The Arizona legislature’s Latino Caucus has been the source of some controversy this year.
In a nutshell, the group held an election for Chair, which was won by a Democratic lawmaker. But after that vote, one member realized a lawmaker who should have been allowed to vote was not, and called for a re-vote. A GOP member decided not to take part in that re-vote, and a different Democratic lawmaker won the second election for Chair.
Mike Madrid, a GOP political consultant and author of "The Latino Century," has been thinking about the purpose, and makeup, of Latino Caucuses in state legislatures across the country. Madrid recently wrote a piece on his Substack asking if these kinds of caucuses should be bipartisan.
Madrid joined The Show to talk about how common or uncommon is it for these legislative Latino caucuses to be either bipartisan or not.
Full conversation
MARK BRODIE: Mike, how common or uncommon is it for these legislative Latino caucuses to be either bipartisan or not?
MIKE MADRID: Yeah, it’s really a function of the state. It’s a great question because in many ways, looking at what each state is doing and how they’re handling these ethnic caucuses gives us an understanding of where each demographic population is. So, for example, California has always had, for 50 years now, a Latino legislative caucus. It’s not explicitly delineated as a Democratic caucus, but only Democrats are allowed in.
We’re now seeing the rise of more Latino Republicans who are saying, “we’ll have to start our own caucus, because if you won’t allow us to be bipartisan, we can’t allow you to frame being Latino or Hispanic as a partisan endeavor. And so we want to give voice our opinions to the public policy space.”
But other states — Arizona and Texas included — have been bipartisan historically. There have been some challenges along the way. Florida, now the third largest Latino state in the country, actually got rid of its caucus. It had a caucus, but it was so overwhelmingly Republican that there was no difference between what policy positions the Hispanic Caucus in, in Florida was taking and the overall Republican conference, so they just let it go.
States like Illinois have a, Latinx, Chicanx caucus, which only allows Democrats. And then New York has a really peculiar blend, but it’s somewhat understandable. They have a, Black, Latino and Asian-Pacific Islander caucus all together.
And so that’s essentially the five largest Hispanic states, that’s the way that they’ve been tackling the problem — the challenge or opportunity, I should say.
BRODIE: What is the point of these caucuses? And I wonder if maybe that that mission or the point of them has changed, as you point out, as more Latinos are becoming Republicans.
MADRID: You know, Mark, that’s such a good question, because, you know, as a young Republican staffer in the late 1990s in California, we first brought up that first issue, which was saying, “Wait a second, Republicans should be allowed in the caucus.” We had just elected the first Latino Republican in 150 years in California, and we were just summarily dismissed and said, “Nope, this is just for Democrats only.”
Thirty years later, my whole opinion on this has changed because I’ve been watching throughout my career all of these demographic transformations happening state by state, and I’m now of the belief that Latinos are really not that much different than any other group. And so tying ethnicity to a partisan endeavor is really more destructive. It’s more harmful than it is helpful.
So you should either have a bipartisan caucus or two separate caucuses or ultimately where I think this is all heading, to your bigger point, to having no caucuses at all, just working on making the legislature work. I think there does need to be, in retrospect, some understanding that the demographics change that this country has undergone over the past 30 years is unprecedented, and it is and has been extraordinary. And it really is in many ways a bigger story about how we identify and view ourselves with our own American identity.
We are not all the same. That’s OK. But we can come back under the umbrella of Americanness while also respecting those differences.
BRODIE: I want to cite something that you had written, which is that you say “A truly representative Latino caucus seems incompatible with both major parties.” And it seems like that kind of speaks to what you were just talking about in terms of the kinds of policy ideas that might come out of a particular caucus based on its partisan makeup, relative to what the voters actually want.
MADRID: Yeah, that’s exactly right. It’s kind of like saying if you had a white caucus, that somehow that caucus would come up with all the exact policy positions that all white people would, would suggest or write. That’s impossible, and it should be impossible. And I wrote that because the idea that somehow one political party has the province and keen insight and understanding and the willingness to advocate for all of the policy positions that polling and research and history tells us, is really nonsensical.
And that’s what we’re discovering is in many ways, Democrats are much more aligned with the Latino voter when it does come to a pathway to citizenship, for example, or for investments in health care and the K-12 system. Republicans are much better aligned on housing affordability, energy costs, lowering the cost of living and economic pocketbook issues. So it’s really a blend.
That’s why I said if there was genuinely a caucus, there would have to be an effort to prioritize your ethnicity over your partisanship. And that seems an impossibility in modern America.
BRODIE: Do you see this in some way — and it sounds as though you do — that this is in some way sort of symbolic of the divide among Latino voters, now that it’s a much more diverse voting bloc than maybe it has been at least seen as, perceived as in the past?
MADRID: That’s exactly what it is. And I think one of the really fascinating corollaries to that observation is the whole concept of “minority” is changing in this country. The whole concept of an ethnic identity that is nonwhite is changing as America becomes much, much more diverse.
BRODIE: So what do you think the future of Latino Caucus is? Do you think at some point there just in general, going to go away?
MADRID: I think we’re going to see more caucuses develop, especially in states where there has not been a very large Latino population — states like Tennessee and Montana, Utah — and then eventually, in very short order, some of these larger states, yes, will, in fact let them go and realize there’s really no practical purpose to having this sort of differentiation based off of ethnicity when Latinos are the largest ethnic plurality in the states like California and Texas and soon Arizona, Florida, like all of these states. If Latinos are the largest ethnic plurality, it really begs the question: What is the purpose? What is the point of having an ethnic caucus?
BRODIE: So I was going to ask if you see any parallels between what’s been going on and what you see going on in the future with Latino caucuses, with other types of caucuses like a Black caucus or a Native American caucus. But it sounds as though for groups that are still sort of in the minority in their particular states, maybe there is a place or at least more of a place for those than there might be for a Latino caucus.
MADRID: That’s exactly right. And all this comes down to what we call racial polarization. When you could demonstrate that there are distinct and unique differences from a racial or ethnic minority, I think there’s a lot of legitimacy and credibility to saying this group does need to have a particular policy voice that is distinct with a platform to give it a voice, especially — and this is important in those two subgroups — African Americans and Native Americans.
The size of those populations are not growing, and they haven’t grown in 150 years. And in that case, yes, I think there’s absolutely a place to have a caucus that advances the policy concerns, priorities and agenda for a group that is not essentially assimilating into this broader mainstream.
Latinos present a very different dynamic. Virtually all of the nonwhite growth in this country is attributable to Latinos.
