen, 135–36 Tapia, Raul, 194 Tate, Katherine, 35, 138 Tea Party, 83, 84 Temporary Tax Relief Act of 2007, 218 Title V, Higher Education Act, 131, 132, 226–27. See also HSI program Torres, Esteban E., 72–73 Towns, Edolphus, 140 Tri-Caucus, 233, 259n5 undocumented immigrants comprehensive immigration reform and, 27–28, 68–69, 102–4, 137, 157, 159–65, 232 deportation of, 159–60, 161–62, 249–50 DREAM Act and, 24, 102–3, 116, 159–60, 163, 164–65, 225, 232 Page 282 →Obama administration and, 116, 160, 234, 249, 250 policy targeting, 160–62, 164, 165, 170, 173, 188–89, 211–12, 219–20, 238, 249–50 STRIVE Act and, 68–69, 103, 162, 163, 164, 165, 231 “unrequested committees,” 62–63, 64–65 Valadao, David, 51 VelГЎzquez, Nydia, 71, 73, 233 voter identification laws. See voting laws, restrictive voter turnout, 238–39 voting behavior, legislative and descriptive representation, 41–42, 43–45, 44, 46, 47–50, 224–25, 240, 242–45, 254n7 among Latino Democrats, 42, 236–37 and Latino political incorporation, 19–20, 48 and non-Latino representatives, 41–42, 224–25, 240 policy preferences and, 47–48, 245 and unity in 110th and 111th Congresses, 222–26, 245 voting laws, restrictive, 3, 53, 239, 251

Voting Rights Act, 38, 57, 180, 239 Walsh, Katherine Cramer, 177 The War (documentary film) American GI Forum and, 191–92, 194, 195 CHC and, 78, 174, 191, 192–201, 202–4, 205 Hispanic Association of Corporate Responsibility and, 195 Hispanic WWII veterans and, 174, 191–99 Ken Burns and, 78, 174, 191–93, 194, 195–96, 197, 200, 203 PBS and, 78, 191–92, 193–96, 201–3 substantive representation in political debate on, 197, 199–200, 204–5 websites, congressional, 87, 109, 111–18, 113, 116, 117, 126–27, 241, 247 Williams, Melissa, 33 Wilson, John, 193 Women’s Caucus, 216, 222 Working Families Wage and Access to Health Care Act, 2