Latinos in the Legislative Process

Stella M. Rouse is Assistant Professor of Government and Politics, and Fellow at the Center for American Politics and Citizenship, at the University of Maryland.

• 1. Introduction; 2. In the 'interest' of Latinos: defining Latino issue priorities and establishing a Latino political agenda; 3. Agenda setting: the conditional role of ethnicity; 4. Latino interests and Latino representation in legislative committees; 5. Vote choice and Latino representation; 6. The influence of Latino representatives: the cases of Arizona's SB 1070 and California's AB 9; 7. Conclusion: where Latinos stand in the representative process; Appendices; References; Index.

“Overall, this is clearly the most comprehensive analysis of Latino representation in U.S. state legislatures to date. It will become the benchmark study on this topic for future work in the field. I applaud the author for her use of mixed methods (interviews and statistical analysis of a broad range of data); the analysis of sponsorship of legislation and committee participation are important parts of the book, and the case study chapter was also very useful. Her examination of seven legislatures in six different years provides a much stronger basis for generalizing about the results than any previous work.” – David Canon, University of Wisconsin, Madison