Latina Politicians Battling in Texas
By Hector Luis Alamo Jr., Being Latino
From Fox News Latino:
“Two Hispanic women are vying for the Texas Senate seat left vacant by the death of Mario Gallegos Jr. a few weeks before the Nov. 6 election.Gallegos, a Democrat, was the first Hispanic to represent District 6, a now-70-percent Latino area in Harris County.
The senator died on Oct. 14 of liver problems. Texas law says that if a candidate dies within 74 days of the election, his name remains on the ballot.
In this case, the deceased Gallegos beat Republican rival R.W. Bray, meaning that a special election will now be necessary.”
Governor Rick Perry, the now-mythic former Republican presidential candidate, is charged with scheduling the special election anytime between December 15 and February 5. But the two Latinas, Carol Alvarado and Sylvia Garcia, are hoping one of them will have filled the seat by the time the new legislative session begins in January.
No matter happens, the people of Texas’s 6th District will have a Latina representing them in the state legislature in just a few short months — a proud moment for the people of the district, Latinos of the state, and Latinos everywhere.
And the rise of the Latina continues.
This article was first published in Being Latino.
Hector Luis Alamo, Jr., is an associate editor at Being Latino and a native son of Chicago’s Humboldt Park neighborhood. He received a B.A. in history at the University of Illinois at Chicago, where his concentration was on ethnic relations in the United States. While at UIC, he worked first as a staff writer for the Chicago Flame and later became the newspaper’s Opinions editor. He contributes to various Chicago-area publications, most notably, the RedEye and Gozamos. He’s also a cultural critic for ‘LLERO magazine. He has maintained a personal blog since 2007, YoungObservers.blogspot.com, where he discusses topics ranging from political history and philosophy to culture and music.
[Photo by alanbentrup]