Hispanic population soars but few hold elected office
The Hispanic population has soared to almost one in four residents of Broward and Palm Beach counties, but the burgeoning numbers have produced few elected leaders.
Hispanics now account for close to 23 percent of the two counties’ 3 million residents. Among the 400-plus elected officials, from town commissioners to members of Congress, just three percent are Hispanic.
“It’s one thing to look at Census numbers and have a sense of our community, but when you look at the table of government, where decisions are made on our behalf, we’re largely absent,” said Pembroke Pines Commissioner Angelo Castillo, one of the few Hispanic elected officials in the two counties.
There isn’t any kind of official tally.
Voter registration records aren’t definitive because Hispanic wasn’t an option for anyone who signed up to vote before 1995; it’s been a category since then, but it isn’t required.
And names aren’t telling. People may think, for example, Dania Beach Commissioner Anne Castro is Hispanic because of her name, but she isn’t. And people might not realize Boynton Beach Commissioner Marlene Ross or Broward School Board member Patricia Good are Hispanic.
Based on interviews with current and former elected officials and political party activists, the two counties have 15 Hispanic elected officials among the roughly 450 serving in city, town, village and county governments, School Boards, the state Legislature and Congress. The total doesn’t include judges, who often are appointed to the bench and then stand for election. The two counties have 689,070 Hispanic residents.
Amanda Fleites, secretary of the Palm Beach County Democratic Hispanic Caucus and executive vice president of the county’s Young Democrats, is looking forward to a time when the region’s elected officials better reflect the people they’re governing.
“We are only beginning to exercise our numbers,” she said. “I believe there is going to be a breakthrough.”
When that breakthrough might come is unclear. "My gut tells me give it another 10 years," said Kevin Hill of Weston, a political scientist at Florida International University. But, he said, a decade ago he thought there would be many more Hispanic elected officials today.
Hill and John Ramos, the state Democratic committeeman from Palm Beach County, said more Hispanics need to run. That would help increase Hispanic turnout. And the combination of more candidates and greater turnout would produce more victories. More victories would inspire even more candidates to run for office.
Ramos said it might not happen for another generation. "You now have Hispanic families developing roots. It's going to take the next generation standing on their shoulders."
Political scientists, party activists, and elected officials say there are myriad reasons why the number of Hispanics holding office has lagged the surge in population, and why it might take a generation for that to change.
Spread out population. While there are some places – such as Weston with a 45 percent Hispanic population and Lake Worth with 40 percent – Hispanics are spread throughout the two counties. Two-thirds of the cities, towns and villages in Broward and Palm Beach counties have Hispanic populations in the double digits.
"We're spread out. We're not concentrated in a community. We're disbursed out," Ramos said. That means there are few places where there's a large enough population base of Hispanics to decide an election.
Even in southern and western Broward, where there are more Hispanic residents than most other places in the two counties, former Florida Senate Minority Leader Steve Geller, D-Cooper City, said there aren't concentrations large enough to draw a Hispanic-majority state legislative district.
In Miami-Dade County, by contrast, Hispanics total 65 percent of the population, providing a critical mass to elect Hispanics almost everywhere in the county. The National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials estimates Miami-Dade County has more than 80 Hispanic elected officials.
Divergent interests, culture. The Hispanic population in Broward and Palm Beach counties is more diverse – and not necessarily unified – in contrast to Miami-Dade County, where 34 percent of the population has Cuban ancestry. "The ‘Hispanic community' doesn't really exist in that it is very diverse," Hill said.
"If you look at the Hispanic population, the thing that we have in common is a language – which is often spoken with slightly different accents. However, apart from that, many of our countries have different music, different histories, different foods, different experiences," Castillo said. "You can't really compare the Mexican experience to the Cuban experience or the Puerto Rican experience or the Venezuelan experience. They're all very different."
The diversity, Castillo and Hill said, makes it more difficult for Hispanics to come together to elect someone in Broward or Palm Beach counties.
Divided political loyalties. Hispanic voters in Broward and Palm Beach counties are divided among Democrats, Republicans and independents.
State Rep. Jeanette Nuñez, R-Miami, whose district includes part of South Broward, and Tony Velazquez, a Republican committeeman from Pembroke Pines, said the division between parties makes it more difficult for Hispanics to influence primaries. Those primaries often decide who will win the office in a general election.
Jewish voters, by contrast, are overwhelmingly Democratic. And in Miami-Dade County, Nuñez said, the large Cuban-American population is largely Republican. That gives voters in those demographic groups primary clout.
Not eligible to vote. The Hispanic population is younger than the population as a whole, so there's a larger pool of Hispanics who aren't yet old enough to vote than there is in the general population. And some newer Hispanic residents aren't yet citizens. Both the young and non-citizens are included in the Census, but they can't contribute to voting blocs.
Among Hispanics who are citizens and old enough to vote, there is interest. A Census Bureau analysis of the 2008 election found 72 percent of whites, 69 percent of Hispanics and 64 percent of blacks registered to vote in Florida.
Many of those factors aren't present in the African-American and Caribbean-American communities, political scientists and politicians said. Black residents more often live in communities with many other black residents, which often means a population base large enough to elect candidates. Black churches push hard to get worshipers to vote. And black voters are so Democratic that they have lots of influence in the party's primaries.
Charles Zelden, a professor of history and legal studies who specializes in politics and voting at Nova Southeastern University, said Broward and Palm Beach counties will be different from Miami-Dade County. Spread out population and divided party loyalties mean the most successful Hispanic candidates will be the ones who can appeal to non-Hispanic voters.
Jose Rodriguez said that's how he was elected mayor of Boynton Beach. "My name is very ethnic, Jose Rodriguez, but being Hispanic should not be at the forefront," he said. "I was elected, I believe, based on my platform, my education, my experience, and what I brought to the community."
Nuñez said it's important to have more elected officials who come from the same backgrounds as the people they're representing.
"It makes for better policy," she said, and gives citizens "a sense of somebody that understands their background, their culture, their sense of this community."