As the Latino share of the US population approaches 20%, scholarly questions about the representation of the nation's largest minority group have become increasingly prominent. In this well-written research monograph that focuses primarily on descriptive representation, Jason Casellas' central question is: “Under what conditions are Latinos elected to Congress and to state legislatures?” (p. 28). Casellas does an excellent job throughout the analysis of addressing subethnic differences among Latinos, such as the historical background, context, region, and skin color of Mexican Americans, Puerto Ricans, and Cuban Americans. Readers interested in the similarities and complex differences among these three groups will find fascinating the introductory material on Latino incorporation into American society. The level of sensitivity to subethnic characteristics is an intellectual achievement that should serve as an example to other researchers.
Casellas pointedly reminds us that demographics are central to the destiny of Latinos (p. 52). The initial empirical analysis investigates the extent to which institutions, politics, and ethnic factors contribute to Latino descriptive representation in all 50 states. The analysis shows that the determinants of the percentage of Latinos serving in legislative chambers are the percentage of Latinos in the state, the extent of liberalism among the citizenry, and the presence of a citizen legislature. Each of these factors contributes in a positive way to Latino descriptive representation.
The district-level analysis of the conditions under which Latinos are elected to the US House of Representatives and to seven state legislatures—New Mexico, California, Texas, Arizona, Florida, New York, and New Jersey—provides novel comparisons about descriptive representation. Latinos have a lower probability of being elected to the House than to any of the state legislatures with the exception of New York; however, there is significant variation in the probability of election across the seven state legislatures. Casellas finds that New Mexico and Florida are the states most conducive to the election of Latino legislators. By contrast, New York and Texas are the least conducive. The analysis indicates that Latinos have the best chance of being elected in districts with Latino majorities, followed by majority-white districts, then majority-minority districts with strong Latino pluralities, and, finally, majority-black districts.
What is the situation for non-Latino majority districts, those in which Latinos do not enjoy an obvious advantage? The results show that Latinos are becoming contenders in many such districts—and that the Republican Party is much more likely to field competitive Latinos in majority-white districts. There is some evidence of the election of Latinos in districts with combined African American and Latino majorities. Casellas argues that as Latinos become more assimilated into the mainstream, the number of Latinos elected to Congress and state legislatures will continue to increase. He also thinks that redistricting will be less of a necessity for the election of more Latino candidates than it will be for the election of more African American candidates. Because the analysis in this chapter is based on data from 2004 and earlier, this research needs to be extended to include more recent elections.
Although descriptive representation is the primary focus of the research, Chapters 5 and 6 address Latino substantive representation. Casellas conducted 23 in-depth interviews, from 2005 to 2007, at annual meetings of the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials and the National Hispanic Caucus of State Legislators. These interviews provide insights into the way that Latino legislators view themselves. The concomitant analysis provides a nice example of how to integrate qualitative and quantitative analysis in order to provide information about Latino identities and interests. The policy areas most important to Latino legislators are the economy/budget, public safety, health, and education. Even though the legislators come from very different districts, often reflective of important subethnic differences, Casellas finds that there are common bonds that transcend party, class, and region, such as language policy and education. Furthermore, the initial involvement in politics for most Latino legislators was through the labor movement, by volunteering for other candidates, or because of personal/issue reasons.
Generalizations like these help to address the issue of what constitutes a Latino interest, a persistent challenge that confronts researchers. Like most, Casellas argues that Latinos are neither politically monolithic nor as strongly partisan as African Americans (p. 127). There are different ways to frame the concept of Latino interests, two of which are prominent: Is there a common core of issue positions shared by all or an overwhelming majority of Latinos; and what are the differences among the interests of Mexican Americans, Puerto Ricans, and Cuban Americans? The simultaneous pursuit of these two questions is a difficult challenge.
The author argues that little research has been done on state-level Latino substantive representation and that research on Latino substantive representation in Congress has overemphasized roll-call voting. No longer in the nascent stages, the literature on congressional substantive representation of Latinos, whether based on roll-call voting data or other data, is inchoate and in need of development that converges more clearly on the concept of substantive representation. Hanna Pitkin's classic work of analytic philosophy has for decades served as the standard for empirical researchers wishing to evaluate and measure substantive representation. Casellas, however, argues that Pitkin's concept of substantive representation is an inadequate, outdated guide for empirical studies of racial representation, a concept he introduces but never clearly defines, nor adequately compares to substantive representation. The theoretical development of the notion of racial representation is thin and in need of explication. Moreover, racial representation is discussed not by reference to its key characteristics but primarily by what its correlates are.
Previous research on the representation of Latinos using congressional roll-call votes has employed Conservative Coalition scores (CC), Southwest Voter Research Institute scores (SWVRI), National Hispanic Leadership Agenda (NHLA) scores, and Poole-Rosenthal NOMINATE scores. Roll-call voting analysis that employs NOMINATE scores, as Casellas does, shifts the analytic focus from Latino interests/substantive representation to legislator ideology. The research question becomes “What are the determinants of legislator ideology?” It is no longer “What are the determinants of legislative voting for Latino interests?” The gulf between these two questions may be substantial. The optimal design for the investigation of substantive representation should include, as the dependent variable, votes that are consistent with Latino interests or clearly inconsistent (e.g., SWVRI and NHLA scores) or votes that are consistent with the interests of selected subethnic groups.
Casellas' findings are mixed, but in most instances (i.e., the 87th through 104th Congresses and the legislatures of Texas, Colorado, and New Jersey), the Latino representative variable is unrelated to legislator ideology. Percentage of Latino-district population is unrelated to legislator ideology in Congress and in Colorado, but in the Texas and New Jersey lower chambers, higher percentages of Latinos are associated with more liberal member ideologies. Another weakness of the roll-call analysis is that the author does not report multicollinearity diagnostics, yet many of these variables are well known for multicollinearity problems. In light of the preponderance of null findings, the consequences of variance inflation deserve consideration.
In sum, Casellas' research constitutes a significant intellectual contribution to the literature on Latino representation. The issues of substantive representation, currency, and possible multicollinearity do not seriously detract from the overall quality of the book, a book that is sure to stimulate additional research on Latino descriptive representation and to contribute to ongoing controversies in the demanding, provocative area of Latino substantive representation.
