After the 2020 census, the women behind the Latina Civic Foundation set a goal: get a Latina to Congress within 10 years.
It took five. And now there are two.
The foundation celebrated that victory last Friday at its inaugural Latina Excellence Breakfast at The Rutgers Club in Piscataway. Representatives Nellie Pou (D, 9th) and Analilia Mejia (D, 11), the state’s first and second Latinas in Congress, were among the honorees.
The biggest prize in New Jersey politics barely came up.
That’s by design. The foundation is a nonprofit educational group, so it stays out of politics. The lieutenant governor’s job, open since Lt. Gov. Dale Caldwell resigned Sept. 25, got only a few quick mentions from the podium.
Katharine Pichardo, president and CEO of the Washington, D.C.-based Latino Victory Project, one of the event’s national partners, offered the loudest one.
“Can we get a Latina lieutenant governor in the state of New Jersey?” she asked. “We are going to be working on that tomorrow.”
After the program, foundation President Maria Del Cid-Kosso was free to say more.
“I think it’s important to have a Latina LG,” she said.
***
The foundation is one piece of a three-part operation.
Latina Civic Action handles advocacy. The day before the breakfast, it called on Sherrill to appoint a Latina and offered three names:
- Assembly Speaker Pro Tempore Annette Quijano (D-Elizabeth)
- Patricia Campos-Medina, executive director of the Worker Institute at Cornell University’s School of Industrial and Labor Relations
- Arlene Quiñones Perez, an equity partner at DeCotiis, FitzPatrick, Cole & Giblin
Two of the three had big roles at the breakfast. Quijano was honored as one of the foundation’s “Las Primeras.” Campos-Medina, president of Latina Civic Action, hosted the program.
Sherrill has 45 days from the resignation to name a successor. The appointment doesn’t need legislative approval.
The Latina Civic PAC handles the money. Del Cid-Kosso said that’s where many campaigns live or die.
“They raise the dollars to make sure that Latinas are being elected to office, not just running,” she said. “We all know that it’s hard for people to raise money, especially as a woman of color.”
The foundation handles training. It runs programs including ELLA Wins and Latinas Building the Bench, and it is naming a year-long leadership academy for Zulima Farber, the state’s first Latina attorney general. It also runs a Latina-focused workshop with Rutgers’ Center for American Women and Politics that brings in women who have run, some who won and some who lost.
“It teaches those who are aspiring to run for office what they need to do and what they don’t have to do,” Del Cid-Kosso said. “You have to raise money. You have to make connections.”
***
The gap the group was formed to close is still wide. A 2024 CAWP report found Latinas hold about 5% of leadership roles across New Jersey’s state and local government.
The breakfast made it clear the group isn’t slowing down.
Campos-Medina told the crowd that Mejia, a founding board member of Latina Civic, decided to run as soon as the 11th District seat opened. Then she looked ahead.
“Now we need three. Yes, we need four,” she said.
Pou said the pace has already surprised everyone. It took two centuries to get the first Latina from New Jersey to Congress.
“It took less than two years to get two women Latinas to be in Congress,” she said. “Things move slow, but then it goes very fast hereafter.”
The Congress goal came with a 10-year deadline. This one comes with a 45-day clock that started on the day Caldwell resigned (Sept. 25).
Del Cid-Kosso noted that Latinos are nearly 25% of the state’s population, she noted.
“So, we definitely need somebody to represent us at the highest level of state office,” she said.
