I am always taken aback when I see articles and commentaries about how certain groups don’t have enough representation in elected bodies because those bodies don’t have the right proportion of those ethnic minorities filling the seats. But as is typical of many liberals, Houston City Councilman James Rodriguez gives us another one lamenting the “underrepresentation” of Hispanics on the Houston City Council.

In 1991, Ben Reyes was the lone Latino serving on the 15-member Houston City Council. By 1996, four Latino council members served on Council: Gracie Saenz, Felix Fraga, Orlando Sanchez and John Castillo. Today, 17 years later, there is once again a lone Latino council member. As the only Latino serving on City Council, I take this as an opportunity to challenge my fellow Latino leaders across our great city to intensify our efforts to help create a stronger political voice for the growing Latino community.

Latinos are the city's fastest growing population group, a fact that is not reflected on our City Council.

Houston is home to nearly a million Latinos, almost half of this city's population, and appropriate representation for the community needs to be addressed through engagement in the political process.

I challenge myself and the local Latino leadership to invest in the premise of a nonpartisan political engagement strategy involving a united Latino community.
Therefore, I have taken the initiative, along with many of my elected colleagues, to organize the inaugural Houston Area Latino Summit for Saturday, Feb. 14.

Now there are a number of things which should be noted here.

First, the reason Rodriguez is the only Latino on the council is that the other one was just elected county sheriff and so resigned his seat on the city.

Second, those four members of the city council in 1996 were term-limited out after three terms – even though it is reasonably certain that any of the four could have been comfortably reelected (and likely could be today).

Third, one major reason for the underrepresentation is turnout – which in turn is (in part) a factor of citizenship. As long as Houston’s Hispanic community remains heavily composed of first-generation immigrants (legal and illegal) who are not citizens, there will always be a smaller turnout than one would expect at first glance. Indeed, I’d argue that this will continue for at least another decade or two. Even after the districts are redrawn to include two additional seats, it is unlikely that we will see the balance shift dramatically – indeed, I suspect that the outcome will be one additional Latino member of the council and one African-American. At-large seats will continue to favor white and African-American candidates due to turnout and citizenship issues.

The real question, though, is whether or not the interests of any given community are represented on the City Council. Interestingly enough, Rodriguez does not address that issue. Is he really arguing for more of the same race-based politics? Moreover, does he really want to argue that only an individual with the right skin color can represent a particular group only one week before our majority white nation inaugurates its first black president?

Posted by: Greg at 10:25 AM | Comments (7) | Add Comment
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