Politics
Column: In 2024, Latinos finally became Americans at the ballot box
Forty years ago this November, Cesar Chavez gave a speech at San Francisco’s Commonwealth Club that was as much of a promise as a warning.
The main topic of the 25-minute talk was the lessons he learned from a career organizing campesinos in California and beyond, in the face of fierce opposition.
“All my life, I have been driven by one dream, one goal, one vision,” Chavez told the hoity-toity crowd. “To overthrow a farm labor system in this nation which treats farmworkers as if they were not important human beings.”
The United Farm Workers leader praised the gains his union was able to achieve. But he felt the big payoff was still ahead for Latinos. They were growing in economic, political and demographic influence — and Chavez felt that memories of past injustices would inform how they wielded power, once they attained it.
“The day will come when the politicians do the right thing by our people out of political necessity and not out of charity or idealism,” Chavez said, sounding matter-of-fact in a recording of the speech. “That day may not come this year. That day may not come during this decade. But it will come, someday.”
Chavez’s Commonwealth Club address is little known outside of academic and activist circles, but I’ve long considered it a masterpiece of prophecy. He mostly called it right: Latinos now make up a plurality of residents in California and are the largest minority group in the country. Researchers at Cal Lutheran and UCLA found earlier this year that if Latinos in the U.S. were their own nation, their $3.7 trillion gross domestic product would rank fifth in the world, behind Germany and ahead of India.
Meanwhile, the number of Latinos in elected office grows every year, from school boards to state legislatures to both chambers of Congress. The political rise was long fueled by a liberal formula pioneered by Chavez’s movimiento: run as a Democrat, align yourself with unions and social justice groups and use the plight of the least among Latinos — farmworkers during Chavez’s era, illegal immigrants for the past generation — as a moral issue to push Latinos to the ballot box and reject Republican everything.
This winning template spawned fears among conservatives that Latinos — especially Mexican Americans — were engaging in a conspiracy to relegate white people to second-class status, and hopes among Democrats for a permanent majority. It seemed to follow Chavez’s boast that Latinos would create a new, more-just way for this country, one that would manifest Jesus’ teaching that the last would be first and the first would be last.
“And on that day, our nation shall fulfill its creed — and that fulfillment shall enrich us all,” Chavez said in the speech.
But as 2024 concludes, Chavez’s dream of Latino power isn’t playing out the way he forecast.
BooBoo, left, and Gil Tejada laugh during a recording of an episode of the “American Cholo” podcast in their North Hollywood studios. Tejada, a former Hillary Clinton supporter, voted for Donald Trump this year and urged his followers to do the same.
(Michael Blackshire / Los Angeles Times)
Donald Trump, who has lambasted Latinos all the way from his 2015 speech announcing his first presidential run to a recent social media post insinuating he would take back the Panama Canal, improved his performance with Latino voters in each of his campaigns.
In Los Angeles County, a Times map of the November election results showed that the biggest drift toward Trump didn’t happen in Republican strongholds but in purple, middle-class Latino cities like Downey and Whittier and blue-collar, Democratic-run, overwhelmingly immigrant communities like Bell Gardens and Maywood.
Surveys showed that Latino voters this year didn’t care about anything other than themselves. Issues like the economy and housing were their top concerns, while securing the border was more important than trying to secure amnesty for people without papers. Indeed, the proportion of Latinos who think illegal immigration is a problem is nearly the same as it was among whites 30 years ago, when California voters overwhelmingly passed the anti-immigrant Proposition 187 while hundreds of thousands of Latinos marched against it.
Kamala Harris still won the Latino vote nationwide, but the Latino-Trump cumbia has drawn headlines, and not just because he outperformed any previous Republican presidential nominee among Latinos. The disbelief and soul-searching among Latino activists and finger-pointing by Democrats will continue throughout 2025, predicated on the idea that Latinos who went with Trump voted against their self-interest. In other words, Latinos didn’t act like Latinos are supposed to, whatever the hell that means.
That’s why I say that 2024 is the year that Latinos finally became Americans.
As patronizing and silly as it sounds, there is no historic precedent for this moment. Even though Spanish was spoken in what’s now the U.S. decades before Jamestown, Americans have long thought of Latinos as a people apart who would poison the proverbial melting pot the more their spice dominated the stew. For more than a century, Latino activists have pursued equal rights with this in mind, casting the people they fought for as a helpless, forever-victimized group that could best find strength through ethnic solidarity.
Instead, Latinos forsook movement politics in this election and seem poised to do the same in the future. We’re now in a political Bizarro World where the GOP thinks Latinos are a winnable group while Dems no longer see us as automatic salvation. Both parties will fight for our votes by de-emphasizing appeals to ethnicity and instead focusing on meat-and-potatoes issues — you know, the way they usually do with “regular” voters.
Latinos are no longer the sleeping giant of American politics. We are the giant. Where we decide to go is where the country will go. We’ve joined the metaphorical firsts — and like previous groups, we’re now spitting on the lasts and want nothing to do with them.
This mainstreaming is something I’ve been calling out throughout the 25 years I’ve covered Latino politics. This year, I saw it play out it in real time.
In the spring, I wrote a four-part series about the history of Latino politics in Los Angeles. In August, I took a seven-day road trip across the American Southwest to gauge the political temperature of Latinos before the Democratic National Convention. I talked to Latino Trump supporters throughout the fall, including many who admitted they once leaned liberal but felt abandoned by Democrats, prompting them to ride shotgun on the Trump Train.
The thread that connected my stories was that change was inevitable, and banking on Latinos to stay in Democratic amber was electoral suicide.
UCLA professor Kelly Lytle Hernandez, right, walks along Main Street in downtown Los Angeles, while giving a historical tour to Los Angeles city councilmembers Eunisses Hernandez and Hugo Soto-Martinez in 2022
(Mel Melcon / Los Angeles Times)
Wokosos and conservatives alike capitalized on dozing Dems who are finally awake to the desmadre before them. On L.A.’s Eastside, the cradle of Latino politics, Democratic Socialist City Council candidates swept away the political machines that dominated elections for decades. On the other end of the political spectrum, Latino Republican legislators now populate Sacramento in such numbers that the California Latino Legislative Caucus is having conversations about dropping its longstanding ban on GOP members.
Latinos are still nowhere near where we need to be in American life to brag about power commensurate with our numbers. There are still too many issues we need to work on, from educational attainment to the cost of living to health and housing disparities.
But the 2024 election showed that many Latinos are open to dropping the left-leaning politics of the past. The party that capitalizes on this opening is the party that can win.
This makes me think again about Chavez’s Commonwealth Club speech. What animated him most was the idea of a California “dominated” by the descendants of farmworkers, who would change things for the better and never forget where they came from, even generations later.
“Once social change begins, it cannot be reversed,” he said. “You cannot uneducate the person who has learned to read. You cannot humiliate the person who feels pride. You cannot oppress the people who are not afraid anymore.”
In 2024, Latinos showed that we are not afraid to think of a post-Latino future, at least at the ballot box. We’re now ready for politicians to treat us as Americans, for better or worse. And wasn’t that the goal all along?
Politics
Pelosi heir-apparent calls Trump’s Venezuela move a ‘lawless coup,’ urges impeachment, slams Netanyahu
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A San Francisco Democrat demanded the impeachment of President Donald Trump, accusing him of carrying out a “coup” against Venezuelan strongman Nicolás Maduro.
California state Sen. Scott Wiener, seen as the likely congressional successor to Rep. Nancy Pelosi, also took a swipe at Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Wiener has frequently drawn national attention for his progressive positions, including his legislation signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom designating California as a “refuge” for transgender children and remarks at a San Francisco Pride Month event referring to California children as “our kids.”
In a lengthy public statement following the Trump administration’s arrest and extradition of Maduro to New York, Wiener said the move shows the president only cares about “enriching his public donors” and “cares nothing for the human or economic cost of conquering another country.”
KAMALA HARRIS BLASTS TRUMP ADMINISTRATION’S CAPTURE OF VENEZUELA’S MADURO AS ‘UNLAWFUL AND UNWISE’
California State Sen. Scott Wiener, D-San Francisco, speaks at a rally. (John Sciulli/Getty Images)
“This lawless coup is an invitation for China to invade Taiwan, for Russia to escalate its conquest in Ukraine, and for Netanyahu to expand the destruction of Gaza and annex the West Bank,” said Wiener, who originally hails from South Jersey.
He suggested that the Maduro operation was meant to distract from purportedly slumping poll numbers, the release of Jeffrey Epstein-related documents, and to essentially seize another country’s oil reserves.
“Trump is a total failure,” Wiener said. “By engaging in this reckless act, Trump is also making the entire world less safe … Trump is making clear yet again that, under this regime, there are no rules, there are no laws, there are no norms – there is only whatever Trump thinks is best for himself and his cronies at a given moment in time.”
GREENE HITS TRUMP OVER VENEZUELA STRIKES, ARGUES ACTION ‘DOESN’T SERVE THE AMERICAN PEOPLE’
In response, the White House said the administration’s actions against Maduro were “lawfully executed” and included a federal arrest warrant.”
“While Democrats take twisted stands in support of indicted drug smugglers, President Trump will always stand with victims and families who can finally receive closure thanks to this historic action,” White House spokeswoman Anna Kelly said.
Supporters of the operation have pushed back on claims of “regime change” – an accusation Wiener also made – pointing to actions by Maduro-aligned courts that barred top opposition leader María Corina Machado from running, even as publicly reported results indicated her proxy, Edmundo González Urrutia, won the vote.
“Trump’s illegal invasion of Venezuela isn’t about drugs, and it isn’t about helping the people of Venezuela or restoring Venezuelan democracy,” Wiener added. “Yes, Maduro is awful, but that’s not what the invasion is about. It’s all about oil and Trump’s collapsing support at home.”
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Around the country, a handful of other Democrats referenced impeachment or impeachable offenses, but did not go as far as Wiener in demanding such proceedings.
Rep. April McClain-Delaney, D-Md., who represents otherwise conservative “Mountain Maryland” in the state’s panhandle, said Monday that Democrats should “imminently consider impeachment proceedings,” according to TIME.
McClain-Delaney said Trump acted without constitutionally-prescribed congressional authorization and wrongly voiced “intention to ‘run’ the country.”
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One frequent Trump foil, Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., cited in a statement that she has called for Trump’s impeachment in the past; blaming Republicans for letting the president “escape accountability.”
“Today, many Democrats have understandably questioned whether impeachment is possible again under the current political reality. I am reconsidering that view,” Waters said.
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“What we are witnessing is an unprecedented escalation of an unlawful invasion, the detention of foreign leaders, and a president openly asserting power far beyond what the Constitution allows,” she said, while appearing to agree with Trump that Maduro was involved in drug trafficking and “collaborat[ion] with… terrorists.”
Wiener’s upcoming primary is considered the deciding election in the D+36 district, while a handful of other lesser-known candidates have reportedly either filed FEC paperwork or declared their candidacy, including San Francisco Councilwoman Connie Chan.
California Rep. Doug LaMalfa (R-Richvale) has died, GOP leadership and President Trump confirmed Tuesday morning.
“Jacquie and I are devastated about the sudden loss of our friend, Congressman Doug LaMalfa. Doug was a loving father and husband, and staunch advocate for his constituents and rural America,” said Rep. Tom Emmer (R-Minn.), the House majority whip, in a post on X. “Our prayers are with Doug’s wife, Jill, and their children.”
LaMalfa, 65, was a fourth-generation rice farmer from Oroville and staunch Trump supporter who had represented his Northern California district for the past 12 years. His seat was one of several that was in jeopardy under the state’s redrawn districts approved by voters with Proposition 50.
Emergency personnel responded to a 911 call from LaMalfa’s residence at 6:50 p.m. Monday, according to the Butte County Sheriff’s Office. The congressman was taken to the Enloe Medical Center in Chico, where he died while undergoing emergency surgery, authorities said.
An autopsy to determine the cause of death is planned, according to the sheriff’s office.
LaMalfa’s district — which stretches from the northern outskirts of Sacramento, through Redding at the northern end of the Central Valley and Alturas in the state’s northeast corner — is largely rural, and constituents have long said they felt underrepresented in liberal California.
LaMalfa put much of his focus on boosting federal water supplies to farmers, and seeking to reduce environmental restrictions on logging and extraction of other natural resources.
One LaMalfa’s final acts in the U.S. House was to successfully push for the reauthorization of the Secure Rural Schools Act, a long-standing financial aid program for schools surrounded by untaxed federal forest land, whose budgets could not depend upon property taxes, as most public schools do. Despite broad bipartisan support, Congress let it lapse in 2023.
In an interview with The Times as he was walking onto the House floor in mid-December, LaMalfa said he was frustrated with Congress’s inability to pass even a popular bill like that reauthorization.
The Secure Rural Schools Act, he said, was a victim of a Congress in which “it’s still an eternal fight over anything fiscal.” It is “annoying,” LaMalfa said, “how hard it is to get basic things done around here.”
In a statement posted on X, California Democratic Sen. Adam Schiff said he considered LaMalfa “a friend and partner” and that the congressman was “deeply committed to his community and constituents, working to make life better for those he represented.”
“Doug’s life was one of great service and he will be deeply missed,” Schiff wrote.
Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom in a statement called LaMalfa a “devoted public servant who deeply loved his country, his state, and the communities he represented.”
“While we often approached issues from different perspectives, he fought every day for the people of California with conviction and care,” Newsom said.
Flags at the California State Capitol in Sacramento will be flown at half-staff in honor of the congressman, according to the governor.
Before his death, LaMalfa was facing a difficult reelection bid to hold his seat. After voters approved Proposition 50 in November — aimed at giving California Democrats more seats in Congress — LaMalfa was drawn into a new district that heavily favored his likely opponent, State Sen. Mike McGuire, a Democrat who represents the state’s northwest coast.
LaMalfa’s death puts the Republican majority in Congress in further jeopardy, with a margin of just two votes to secure passage of any bill along party lines after the resignation of Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene on Monday evening.
Adding to the party’s troubles, Rep. Jim Baird, a Republican from Indiana, was hospitalized on Tuesday for a car crash described by the White House as serious. While Baird is said to be stable, the Republican House speaker, Mike Johnson from Louisiana, will not be able to rely on his attendance. And he has one additional caucus member – Thomas Massie of Kentucky – who has made a habit of voting against the president, bringing their margin for error down effectively to zero.
President Trump, addressing a gathering of GOP House members at the Kennedy Center, addressed the news at the start of his remarks, expressing “tremendous sorrow at the loss of a great member” and stating his speech would be made in LaMalfa’s honor.
“He was the leader of the Western caucus – a fierce champion on California water issues. He was great on water. ‘Release the water!’ he’d scream out. And a true defender of American children.”
“You know, he voted with me 100% of the time,” Trump added.
A native of Oroville, LaMalfa attended Butte College and then earned an ag-business degree from Cal Poly San Luis Obispo. He served in the California Assembly from 2002 to 2008 and the California State Senate from 2010 to 2012. Staunchly conservative, he was an early supporter of Proposition 209, which ended affirmative action in California, and he also pushed for passage of the Protection of Marriage Act, Proposition 22, which banned same-sex marriage in California.
While representing California’s 1st District, LaMalfa focused largely on issues affecting rural California and other western states. In 2025, Congressman he was elected as Chairman of the Congressional Western Caucus, which focuses on legislation affected rural areas.
Politics
Federal officials to halt more than $10B in funding to 5 states over non-citizen benefit concerns: report
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The Trump administration is moving to freeze more than $10 billion in federal child care and social services funding to five Democrat-led states amid concerns taxpayer dollars were improperly diverted to non-citizens, according to a report.
Officials reportedly told The New York Post that the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) will freeze funding from the Child Care Development Fund (CCDF), the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program, and the Social Services Block Grant, affecting California, Colorado, Illinois, Minnesota, and New York over concerns the benefits were fraudulently funneled to non-citizens.
More than $7.3 billion in TANF funding would be withheld from the five states, along with nearly $2.4 billion from the CCDF and another $869 million from the Social Services Block Grant.
The funding pauses were expected to be announced in letters sent to state officials Monday, citing concerns that benefits were improperly directed to non-U.S. citizens.
ABBOTT ORDERS COMPREHENSIVE FRAUD PROBE INTO TEXAS CHILD CARE FUNDING AFTER MINNESOTA SCANDAL
The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) will freeze funding from the Child Care Development Fund (CCDF), the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program, and the Social Services Block Grant, affecting California, Colorado, Illinois, Minnesota, and New York over concerns the benefits were fraudulently funneled to non-citizens, according to a report. (Kayla Bartkowski/Getty Images)
A 2019 audit by the Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General found that New York State improperly claimed $24.7 million in federal reimbursement for child care subsidies paid to New York City that did not comply with program rules.
The audit attributed the overbilling to system errors and oversight failures – not criminal fraud – and state officials agreed to refund the funds and implement corrective controls, according to the report.
Following the release of details surrounding the potential funding freeze, New York Democrats sharply criticized the Trump administration’s move, arguing it would harm families who rely on child care assistance.
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Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., accused the administration of using the issue for political retaliation and warned it would hurt children and low-income families across the state.
“Trump is threatening to freeze child care funding in New York and targeting our children for political retribution. It’s immoral and indefensible,” she wrote in a post on X. “I’m demanding the administration abandon any plans to freeze this funding and stop hurting New York families.”
Along with her post, Gillibrand also shared a public statement regarding the freezing of funds.
HHS CUTS OFF MINNESOTA CHILD CARE PAYMENTS OVER ALLEGED DAYCARE FRAUD SCHEME
Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., spoke out after the Trump administration moved on Jan. 5, 2026, to freeze billions in federal child care and social services funding to several blue states. (Getty Images)
“My faith guides my life and public service. It’s our job to serve the people most in need and most at risk – no matter what state they live in or what political party their family or elected representatives belong to,” she said. “To use the power of the government to harm the neediest Americans is immoral and indefensible.
“This has nothing to do with fraud and everything to do with political retribution that punishes poor children in need of assistance,” Gillibrand added. “I demand that President Trump unfreeze this funding and stop this brazen attack on our children.”
The NY Post first reported that in December, HHS sent letters to Walz and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey seeking information on whether billions in taxpayer funds may have unlawfully helped “fuel illegal and mass migration.”
Those requests were followed by investigations launched by the Treasury Department and the House Oversight Committee into a growing fraud scandal involving several nonprofits tied to the Somali community in the Twin Cities.
An estimated 130,000 illegal migrants were living in Minnesota as of 2023 — about 40,000 more than in 2019 and roughly 2% of the state’s population — according to the Pew Research Center. The state’s Somali diaspora exceeds 100,000 people, with most concentrated in the Minneapolis–St. Paul area.
The news on Monday came the same day Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz announced he was dropping his bid for a third term as governor amid stinging criticism of his handling of the state’s massive welfare assistance fraud scandal.
KAROLINE LEAVITT WARNS ‘PEOPLE WILL BE IN HANDCUFFS’ AS FEDS ZERO IN ON MINNESOTA FRAUD SCANDAL
GOP lawmakers in Minnesota are calling for Gov. Tim Walz to resign over the exploding fraud crisis. (Getty Images)
Walz launched his bid for a third four-year term as Minnesota governor in September, but in recent weeks has been facing a barrage of incoming political fire from President Donald Trump and Republicans, and some Democrats, over the large-scale theft in a state that has long prided itself on good governance.
More than 90 people — most from Minnesota’s large Somali community — have been charged since 2022 in what has been described as the nation’s largest COVID-era scheme.
How much money has been stolen through alleged money laundering operations involving fraudulent meal and housing programs, daycare centers and Medicaid services is still being tabulated. But the U.S. attorney in Minnesota said the scope of the fraud could exceed $1 billion and rise to as high as $9 billion.
MINNESOTA FRAUD SCANDAL INTENSIFIES DEBATE OVER STRIPPING CITIZENSHIP
Quality Learning Center in Minnesota was found at the center of an alleged childcare fraud scandal in the state. (Madelin Fuerste / Fox News Channel)
Prosecutors said that some of the dozens that have already pleaded guilty in the case used the money to buy luxury cars, real estate, jewelry and international vacations, with some of the funds also sent overseas and potentially into the hands of Islamic terrorists.
Trump addressed Walz’s announcement of leaving the race on Monday, in a post on Truth Social. “Minnesota’s Corrupt Governor will possibly leave office before his Term is up but, in any event, will not be running again because he was caught, REDHANDED, along with Ilhan Omar, and others of his Somali friends, stealing Tens of Billions of Taxpayer Dollars,” the president wrote. “I feel certain the facts will come out, and they will reveal a seriously unscrupulous, and rich, group of ‘SLIMEBALLS.’
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“Governor Walz has destroyed the State of Minnesota, but others, like Governor Gavin Newscum, JB Pritzker, and Kathy Hochul, have done, in my opinion, an even more dishonest and incompetent job,” Trump added. “NO ONE IS ABOVE THE LAW!”
Fox News Digital’s Paul Steinhauser and Andrew Mark Miller contributed to this report.
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