Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute

Congressional Hispanic Caucus

Hispanic Caucus meeting at the White House in 2009
Formation	December 1976
Founder	5 founding members Herman Badillo (from New York's 21st district) Baltasar Corrada del Río (from Puerto Rico At-Large) Kika de la Garza (from Texas's 15th district) Henry B. González (from Texas's 20th district) Edward R. Roybal (from California's 25th district)
Headquarters	Washington, D.C
Membership	During the 115th Congress 2 Senators 27 voting Representatives 1 non-voting Delegate
Chair	Michelle Lujan Grisham
Website	Official website

During the 115th Congress

The Congressional Hispanic Caucus (CHC) is an organization of 30 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, and Senator Catherine Cortez Masto, a Mexican American Democrat from Nevada are currently the only members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus from the Senate.