Latinos in the Legislative Process

Abstract

In one of the only accounts of Latino legislative behavior, Stella M. Rouse examines how well the growing Latino population translates their increased presence into legislative influence. Latinos in the Legislative Process explores Latino representation by considering the role of ethnicity throughout the legislative process – from bill sponsorship, to committee deliberations, to floor votes – in seven state legislatures. Rouse first identifies issues that are priorities for Latinos and tells us whether a Latino political agenda exists. She then provides a theoretical framework for ethnicity in legislative behavior and outcomes. Rouse demonstrates that ethnicity is a complex dynamic that plays a variable role in the legislative process. Thus, Latino representation cannot be viewed monolithically.

Spanish-Language Media Entrepreneurship in the Statehouse

“…In this study, I explore state legislators' attitudes toward and use of Spanish-language media in their representative functions. In this state-level analysis, I find evidence of Spanish-language media entrepreneurship among state legislators, which is promising given the primacy of state-level political contexts to understanding Latino political influence in the United States (Ramírez 2013;Rouse 2013) and the importance of mass media to representative government.…”

“…The evidence presented here builds on our understanding that the concerns of the Latino community are effectively transmitted to state lawmakers through the Spanish-language media (Rouse 2013;Medina Vidal 2014). It is evident from the current study that the Spanish media environment compels both Hispanic and non-Hispanic lawmakers to receive this transmission.…”

“…This study builds on our understanding of Latino media's potentially meaningful influence on the scope of issue agendas at the state and local levels (Bratton and Haynie 1999;Rouse 2013;Medina Vidal 2014) by moving beyond an understanding of substantive Latino representation as coming about via inside tactics such as roll call votes (Hero and Tolbert 1995) and Latino positioning in legislative chambers (Kerr and Miller 1997). My approach moves us toward a deeper appreciation for the roles played by Spanish-language media environments and state lawmakers' media entrepreneurship in the development of substantive Latino interest representation.…”

“…For U.S. Hispanics/Latinos, Spanish-language media are an important supplement to the mainstream information environment and they enhance the community's capacity to hold its representatives more accountable by providing perspectives often missed by the mainstream news media (Pantoja and Segura 2003;Subervi-Vélez 2008). Playing a role similar to that of interest groups, whereby in addition to identifying issue debates and communicating the public mood (Herbst 1998), the Spanish-language mass media are central to bringing Latino interests to state legislative agendas (Rouse 2013;Medina Vidal 2014). In this study, I explore state legislators' attitudes toward and use of Spanish-language media in their representative functions.…”

Latinos and Environmental Justice: Examining the Link between Degenerative Policy, Political Representation, and Environmental Policy Implementation

“…Results of this article suggest that the transformation from descriptive to active representation may be issue‐/policy‐specific. As Rouse () demonstrated, only a moderate level of the Latino population considers “helping the environment (even if it costs jobs or reduces standard of living)” to be very or extremely important personally, as opposed to other issues (e.g., health‐care coverage, government spending on public services, and citizenship). In a similar vein, Latino state lawmakers identify jobs as one of the priority issues (following education, health care, and followed by housing/homeownership, and immigration), but the environment is not cited as a top policy preference.…”