No Latino Legislators Means Plenty of Anti-Immigrant Laws

Remember Rebecca Forest? That lady who blamed all of Texas’ problems on “Hispanic legislators?” Well, according to PolitiFact, she had a point: states with big percentages of Latino legislators didn’t pass as much anti-immigrant, anti-Latino legislation as states that had better Latino political representation.

And who says your vote doesn’t count?

Let’s refresh our memory as to what she said:

“If you want to know why we can’t pass legislation in Texas it’s because we have 37, no 36, Hispanics in the Legislature. All of the states that have passed legislation have a handful and I mean literally, some of them have no Hispanic legislators, well, maybe 3 or 5 or something. So that’s, umm, part of our problem and we need to change those numbers.

“Umm, we need to do something about that in fact, during the debate on ‘sanctuary cities,’ several Hispanic legislators testified that their grandparents and their parents were migrant workers who came over here to work and that they even worked in the fields. And some of them even admitted that they had been here illegally and that they came illegally. So the problem is these Hispanic legislators…is that it’s too close to them and they, umm… simply cannot vote their conscience correctly. So that’s about all I have to say to you, please come to the hearing, and help us spread this message. Thank you.”

PolitiFact looked at states to compare anti-immigrant legislation to the number of Latino legislators there, this is what they found:

Among all states, the NCSL says, New Mexico has the greatest share of Hispanic lawmakers, 45 of 112 (40 percent), followed by Texas, 39 of 181 (22 percent) California, 23 of 120 (19 percent), and Arizona. In more than 40 states, Latinos comprise less than 10 percent of each state’s legislature; about 15 states have no Hispanic legislators.

Five percent or less of the legislators in four of five states that recently directed law officers to check immigration status are Latino Americans; in the fifth state, none is. We rate Forest’s statement True.

So there are a couple of takeaways here. One, voting is important. Two, having Latino politicians represent Latino constituencies is important, as we reported here and here. Three, if you don’t concern yourself with any of this, bad legislation will still affect you. Thanks to Jaime for the tip!

Follow Sara Inés Calderón on Twitter @SaraChicaD