Hispanic Caucus wants Latino at Commerce to influence the Census

Guillermo Garcia of the San Antonio Express News offers "Latinos push Obama on vacant post" (link). The Congressional Hispanic Caucus is going to work with other, unnamed groups to push for a Latino to be named Secretary of the Department of Congress. They settled on one candidate, who a source says was Xavier Becerra; however, he's since indicated he's not interested.

In any case, not only are they explicit about their support for a racial quota system, but they also reveal why: in order to influence the Census. Note that in 2007, the Census Bureau called for a halt to immigration raids during the 2010 census (link). Earlier this year, John Trasvina of MALDEF said he wanted the next president to appoint a DHS chief who'd halt raids during the census. Excerpt from the article below.

...San Antonio Congressman Charlie Gonzalez said the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, which is meeting in Washington this week, "will be coalescing with other groups on a specific person to recommend" as Richardson's replacement. He declined to name any candidate.

He said Hispanic groups would strongly push to have a qualified Hispanic named as Richardson's replacement because of the need to have minorities, especially Hispanics, properly accounted for in the Census.

The Census Bureau, which conducts a national count once every 10 years, is part of the Department of Commerce. Many federal entitlement program allocations to the states are based on Census data.

..."I am crushed that Richardson is out," said Linda Chavez Thompson of San Antonio, a member of the Democratic National Committee.

"I can't think of a single high-profile Latino at the level of Bill Richardson. He would have been ideally situated to positively impact the everyday life of Latinos, especially during these economic times we are living through," Chavez, who until her retirement last year was the third-highest-ranking officer in the national AFL-CIO labor organization.

"We are going from three Latinos to two on the Obama Cabinet," said Juan Sepulveda, a San Antonioan who served as the Obama campaign's Texas coordinator. "While we still have Sen. (Ken) Salazar and Rep. (Hilda) Solis at Interior and Labor, respectively, Richardson would have been the highest-ranking Hispanic in the cabinet."

Tue, 01/06/2009 - 14:09 · Importance: 11