Congressional Hispanic Caucus

Congressional Hispanic Caucus

The Congressional Hispanic Caucus (CHC) comprises 21 Democratic members of the United States Congress of Hispanic descent. The Caucus is dedicated to voicing and advancing, through the legislative process, issues affecting Hispanics and Latinos in the United States and Puerto Rico. The CHC was founded in December 1976 as a legislative service organization of the United States House of Representatives. Today, the CHC is organized as a Congressional Member organization, governed under the Rules of the U.S. House of Representatives.

The Congressional Hispanic Caucus aims to address national and international issues and the impact these policies have on the Hispanic community. The function of the Caucus is to serve as a forum for the Hispanic and other Members of Congress to coalesce around a collective legislative agenda. In addition to covering legislative action, the CHC also monitors Executive and Judicial issues.

CHC legislative priorities cover all areas that have a direct impact on the Hispanic or Latino community. In order to best address these diverse issues, members work in smaller task forces that draw on their expertise and develop priority legislation within each area. The CHC is currently composed entirely of Democrats, although it had been a bipartisan organization since its founding. The Republican members left in the late 1990s over policy differences and, in 2003, formed their own group, the Congressional Hispanic Conference. Senator Bob Menendez, a Cuban American Democrat from New Jersey, is currently the only member of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus from the Senate.