Newsletters

Last month, in a pivotal moment for immigration policy, President Biden announced executive action that extends work permits and expands protections for DACA recipients and undocumented spouses of U.S. citizens.

I’m excited to greet you all in the 2024 Summer Edition of NHCSL’s newsletter! I hope you can find time to enjoy the season, rest and recharge, and get ready to face the challenges that this unprecedented election year will bring.

Latinos face a multitude of challenges that can significantly impact their mental health. From navigating cultural identity and language barriers to confronting systemic inequalities and discrimination, the pressures on our communities can weigh heavily. Moreover, factors such as socioeconomic status, immigration status, and access to healthcare further create barriers to mental wellness.

I’m excited to greet you all in this edition of NHCSL’s newsletter, the first since I had the honor of being sworn in last December as your President to lead our Caucus for the next two years. My main commitment for my tenure is to help all of you become more effective legislators. To that end, please make sure to maximize the resources our organization has to offer. Our staff is eager to assist you.

These past months, the confirmation of two presidential appointments made history for Latinos in our country: Dr. Adriana Kugler, who now serves in the Federal Reserve Board of Governors, and Anna Gómez, Commissioner for the Federal Communications Commission.

The COVID-19 pandemic laid bare many issues that were disproportionally impacting Latino communities across the country and had, in some cases, fallen under the radar. Although access to health care and disparities in working conditions may come to mind first, access to affordable housing is surely a very close second.

In 2019, our Caucus approved Resolution 2019-02, Supporting safeguarded automatic carry-overs to prevent Federal government shutdowns. Since then, in the last few months, we’ve had the threat of yet another government shutdown twice.

These past months, the confirmation of two presidential appointments made history for Latinos in our country: Dr. Adriana Kugler, who now serves in the Federal Reserve Board of Governors, and Anna Gómez, Commissioner for the Federal Communications Commission.

Frontline communities, overwhelmingly low-income, Native, and communities of color, are the first to experience the worst consequences of climate change. According to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Hispanic or Latino individuals are 10% more likely to currently live in areas with the highest projected increases in childhood asthma diagnoses with 2° Celsius of global warming. And yet, our country’s clean energy transition to date has not been equitable, particularly for Hispanic communities. The Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund (GGRF) could allow for a more inclusive energy transition with more equitable outcomes and economic, health, and resilience opportunities.

I’m very excited to welcome you all to the relaunch of NHCSL’s quarterly newsletter! As I conclude my tenure as NHCSL’s President, I want to take this opportunity to reflect on the work we have done together and my hopes for the future.

Just a few weeks after NHCSL kicked off its 15th Annual National Summit of Hispanic State Legislators with a policy session on the 2020 Census, US Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross, announced his decision to include a question about respondents’ citizenship in the 2020 Census that is likely to cause an undercount of Hispanics, unless Congress or the courts overturn this decision.

As a membership organization, NHCSL prides itself in taking care of its own. This was the case when our former president, Sen. Iris Martínez (IL), was literally in harm’s way after Hurricane Irma devastated the island of Saint Maarten. While on vacation there, I received a call that Senator Martínez literally feared for her life, as the eye of the storm was about to pass through this small Caribbean island. Knowing the danger she was facing, our team immediately coordinated a rescue effort with the office of Senator Dick Durbin (IL), the Governor of Puerto Rico Ricardo Rosselló – and his Washington Representative Carlos Mercader – our Vice President Sen. Carmelo Ríos (PR), our immediate past President Sen. Eduardo Bhatia (PR), Puerto Rico House Speaker Carlos “Johnny” Méndez, the Illinois Senate President John Cullerton; the US State Department; the French Embassy; Dutch officials; and Senator Martínez’s Chief of Staff, Kerry O’Brien. We were fortunate to be able to arrange a successful evacuation mission for Senator Martínez, the parents of Congressman Eric Swalwell (CA), and hundreds of other refugees who arrived safely in Puerto Rico after a horrible ordeal. Little did we know, however, that this incident would only be the calm before the storm.

Despite comprising 8.1% of the United States population, Hispanic women currently hold only 10 of the 535 seats in the 115th Congress (1.9%): one of the one hundred seats in the Senate, and 9 of the 435 seats in the House of Representatives (2.1%). In addition, one Hispanic woman serves as a non-voting Resident Commissioner representing Puerto Rico in Congress. Latinas made only tiny gains in the 2016 elections, adding mere fractions of one percent (0.2% in state legislatures and 0.3% in Congress) to their shares of those bodies.

Welcome to the Summer Edition of our quarterly newsletter. I am excited to write my first welcome letter as President, following my election at our Annual Summit in Chicago last February.

NHCSL held its annual gathering earlier this year where the organization elected new leadership, approved resolutions on some of the most relevant topics of the day and held panels on some of those key issues.

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.

It has been a privilege to serve as President of NHCSL for the past two years. I am very proud of the work we have accomplished together. Thanks to you, our members, NHCSL’s staff, our BBA, and other partners, we have been able to raise the profile of this organization and ensure it is an impactful voice of the national conversation on the major issues of the day.

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