Needed: More Latino State Supreme Court Justices

Here’s a important statistic to keep in mind: only 3 percent of the state supreme court justices in the country are Latino.

Each of the fifty states has a supreme court, for a total of 326 justices. Of those only 10 are Latino. It’s important to note when Latinos comprise 16 percent of the US population. And it matters when more of the nation’s most contentious debates have been taken to the state level, for instance immigration in Arizona and Georgia and collective bargaining in Wisconsin.

Fox News Latino spoke to Angelo Falcón, president and founder of the National Institute for Latino Policy:

“The states have become much more important in determining policy,” Falcón said. “With all the contention about budget cuts, right-wing movements, anti-immigrant issues being dealt with at the state level – as in Arizona –  the first line of defense could be the state Supreme Court.”

Part of the problem may be the lack of Latino lawyers. It also may be that with the rise of Sonia Sotomayor as Justice of the US Supreme Court many people may believe that Latinos have, at last, achieved parity. But there’s more than enough counter-argument to both ideas. Sotomayor was not the pinnacle of Latino legal and judicial parity; she represents an achievement that was a long time coming, but we shouldn’t let ourselves become distracted by her shining example. There are, in fact, thousands of Latino lawyers in each of the 50 states of the union – it stands to reason that among them there are qualified people who could add balance to the state’s judicial structure and process.

“Diversity on the court is essential to ensuring that all perspectives and viewpoints are fully represented and considered during the deliberative process,” the Hispanic Bar Association of New Jersey said in a statement.

Here’s a list of the sitting justices of the state supreme courts:

• Alex J. Martinez and Monica M. Marquez in Colorado
• Jorge Labarga in Florida
• Roberto Rivera-Soto in New Jersey
• Patricio M. Serna, Petra Jimenez Maes, and Edward L. Chavez in New Mexico
• David Medina and Eva Guzman in Texas
• Chief Justice Paul De Muñiz in Oregon

Follow Victor Landa on Twitter: @vlanda