Latinas and the 2008 Election

Special Feature: The 2008 Elections and the New Administration

Hilda Solis has made groundbreaking history throughout her career as a public servant. In 1994, she became the first Latina elected to the California State Senate, and in 2000 she became the first woman to receive the John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage award for her work on environmental justice issues. Her appointment is another milestone for the Latino community – she is the first Latina, and the first Hispanic of Central American heritage, to serve as a senior appointed officer of one of the 15 executive-level departments.

Solis grew up in the Los Angeles suburb of La Puente with her six siblings and her parents, Raul and Juana Solis. In 1985, she was elected her first public office as a member of the Rio Hondo Community College Board of Trustees. Solis was then elected to the California State Assembly in 1992 and the State Senate in 1994. As the first Latina senator, she championed labor issues and environmental justice. She worked to increase California’s minimum wage from $4.25 to $5.75 an hour in 1996, and worked to mitigate the high levels of air pollution suffered by her district residents, for which she won the John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage award. She also authored a record 17 state laws aimed at combating domestic violence.

First elected to Congress in 2000, Solis was the first Latina to serve on the powerful House Committee on Energy and Commerce, where she was Vice Chair of the Environment and Hazardous Materials (EHM) Subcommittee and a member of the Health and Telecommunications Subcommittees. On the world stage, she was appointed to the Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe in 2007, as well as the Mexico-United States Interparliamentary Group. In June 2007, she was elected Vice Chair of the Helsinki Commission’s General Committee on Democracy, Human Rights and Humanitarian Questions. She is the only U.S. elected official to serve on this committee.

A former Co-Chair of the bi-partisan Congressional Caucus for Women’s Issues, Solis has been an outspoken advocate for issues of importance to women and families. She has also been a leader in efforts to end the murders of women in Guatemala and the U.S. border town of Ciudad Juarez, Mexico and played a key role in the reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act in 2006.

As Director of Intergovernmental Affairs, Cecilia Muñoz assumes a key position in the new administration, and her skills and experience will help the White House strengthen its relationship with the more than 6,000 Latino elected and appointed officials from across the country.

In addition, Muñoz is an accomplished author, who has published numerous works on immigration, the Latino vote, and labor issues.

As Chair of the White House Council on Environmental Quality, Nancy Sutley will serve as the principal environmental policy adviser to President Obama. The Council on Environmental Quality coordinates federal environmental efforts and reports annually to the President on the state of the environment. Sutley will also oversee implementation of the environmental impact assessment process at the federal level and work to resolve issues when agencies disagree over the process.
Born in New York, Sutley has worked for over a decade on environmental, energy and water issues. She served under the Clinton Administration as Senior Advisor to the Regional Administrator for the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in San Francisco, and later as Special Assistant to the EPA Administrator in Washington, D.C. She returned to California and served as Governor Gray Davis’ Energy Advisor and as a Deputy Secretary for the California Environmental Protection Agency.
Prior to being nominated, Sutley served as the Deputy Mayor for Energy and Environment for the City of Los Angeles and was appointed by Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa to serve on the Board of Directors for the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California.