Will Latino Lawmakers Walk the Walk?

Latinos now occupy some of the most prized real estate in the state Capitol: Victorian-era, spacious suites with rich wood paneling, crystal chandeliers, magnificent artwork and sweeping vistas of Capitol Park and sunsets. These are perks, but more significantly, they’re centers of power--the offices of the Assembly speaker and majority leaders of both legislative houses.

Latinos hold other valuable Capitol assets, as well: The gavels of powerful committees. They chair the Assembly Budget, Health, Insurance, Judiciary, Tax, Trade and Utilities committees; also the Senate Business and Professions and Industrial Relations committees. Plus, a Latino co-chairs the special committee now writing California’s welfare reform.

One way or another, Latinos are in positions of power to substantially affect not only their own communities, but virtually every Californian.

In all, there are 18 Latino legislators, 15% of the members--not yet matching the Latinos’ 28% share of the state population, but getting there. In the mid-1960s, there were only two Latino legislators. In the early 1980s, there were seven. Last November, 14 were elected to the Assembly and four to the Senate.

It’s not just in their numbers, but where the Latinos have landed that has created their new power. Assemblyman Cruz Bustamante (D-Fresno) was elected the first Latino speaker. He chose an ally, Assemblyman Antonio Villaraigosa (D-Los Angeles), as the first Latino majority leader. A few months earlier, Sen. Charles M. Calderon (D-Whittier) had become the first Latino majority leader of the Senate.

Other Latinos also have established landmarks. For example, Assemblywoman Denise Moreno Ducheny (D-San Diego) is the first Latina--indeed, the first woman--to chair the Assembly Budget Committee, or its predecessor, Ways and Means.

Now having recounted all this, the natural question is: So what? Exactly what have the Latinos to show for all their power? What have they influenced?

The answer is: Not much yet. “Nothing, quite candidly,” acknowledges Assemblyman Louis Caldera (D-Los Angeles). Not nearly as much as Latino citizens of Los Angeles, who last week voted in record numbers and helped provide the necessary two-thirds majority for a $2.4-billion school bond issue.

But they surely will.

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“It’s still a learning, maturation process,” Caldera notes, pretty much echoing most Latino lawmakers.

It’s early in the legislative session. Few major bills have wound through the filter of negotiating, leveraging and floor voting.

Latino clout, however, is starting to be felt.

Assemblywoman Martha Escutia (D-Bell), the Judiciary Committee chair, insisted on an amendment to a vital trial court funding bill that encourages sensitivity training on gender and racial bias for all judges.

On Wednesday, four Latino members of the Assembly Appropriations Committee blocked approval of a labor-sponsored bill to guarantee workers overtime pay after an eight-hour shift. They objected because farm workers were not covered.

The Latino legislators have vowed to restore welfare benefits for the aged, blind and disabled who are legal immigrants.

They’re also fighting to attain more money and flexibility for city elementary schools that are having trouble reducing class sizes because they’re landlocked and built to the max. Many L.A. schools have an extra problem because they operate year-round and, for some strange reason, therefore rank a low priority for building funds.

But for the most part, the Latino legislators insist, there is no “Latino agenda.”

“Many people think we have an agenda to take back the state,” says Caldera, chairman of the Assembly Revenue and Taxation Committee. “Our agenda is to be part of American life, which is an assimilation agenda.”

Comments Bustamante: “I have this very radical agenda--decent places to live, good paying jobs and quality schools.”

It’s the middle-class agenda, pushed by legislators representing a growing Latino middle class.

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The Latino lawmakers, of course, are not monolithic. Like all savvy politicians, they represent their districts, which vary from liberal East L.A. to centrist San Diego. “Many of us get tagged with being ultra-liberal leftist bomb throwers,” Escutia laments.

She adds: “Now our ass is on the line. We have to produce. We have to show people that if Latinos get into power, we’re not going to mess up the world.”

And so the pressure’s on.