{"id":504990,"date":"2018-01-18T20:26:44","date_gmt":"2018-01-19T03:26:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/?p=504990"},"modified":"2018-01-18T20:26:44","modified_gmt":"2018-01-19T03:26:44","slug":"state-lawmakers-form-hispanic-caucus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2018\/01\/state-lawmakers-form-hispanic-caucus\/","title":{"rendered":"State lawmakers form Hispanic caucus"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_56542\"  class=\"wp-caption module image alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 771px;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-large wp-image-56542\" src=\"http:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/06\/Kids-at-Roundhouse-771x504.jpg\" alt=\"A statue outside the Roundhouse in Santa Fe.\" width=\"771\" height=\"504\" srcset=\"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/06\/Kids-at-Roundhouse-771x504.jpg 771w, https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/06\/Kids-at-Roundhouse-336x220.jpg 336w, https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/06\/Kids-at-Roundhouse-768x502.jpg 768w, https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/06\/Kids-at-Roundhouse-1170x764.jpg 1170w, https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/06\/Kids-at-Roundhouse.jpg 1500w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 771px) 100vw, 771px\" \/><p class=\"wp-media-credit\">Heath Haussamen \/ NMPolitics.net<\/p><p class=\"wp-caption-text\">A statue outside the Roundhouse in Santa Fe.<\/p><\/div>\n<p>Capitol Hill has the Congressional Hispanic Caucus. But what about the Capitol in the state where nearly half of residents are Hispanic?<\/p>\n<p><span class=\"aBn\" data-term=\"goog_146241353\"><span class=\"aQJ\">On Thursday<\/span><\/span>, a bipartisan group of lawmakers created the Legislative Hispanic Caucus, which will, as they put it in a letter, advocate on behalf of Hispanics and under-represented communities across New Mexico.<\/p>\n<p>The group comes the same week as Senate Democrats elected Mimi Stewart of Albuquerque <a href=\"http:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2018\/01\/mimi-stewart-elected-state-senate-majority-whip\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">to serve as their new whip<\/a> &#8212; meaning not a single Hispanic member would be part of the party&#8217;s leadership in that chamber.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"module align-left half type-aside\">\n<h3>About this article<\/h3>\n<p>This article comes from\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.santafenewmexican.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">The Santa Fe New Mexican<\/a>. NMPolitics.net is paying for the rights to publish articles about the 2018 legislative session from the newspaper. Help us cover the cost by\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/donate\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">making a donation to NMPolitics.net<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/aside>\n<p>But lawmakers insisted\u00a0<span class=\"aBn\" data-term=\"goog_146241354\"><span class=\"aQJ\">Thursday<\/span><\/span>\u00a0the new group is not a response to that vote.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The leadership is what the leadership is,&#8221; said Sen. Jacob Candelaria, a Democrat from Albuquerque who is one of the founding members of the new group and had been mentioned as a possible whip before Stewart&#8217;s election.<\/p>\n<p>Mentioning the educational achievement gap, poverty, health care and other issues marked by racial and ethnic disparities, Candelaria said the aim of the group is to provide a &#8220;coordinated, systemic way to address these issues.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The new caucus, which starts with 15 members, is open to members of both chambers, both parties and all ethnic groups.<\/p>\n<p>Lt. Gov. John Sanchez, a Republican, signed on, for example. In what seemed like a jab at Congresswoman Michelle Lujan Grisham, a Democratic gubernatorial candidate, he argued the group is an example of bipartisanship that Washington, D.C., could learn from &#8212; a reference to Lujan Grisham&#8217;s chairmanship of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, which recently denied membership to a Republican member of the U.S. House of Representatives.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The bipartisan group plans to advocate on behalf of Hispanics and under-represented communities across New Mexico.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":56542,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[3634,143,107],"class_list":["post-504990","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-and-analysis","tag-2018-legislative-session","tag-race-and-ethnicity","tag-roundhouse"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/504990","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=504990"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/504990\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/56542"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=504990"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=504990"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=504990"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}