Continuing its tradition of publishing the definitive source of information on
Latino elected officials, the National Association of Latino Elected and
Appointed Officials (NALEO) Educational Fund releases an annual
National Directory of Latino Elected Officials.
“The Directory provides a useful resource to identify Latino elected leaders and
to document the growth of Latino representation in our democracy,”
said NALEO Educational Fund Senior Director of Policy, Research and Advocacy, Rosalind Gold. “Our analysis shows that the number of Latino elected officials
has climbed steadily over the past eleven years, with significant increases in regions
outside the traditional centers of Latino population. This is just one sign that
Latino political empowerment is an emerging reality in communities across the
United States, from the Southwest, to the Midwest, to the South, to New England,
and everywhere in-between.”
This year marks the twenty-fifth year that the NALEO Educational Fund has
compiled and disseminated a comprehensive enumeration of Latino elected
officials throughout the nation. The Directory includes the following information:
- The names and the addresses of the nation’s Latino elected officials;
- The levels of government they represent; and
- Their political affiliation where available.
The Profile also provides comparable data on the state, gender and partisan
affiliation of the elected officials. The Profile’s findings include:
There has been a 37% increase in the total number of Latinos serving in
elected office – from 3,743 in 1996 to 5,129 in 2007. At the highest levels of office,
there has been an even greater increase, with the number of Latinos serving in
federal and state legislatures growing by more than 50%. Between 1996 and 2007,
the number of Latina elected officials grew faster than the number of male Latino
officials – the number of Latinas increased by 74%, compared to 25% for male
Latinos. As a result, the female share of all Latino elected officials grew from 24%
in 1996 to 31% in 2007.
There has been a significant increase in the number of Latinos representing
jurisdictions outside of the traditional areas of Latino population concentration
(142.1%), with Latinos serving in 43 states in 2007, up from 34 in 1996.
There are now Latino elected officials serving in nine states - Alaska, Georgia,
Kentucky, New Hampshire, Missouri, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Carolina
and Virginia - where eleven years ago there were none.
