Most observers in Washington and for that matter the whole country too often lack clarity in noting that the Federal Reserve truly is the ultimate policy entity to modify, adjust, and re-define key elements of the world’s richest and most powerful economy. Moreover, the Fed’s board is independent of the Executive branch and is supposed to be free of political influence. The US Congress has oversight responsibility over its actions. The Federal Reserve Board like so many of the regulatory boards in Washington is safeguarded by this independence.

The stated reason for the creation of the federal reserve in 1913 just as Woodrow Wilson took over the presidency: to provide the nation with a safer, more flexible and more stable monetary/financial system. The four duties (areas) of the federal reserve are commonly known as the following:

• conducting the nation’s monetary policy by influencing the monetary and credit conditions in the economy in pursuit of maximum employment, stable prices, and moderate long-term interest rates
• supervising and regulating banking institutions to ensure the safety and soundness of the nation’s banking and financial system and to protect the credit rights of consumers
• maintaining the stability of the financial system and containing systemic risk that may arise in financial markets
• providing financial services to depository institutions, the U.S. government, and foreign official institutions, including playing a major role in operating the nation’s payments system

The Federal Reserve System with Washington as its headquarters has twelve (12) regional banks. Interestingly enough, these regional banks are privately owned but are members of the Federal Reserve System. These include the first among equals (primus inter pares) New York, then Boston, Richmond, Cleveland, Atlanta, Philadelphia, Chicago, Kansas City, Dallas, Minneapolis, San Francisco and St. Louis. Many of these cities or regions have vast numbers of Latinos. Out west, San Francisco is the only regional Federal Reserve Bank west of the Rockies. The next three mid-western regions are Minneapolis, Kansas City and Dallas. The numbers of Latinos in these western states is most impressive and growing. Certainly Dallas, New York, Chicago, and Atlanta have also huge portions of the 46 million Hispanics nationwide. The current census being conducted and analyzed will help provide a clearer picture of the numbers and where they are living. But it can be argued that as of now out west with San Francisco as the only geographically western Federal Reserve Bank, the Hispanic congressional representation breaks down this way: the west has the majority with six in California (Roybal-Allard, Baca, Becerra, Napolitano, the two Sanchez sisters); one each in Colorado (Salazar) and New Mexico (Lujan) and two in Arizona (Grijalva and Pastor) and Dallas region has six (Ortiz, Gonzalez, Rodriguez, Cuellar, Hinojosa and Reyes) all in Texas. Chicago region has one Latino congressman (Gutierrez) and the New York region has two (Serrano and Velazquez) plus one congressman (Sires) from Northern New Jersey and the only Latino senator (Menendez) in the country (NJ). Atlanta has three from Florida (two Diaz-Balart brothers and Ros-Lehtinen). Therefore, the San Francisco and Dallas Federal Reserve Regions have over 15 Latino congressmen. Salazar in Colorado belongs to the Kansas City region; Atlanta is the third region to have Latino congressional representation. A closer look at these regional/sub-regional Federal Reserve Banks reveals few if any Latino representation on the regional bank boards.

In examining the composition of the scores of directors of these regional Federal Reserve Boards, only Dallas appears to have more than one Latino director. At the regional level, there is one (Roberto Estrada) of the main Dallas bank and at its sub-regional level San Antonio has four: Jorge Bermudez, Ricardo Romo, Ygnacio Garza and C. Treviño. Atlanta has one, Carol Tome at the regional director level. In the Atlanta region, Miami is touted as the banking center for Latin America, yet only one, Latino director is detected (Carol Tome). San Francisco has none at the regional or sub-regional level. Boston has one Luso-American (Portuguese: Cunha) on the board. Richmond, Cleveland, St. Louis, Minneapolis and Philadelphia don’t have any Latino sounding names on their boards. Interestingly enough, the leader of the regional pack, New York has one at the substantive level of director, Richard Carrion from Puerto Rico’s Banco Popular, but alas no other…More revealing is Kansas City with Lu Cordova from Boulder, Colorado as a key director, but uncertain that this board member is considered to be Hispanic. The sum of Latino representation in the Federal Reserve System’s decision-making circles is at best bleak.

As for the Fed’s board in Washington, the most powerful and key tool in the US economy, there is no Latino and never has been one. Yet, the Hispanic population is estimated now at least to be over 15% of the US overall population. The contribution by the Latino community to the US multi-trillion dollar economy is increasingly significant. It is rarely heard among the Hispanic congressional and Civic leadership on how the Fed affects the community in its operations or implementation of public economic policy. Plainly, the Fed’s actions affecting the money supply, credit, the cost of money, interest rates and how remittances are affected by supervising the flow of money transfers or exchange fluctuations have an increasingly important impact on the Latino community. Perhaps, the Obama administration will discover or find a qualified high-flyer Latino economist or financial type to serve on the Fed’s board. If we continue to wait for the nominal Hispanic leadership or self-styled Latino advocacy groups to discover the wondrous powers of the Federal Reserve, we could be in for a long wait. The growing awareness of the functions of the US economy in the context of the recent financial crisis and housing bubble along with high unemployment rates behooves the Latino community to seek greater representation and participation at the highest levels of the decision-making process.

Here is Seneca’s update:

As Obama goes into home stretch just before the holidays on his first tier appointments, which include the Cabinet, top White House Staff and a few other lesser appointments, it looks like Latinos will now have three Cabinet slots: Commerce (Richardson) , Interior (Salazar),  and Labor (Solis), two White House upper middle selections Cecilia Munoz (Inter Government Affairs) and Louis Caldera (White House Military Office). Rep. Becerra is not accepting USTR. Mayor Manny Diaz of Miami is now apparently out of the running for Transportation. Rep. Grijalva lost out on Interior, but another Latino Sen. Salazar was named. Now it remains to be seen if this only Mexican-American US Senator will be replaced by his brother in Congress, John Salazar. With Mel Martinez (R) leaving after one term from Florida and if no Latino replaces Salazar in the Senate, then Bob Menendez (D-NJ) may be the only Latino (Cuban American) US Senator after 2010.

Congress will see in 2009 at least one more Latino Congressman, Ben Ray Lujan (D-NM). Also the newly elected Connecticut Democrat Jim Himes defeated the last remaining GOP Congressman from New England, Chris Shays. Himes, who is Peruvian born to white American parents and grew up in Lima and Colombia, speaks fluent Spanish. But will he join the Congressional Hispanic Caucus? If he does, he will be the first Rhodes scholar in the Caucus.

In the next Congress the Cuban-Americans will retain their six people in Congress: Sen Menendez (D) and Sen Martinez (R), two GOP Diaz Balart brothers (Mario and Lincoln) and Ileana Ros Lehtenin (R) from Florida and Albino Sires (D) from New Jersey who replaced Menendez in the House. The three Democrat Puerto Ricans will remain unchanged in numbers: Jose Serrano and Nydia Velazquez from New York and Luis Gutierrez of Illinois. The Mexican-Americans will have 17 members with New Mexican Lujan’s election. Texas has Democrats Hinojosa, Ortiz, Gonzalez, Rodriguez, Cuellar and Reyes, add Arizona’s Democrats Pastor and Grijalva and California’s Democrats Roybal, Napolitano, Becerra, Baca and two sisters Loretta and Linda Sanchez and Colorado’s Rep. John Salazar and his brother soon to be Secretary of Interior, US Senator Ken Salazar. Now we have to wonder who will replace Hilda Solis. It looks like CA State Senator Gloria Romero is interested in the seat. The current national grand total is three Latino US Senators and 23 Latino Congress-persons (House) plus ‘honorary’ Hispanic Caucus members Reps Costa and Cardoza. Unfortunately, the four Cuban GOP members and the two Sanchez sisters are not members of the Hispanic Caucus (see Joe Baca’s name calling, but it looks like the Sanchez sisters will rejoin now that Nydia Velazquez is the chair of CHC), another painful indication of the Latino lack of unity and penchant for squabbles.

The Obama sub-cabinet (Deputy Secretaries, Under Secretaries, Assistant Secretaries, members of powerful federal regulatory agencies and some other independent agencies) basically all the Presidential Appointments with Senate Confirmation (PAS) will be closely monitored. Obama will have the opportunity to name the first Latino to the ultimate Uber-independent regulatory agency: the Federal Reserve Board in Washington. Also, the possible opening of a seat on the Supreme Court thus enabling Obama to name the first Latino to that August body. Meanwhile all eyes in the Latino community will be on the rest of the Obama PAS appointments. The primary focus will be in the Education, Health, Labor and immigration areas. Also will the Congressional Hispanic Caucus get to ‘vet’ or at least meet as a whole with the nominees for Homeland Security (Secretary) and its two (Under Secretaries) Latino key component agencies: Immigration (CIS) and Immigration Enforcement (ICE)? And will the CHC get to vet the Health, Education, Justice and Labor nominees for Secretaries? And will the CHC be consulted regarding the Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere, the nominee for US Ambassador to Mexico, the OAS Ambassador, Special Envoys and others?

Latino advocacy groups should ensure that these nominees address their NGO groups and appear before the Congressional Hispanic Caucus members and staff to review the Hispanic agenda (if one can be agreed upon) and provide ‘top cover’ to the Latino appointees and Latino career personnel be moved upwards. One expectation, which should be conveyed to the senior Latino appointees (Cabinet), is that they should periodically gather the senior Latino PAS appointees and other identifiable high fly-er Latino appointees and career types i.e. diplomats and senior civil service (SES). Latino numbers among military General/Flag rank officers should be reviewed to provide interest and top cover in the DoD selection and promotion process. Also the process of gathering Latinos federal movers and shakers is to ensure that it helps tremendously to improve the Latino esprit de corps among the Hispanic federal work force as well as the appointee group. The national Hispanic issues agenda should be reviewed, promoted, changed or modified as needed and addressed publicly whenever required. Immigration, for instance, will most likely not be addressed in the first year or two of the new Administration because of the high political costs. Obama will need to preserve his ‘going-in political capital’ for the most urgent national needs: the economy and extracting ourselves out of the quagmire of Iraq and Afghanistan wars. Yet, the fact that Latinos are over 60% of the undocumented immigrants in the US, which is a reality and requires attention especially in an alarmingly declining economic situation, could provoke an ugly and contentious anti-Latino backlash from the US body politic. This tangle’s remedy cannot be postponed indefinitely. To avoid or duck the immigration challenge would be highly irresponsible.

Forceful leadership at the highest level of the Executive and the Congress will be indispensable for an inevitable Comprehensive Immigration Reform (CIR). In sum, Obama has his work cut out. The expectations are high within the whole Latino agenda. Hence, the appointments and social/economic issues will be paramount. The challenge for the Latino community is to wisely articulate its expectations, its needs, and its vision of the role of the Latino population in the out years. This will require unity of purpose, focus, constant reminders to the Administration, public commentary and provide top cover to Latino public servants, similarly judicious cooperation and coordination with Latino advocacy groups are necessary to address the Latino community’s needs and the hurdles posed. Lastly, the palpable tomfoolery among some of our Latino Congress people is readily viewed as a lack of seriousness. The recent antics of the Sanchez Sisters, Joe Baca and former California Assembly Speaker Fabian Nuñez’s madcap caper are dreadful examples…por lo tanto veremos!

Photo Credit: AP Photo/Ron Edmonds, Hilda Solis at DNC 08/27/08

Well, the editors of the Pasadena Star-News think that Mayor Villaraigosa has blown it with a transportation measure to extend the San Gabriel Valley’s Gold Line, which currently connects Pasadena to downtown Los Angeles.

Villaraigosa shot down funding for the Gold Line extension into Monclair because he doesn’t feel that the Metropolitan Transportation Agency would dole out the money that it has in a manner that would be equitable for the San Gabriel Valley. Instead, the mayor wants to use a half cent sales tax increase on LA County residents to help fund railway projects. Three of the five LA County supervisors don’t approve of Villaraigosa’s plan, including his former mentor Gloria Molina.

I don’t think that higher taxes are going to be popular with anyone in California right now, especially in Los Angeles County, where the cost of living is already much higher than the rest of the country. Additionally, Governor Schwarzenegger and the legislature will likely approve a one cent sales tax increase to close the state budget loophole.

Two Latinas in Congress representing the San Gabriel Valley area, Hilda Solis and Grace Napolitano, recently sat down with Congressmen David Dreier (R) and Adam Schiff (D) to express support for the Gold Line Foothill Extension. I agree with the Pasadena Star-News. Let the local congressional delegation take care of this, and perhaps Villaraigosa can work on an issue where he has more local support. If he wants to be a successful candidate for governor, Villaraigosa needs to hit a home run on one of the big issues he tried to tackle when he was first elected to the mayor’s office. The education system and housing crisis are still big problems in LA. Maybe he can devote more time to those issues.

Photo Credit: USA Today, 06/15/05 from back when Villaraigosa was first elected mayor. Doesn’t it look like he’s flashing his “American Me” pose? I only wonder who the Mayor’s cronies mentioned in the linked Pasadena Star-News editorial look like. Are they as scary as Santana’s (Eddie Olmos character) gang?

Check it out:

Everyone is abuzz with news that Senator Ted Kennedy, who is battling a malignant brain tumor, may actually speak to the crowd today. His niece, Caroline Kennedy, is introducing his tribute this evening. Considering all that Senator Kennedy has done for Latino Americans in terms of civil rights, education, and health care, and his affinity for belting out mariachi tunes, I think that he has earned his Latino credentials.

If you are following the day’s events, you might keep an eye out for jazz singer Margie Perez from New Orleans, Patricia Madrid, the Attorney General of New Mexico, and Congressional Hispanic Caucus members, Reps. Baca, Napolitano, and Reyes.

Congressional Quarterly reports that Obama’s campaign has been in touch with Congresswomen Napolitano, Solis, and Sanchez. While the men in the CHC said that scheduling conflicts prevented the women from attending the meeting yesterday, Rep. Sanchez says that Obama’s camp had called her office to set up a call. In response to this gesture, she said, “He can come over and see me.” Congresswoman Sanchez then went on to say that Senator Obama has not done enough to articulate his agenda, adding, “Change is not enough. If you want me to go out and sell you to people, I want to know what you’re doing.” Where has she been for the past year? Obama has articulated his agenda numerous times over and over again in debates, speeches, policy positions on his website, etc.

Senator Obama just may end up visiting Congresswoman Loretta Sanchez. Her sister, Congresswoman Linda Sanchez, has been a supporter of Barack Obama since earlier this year. Couldn’t Loretta get schooled on his policy positions from her hermana? I have heard that these two share an apartment in D.C. Maybe they don’t talk shop during their off time.

Also, Congresswoman Loretta Sanchez would be wise to get on the Obama train since he can help her advance her legislative agenda. At this point, I don’t know what Hillary Clinton has done or will be doing for Loretta Sanchez and her agenda or what John McCain has to offer her to warrant these kinds of public comments about Obama. Rumor has it that Representative Sanchez was going to lobby for an ambassadorship if Hillary Clinton had become the president.

Photo Credit: CSULB