Lena Gonzalez’s voice over the phone had the patient yet proud tone of a lawyer charged with defending abominable people.

Her metaphorical client is the California Latino Legislative Caucus, led by a state senator from the Long Beach area.

With 38 members, it is one of the largest groups of its kind in the United States and has long served as the tip of California’s progressive spear. Within a generation, members will transform the state from the state that gave rise to the notoriously anti-immigrant Proposition 187 to one where undocumented immigrants can apply for driver’s licenses, health insurance, and receive in-state college tuition and more. contributed to that.

Then the 2024 elections were held.

Nationwide, Latinos are turning to Donald Trump in numbers that continue to make headlines and embarrass Democratic leaders. It happened in deep blue California. In the predominantly blue-collar neighborhood of Anaheim, Mexico, where my father lives, support for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris has fallen from 73% in 2020 to 60% this year. President Trump received 36% of the vote despite promises by the former president and the president-elect to deport as many illegal immigrants as possible. Trump didn’t come from his father, who considers himself a “loco,” though.

Eight Latino Republicans currently serve in the state Legislature, doubling the previous record set just two years ago. Their districts span California from the border to the Sierra Nevada, from the Central Valley to Orange County, and so do their life stories: children of immigrants, multiracial, multigenerational.

They make up 18% of all Latino legislators in California, according to a study released this year by the National Congress. A survey by Latino Elected and Appointed Representatives, led by Latina Republican Rep. Downey, found that 16% of Latinos are registered Republicans.

This new reality is why I called Gonzalez.

Since its inception in 1973, the Latino Legislative Caucus has excluded Republican members of Congress. The ban was easy to justify, I told Gonzalez, when there were still only a few people. Raza Republicans in Sacramento were considered a little better than them. bendidos — Sold out.

But given how Latino voters have changed this Election Day, is it time for the caucus to roll out the red carpet for their Republican colleagues?

“That’s a good question,” Gonzalez replied. “We’re obviously on our minds about this. This year is very different. We saw a reversal in the Imperial Valley and we thought it was going to happen.”

She won over a candidate backed by the Coachella Valley’s Latino political machine, which has dominated elected office for generations, and newcomer Jeff Gonzalez (no relation to Lena). We were talking about the 36th Congressional District.

She also mentioned the Inland Empire’s 58th Congressional District, where first-time candidate Leticia Castillo is running against Clarissa Cervantes, the sister of state senator and former Latino Congressional Caucus Chairwoman Sabrina Cervantes. He defeated him by just 596 votes.

“I have to talk to our caucus,” Gonzalez continued. He said some members are considering including Latino Republicans, but “others are saying ‘absolutely no.'”

These are strange times for Latino politics in California. Although Democrats still hold supermajorities in both houses of Congress, one U.S. senator, Alex Padilla from Pacoima, and Latino Caucus members Robert Rivas and Gonzalez each hold seats in the House. The Chairman and the Senate Majority Leader. leader. Experts have long believed that the template created by Latino Democrats in California in the wake of Prop. 187 for electoral success (align with workers, grow government, defend illegal aliens) They predicted it would spread across the country and secure the future of the Democratic Party as the country became more Latino. .

As Gonzalez acknowledges, Latino Democrats can no longer shun their Republican cousins ​​like they were offshoots of Carne Asada’s eccentric family.

“It may not be a caucus, but we obviously have to work with them in other capacities,” she said.

For decades, Latino Republicans have criticized the Latino Caucus for not accepting Latino members, leading to unsuccessful attempts to form their own group and , a national inquiry was launched into whether partisan ethnic caucuses were legal at all (they were).

Now, as I giddily wonder what’s going to happen next for them, the Latino Republicans I’ve talked to say they don’t want to belong to a club that welcomes them as members. He was adopting Groucho Marx’s old adage.

Abel Maldonado, a former Santa Maria congressman and state senator who was one of the last Republicans to hold statewide office when he served as lieutenant governor in 2010, led the Latino Caucus on a par with party members. He downplayed it.

“It’s great to be able to go out to dinner with the caucus and have a glass of wine,” he said, half-seriously, half-seriously. “I miss going there with Fabian.” [Nuñez] and antonio [Villaraigosa] and – en pass descans [may he rest in peace] —Marco Firebaugh,” late Southeast Los Angeles County Councilman.

“It was fun to go out at night,” Maldonado continued. “But during the day their policies hurt Latinos. They’ll say it’s for the poor, but they don’t communicate that. keep I’m poor. ”

His advice to Republican Latinos is: “Don’t join this caucus that created California’s current problems.”

Rep. Josh Huber, who represents a Sacramento-area district, said his fellow Latino Republicans have a text thread where they exchange ideas and wonder if they should start their own group. Ta. (This is what Latino Republicans did in Congress, forming the Congressional Hispanic Caucus in 2003 to distinguish it from the Democratic-leaning Congressional Hispanic Caucus.)

Currently, about one-third of California’s Republican elected officials are Latino. “That’s a big deal,” he said. “This shows that the Republican Party is not a party painted by the left.”

Hoover said the caucus’s rejection of people like him shows that “they talk a lot about diversity, but they’re not interested in diversity of thought or differences in political opinion.” said. That’s what needs to change in California. ”

State Sen. Robert Hertzberg (D-Van Nuys) and State Sen. Rosilisy Ochoa Bogue (R-Yucaipa) meet at the Capitol in Sacramento in 2022.

(Ricci Pedroncelli/Associated Press)

Inland Empire Sen. Rosilicy Ochoa Borg, the daughter of immigrants from the Mexican state of Yucatan, became California’s first Latino Republican state senator with her 2020 election. There are now three. She remembers running into members of the Latino Legislative Caucus at a dinner during her first year in office and being initially upset that she couldn’t join them.

“Like in high school when you weren’t part of a group, you felt like an outsider, but you felt like you belonged?” Ochoa-Bogue said. “Then I thought about it and it didn’t feel right. I thought, ‘I’m more Latinx than a lot of other people!’

She acknowledged that the caucus was formed 51 years ago for good reason. “I think it was because we felt like we didn’t have a voice at the time.” Ochoa-Bogue argued that ethnic caucuses were meaningless because Latinos now make up the majority of Californians.

“I think this election really sent a strong message across the state of California that we’re done creating all these segments instead of bringing us all together,” she said. “And if Latinos aren’t getting their needs met right now, it’s the Latino Democrats who are in charge, not the Republicans.”

But after a special session convened this month by Gov. Gavin Newsom to prepare California for an expected onslaught of Trump’s legal actions against the state, the Latino Caucus could revisit the Democratic-only rules. sex has decreased dramatically.

On the first day, Sen. Marie Alvarado Gil, a former caucus member who switched her party registration from Democratic to Republican last year, called Gonzalez on social media after Alvarado Gil claimed Gonzalez was a “Latin Claus Archmagician.” ” he called. I tried to kick her out of the break room.

Mr. Gonzalez declined to discuss the matter. “We have a job to do, and we don’t want to be distracted by what one person said to another,” said Gonzalez of Alvarado Gil, whose firm did not respond to a request for comment. .

Democrats ultimately passed a bill that would set aside a $25 million anti-Trump litigation fund that includes protections for illegal aliens.

“One thing we can say is that [the Latino caucus] We stand together in solidarity against mass deportations,” Gonzalez said. a person who has just introduced a bill It would establish a national agency to assist migrants and refugees. “Not a single Republican supported this bill.” She said it’s difficult for people who don’t want to support “the very fundamental values ​​of the Latino Caucus” to support joining the caucus. said.

When I point out that anti-immigrant sentiment among California’s Latinos is at an all-time high, and that my Latino Republican colleagues may have sensed something, Gonzalez cuts right to the proverbial point: is.

“We have a lot of work to do on ourselves, but we had to work on ourselves before we could accept them.”