New Congressional Hispanic Convention Chair Tony Gonzales (R-Texas) plans to make the group of round a dozen Hispanic Home Republicans a extra vocal and arranged bloc — constructing off the report Hispanic and Latino help for President Trump and the Republican ticket within the 2024 election.
“Everyone talks about us, everyone likes to kind of champion some of these different ideas. But who better to champion these ideas [than] the people that are actually in those districts, the people that actually represent Hispanic communities?” Gonzales, who was elected as chair final week, advised The Hill in an interview.
Exit polls from the 2024 presidential election discovered that Trump received 46 p.c of Hispanic and Latino voters, setting a brand new report for Republican help in presidential races.
Now, Gonzales needs to go large with the Congressional Hispanic Convention, saying it has been “behind the scenes for too long.”
“I’m in. Like, I’m so in,” Gonzales mentioned. “I’m ready to go and really, really turn up the heat here.”
Gonzales made his first main assertion in his new capability in a letter to Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) on Wednesday night, main seven different members of the caucus in expressing concern about potential cuts to Medicaid, Supplemental Vitamin Help Program (SNAP) advantages, and Pell Grants within the Home’s price range reconciliation define.
“Hispanic Americans are the future of the Republican Party, and they are closely watching to see if we will govern in a way that honors their values and delivers results,” the member mentioned within the letter.
Coverage priorities for the Congressional Hispanic Convention embody not solely securing the southern border, but in addition “unleashing energy dominance” and kitchen desk points like defending the kid tax credit score, Gonzales mentioned, with excessive hopes of using the members’ positions on prime committees to push that agenda.
However it’s the group’s interplay with and response to the Trump administration’s dramatic strikes on immigration and border coverage that will likely be carefully watched. Gonzales, with out speaking about particular insurance policies, mentioned he expects to “have frank conversations with the administration on issues that I think we live and know best.”
The Congressional Hispanic Convention was based in 2003 by Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart (R-Fla.), who was a co-chair with Gonzales within the final Congress, and different Hispanic GOP members.
The group is to not be confused with the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, which includes round three dozen Home Democrats. That group has sharply criticized Trump’s try to finish birthright citizenship, his sending migrants to be detained at Guantánamo Bay and his aim of mass deportations, amongst different strikes.
As Gonzales totally takes the reins of the Congressional Hispanic Convention, he’s open to collaboration together with his Democratic counterparts: “I think there may be some opportunities there, as well.”
“Not for everything, because we clearly have different views of the world,” he clarified. However Gonzales is keen on attending to “sit down and get back to being legislators, where we have debate and we have dialogue, whether they’re publicly or privately, in order to get to a point to where we make a piece of legislation a little bit better.”
“I think that that art is starting to get lost in Congress,” Gonzales mentioned.
Hispanic and Latino Home Republicans have typically declined to criticize or have even praised many Trump administration strikes. However there are some disagreements: Rep. Carlos Gimenez (R-Fla.) advised The Hill earlier this yr that he doesn’t assume Trump can unilaterally finish birthright citizenship. And NBC Information reported that Rep. Maria Elvira Salazar (R-Fla.) despatched a letter asking for due course of and safety from deportation for these affected by slashes to a parole program for Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans.
Gonzales himself has additionally been a serious determine in previous GOP disputes about immigration coverage, calling a model of a Home GOP border safety invoice in 2023 “un-Christian” and “anti-immigrant” over the way it dealt with authorized routes to enter the nation.
However after buying and selling public barbs and understanding variations, Gonzales ultimately acquired what he needed and supported the invoice — on the time crediting the Congressional Hispanic Convention for sticking collectively so Home GOP management knew he “wasn’t an island.”
On this Congress, Gonzales sees it at his job as chief of the Congressional Hispanic Convention to “take all the arrows for everyone else,” evaluating his position to that of leaders from his time within the army who took the worst of the job and gave the rewards to everybody else.
“When I have worked with leaders that thought in that manner, boy, do organizations take off,” Gonzales mentioned. “That’s not necessarily commonplace in Congress.”
Together with Gonzales, the group elected 4 vice chairs: Gimenez is vice chair of group outreach; Rep. Nicole Malliotakis (R-N.Y.) is vice chair of coverage; Rep. Monica De La Cruz (R-Texas) is vice chair of communications; and Rep. Juan Ciscomani (R-Ariz.) is vice chair of member providers.
“My job is to make sure that the Congressional Hispanic Conference is relevant and we have a seat at the table, and our voices are heard, and our members are rewarded with their priorities, getting over the finish line, their constituents getting their voices heard and then ultimately, our members getting reelected,” Gonzales mentioned.
