NHCSL Amends Bylaws to Enshrine Gender and Regional Diversity

By Guillermo L. Mena-Irizarry, Esq. – NHCSL Policy Lead

In a historic vote at our Annual Summit in February, NHCSL’s Legislative Members unanimously approved changes to the Caucus’ bylaws that enshrine gender and regional diversity at all levels of the organization. The changes require absolute gender parity in the Executive Committee — the body charged with governing the Caucus — and they create new officers, and representative and electoral requirements that guarantee NHCSL’s regional diversity moving forward.

The most sweeping change comes at the highest level. Starting with the next elections in 2019, NHCSL will elect a President-Elect that must be from a different region than the incoming President. The four regions are Northeast, South, Midwest and West.

The specific changes are in addition to a new statement of general policy that reads as follows:

As the foremost organization serving and representing the interests of Hispanic state legislators from all states, commonwealths and territories of the United States, the NHCSL is committed to diversity and actively seeks to elect and recruit individuals from all geographical regions and segments of the population as officers, executive committee members, committee chairs, members and decision makers.
The NHCSL is also committed to promoting and ensuring gender equality at every level of the organization. As a non-partisan organization, NHCSL is further committed to diversity of thought and inclusion of all political parties and political views, including those unaffiliated with any political party.

The approved changes reflect a growing consensus that our strength as a Caucus comes from our diversity, which we must strengthen to continue growing in numbers, stature, and relevancy. They help NHCSL lead by example, providing further moral authority to our calls for inclusion and diversity in Federal appointments as well as corporate recruitment and advancement.

Senator Mo Denis (NV) led the effort to update the bylaws as a capstone to several years working as Chair of the Bylaws Committee, which recommended them. Senators Patricia Torres Ray (MN) and Daniel Ivey-Soto (NM), and Representatives Juan Candelaria (CT) and Louis Ruiz (KS), also worked on the changes as members of the Committee at different periods. Then NHCSL President Representative Ángel Cruz (PA) charged the Committee with drafting workable diversity policies.

Continued Charge for Gender Equality

This was not the first time in recent years that NHCSL took steps to advance women within and to its ranks. In 2016, the Caucus announced its Latinas Lead Initiative that seeks to train Latinas to run for state legislatures and further helps Latina legislators move up the ranks to leadership positions or run for higher office. But the bylaws changes are the most far-reaching gender efforts in the Caucus’ history.

The new bylaws ensure that there is an equal number from each gender in the Executive Committee. This means that even electoral results at the officer level cannot serve as an excuse for gender disparity at NHCSL. If there are more men than women among the elected officers, then they must appoint more women to the Executive Committee to balance the scales.

Regional Diversity Guarantee

As groundbreaking as the gender equality commitment is, the main changes to NHCSL governance enshrine regional and, consequently, ethnic diversity.

Along with the alternating regions required for the NHCSL Presidency, regions now have elected Chairs who serve as NHCSL officers to help ensure that their region’s interests are always considered. The Regional Chairs also help facilitate regional meetings, business partnerships, and membership recruitment.

Further, all regions must have balanced representation among the appointed Executive Committee members, allowing at least four and no more than five per region, for a total of seventeen. The members also kept the existing requirement that no state or territory have more than two elected officers at any time, excepting the Regional Chairs.

Immediate Results

NHCSL’s new President, Senator Carmelo Ríos (PR), was the first to embrace the new system, appointing the most diverse Executive Committee in NHCSL history, including members from 18 states and territories, 13 women, and three Republicans.