What can we expect from the new Latinos in Congress?
They’ll get sworn in tomorrow, Tuesday January 3. There will be 47 of them: 35 Democrats, 12 Republicans. That’s more Latinos in Congress than ever before—a sign that Latinos have begun to flex their political muscle, even though they’ll still make up only 10 percent of all members of Congress. We’ve heard the hype about them. We’ve seen the selfies. But how will they govern?
As an observer of Latino politics, I’m most interested in seeing whether they’ll come together in an effort to advocate for Latino issues nationally—if there is such a thing—or whether they’ll continue to see themselves as representatives of particular districts and constituents, many of whom are Latino, and many of whom are not.
The extent to which Latinos see themselves as individuals or as members of larger Latino collectives is one of the most enduring debates that Latinos have with one another. The answer, of course, is that we are always both at the same time. As we watch the Latinos in Congress begin to find their way in D.C., to carve space for themselves, and to legislate, we’ll be watching this very old dynamic playing out in real time, and on a national stage.
When I listen to the newly elected Latinos talk about what they hope to accomplish in Congress—both in the stories about them, and in the few conversations I’ve had with them—I already hear them wrestling with how they’ll walk the line between representing their particular communities and constituents, and Latinos nationally. They describe the responsibility they feel to do both. They’ve said they will stay true to their principles and not forget the people who elected them to office, at the same time that they’ve expressed excitement about heading to D.C. to become part of a larger Latino coalition. The line will be easier to walk for some than it will be for others.
Progressives like Greg Casar of Texas (age 33), Maxwell Alejandro Frost of Florida (25), Robert Garcia of California (45), and Delia Ramirez of Illinois (39), have announced their plans to fight for change. They’ll advocate for a path to citizenship for undocumented migrants, climate justice, gun control, and affordable and accessible health care. They want to push the Democratic party, and the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, to the left. They want to bring new energy to the Congressional Progressive Caucus, of which they are all members. They want to deliver change immediately, because, they say, the voters they represent are tired of waiting for it.
Silvia Foster-Frau of The Washington Post wrote about the progressive Latinos in her new article, “New liberal Latino lawmakers are preparing to challenge the status quo.” Casar won his race by a margin of 72.6 to 27.4 percent. Frost won 59 to 39. Garcia won 68.4 to 31.6. Ramirez won 67 to 33. Their seats are in safely-Democratic districts, so they’ll be able to advocate for progressive positions more easily than Latinos in other kinds of districts; their own progressive politics and the positions that many in their district will support are one and the same.
I thought it was interesting, though, that Frau’s article didn’t discuss other newly-elected Latino Democrats whose politics may be progressive, but who will represent more contested districts. I’m talking about Yadira Caraveo of Colorado, who won with a super-thin margin of 48.4 to 47.7 percent; Andrea Salinas of Oregon, who won 50.1 to 47.6 percent, with a member of the conservative Constitution Party taking 2.3 percent of the vote; and Gabe Vasquez of New Mexico, who won 50.3 to 49.7 percent. How will Caraveo, Salinas, and Vasquez thread the needle of advocating for the same progressive policies supported by Casar, Frost, Garcia, and Ramirez, even though they come from districts that aren’t nearly as liberal?
Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, from western Washington, also isn’t mentioned. She won her race 50.4 to 49.6 percent, in a district that has been represented for the past few years by the Latina Republican Jaime Herrera Beutler, who may have defeated Perez if she hadn’t been primaried by a Trump-endorsed candidate. I very much doubt that Perez would call herself a progressive; she might align with progressives on reproductive rights, climate change, and workers’ rights, but she’s also a small business owner who owns a gun and has advocated for hiring more police.
And forget about the Latino Republicans. I imagine they’ll have little to do with the Latino Democrats in Congress, and will mainly sequester themselves on the other side of aisle. But this doesn’t mean that they won’t have their own dramas. There are the Trump-supporting election deniers like Monica de la Cruz from Texas and Anna Paulina Luna from Texas; and those who denied but then acknowledged the results of the 2020 election, or simply refused to comment, such as Lori Chavez-DeRemer of Oregon, Juan Ciscomani of Arizona, and Mike Garcia of California. They will all represent a very different version of what it means to be Latino, and to represent Latinos, in Congress.
As I said in an earlier newsletter, they, as members of the conservative Congressional Hispanic Conference, won’t even caucus with Democrats in the Congressional Hispanic Caucus. Rather than on policy, the line in the sand between them is most likely to be drawn between those who will support Trump in the 2024 Republican primary, and those who will not. This is just a guess, and I think that, if Trump wins the nomination, they’ll all fall in line behind him.
One lesson for Democrats in general, and for Latino Democrats in particular, is that they will need to tolerate if not embrace the idea that even on their side of the aisle Latinos will have to take different positions on certain issues if they hope to hold on to their seats. Actually, I think Republicans need to learn this same lesson, since the re-election campaigns of De La Cruz, Garcia, and Luna—who didn’t win with the same margins that the Latino progressives did, but still won by fairly comfortable, high single-digit margins—are likely to look very different than the re-election campaigns of DeRemer or David Valadao of California, who won very narrowly.
All of the Latinos in Congress, whether they’re Democrats or Republicans, will have to navigate the waters of supporting issues that are largely popular in their districts, even if they may be out of step with what Latinos in other districts are fighting for; or, vice versa, going against some of what said as candidates in order to support some broader cause favored by a coalition of Latinos in Congress, because they think doing so will advance the interests of Latinos nationally—however that gets defined.
Again, though, walking this line between local, personal, national, collective, and even transnational understandings of self and community is almost second nature to Latinos; it’s something we’ve grown used to over the past century and more. That’s why I think these new Latinos in Congress represent the future of Latino politics, because they make visible at the national level, in a way we’ve never seen before, that what it means to be Latino is many different things. This more than anything else signals the arrival of Latinos on the national political stage, and we’re likely to see much more of it in the future.
Right now, on the eve of their swearing in ceremonies, there’s a small window of opportunity for them to tell friction-free narratives about change and how quickly it will come. But I expect that pretty soon we’ll see the same old partisan in-fighting between insurgent and establishment Democrats, and Republicans who are Trump loyalists and skeptics. This time around, though, it will be Latinos of different stripes—which can be stated more simply as “Latinos”—on every side of all arguments.
Hey, I really appreciate your perspective on this. I will be watching Congress with fresh eyes.