By Sheryl Gay Stolberg, International Herald Tribune

WASHINGTON: Governor Bill Richardson of New Mexico, President-elect Barack Obama’s choice for commerce secretary, withdrew from consideration for that job on Sunday, saying a pending investigation into whether his administration gave lucrative contracts to a political donor would have “forced an untenable delay” in his confirmation.

The president-elect and the governor, close friends as well as political allies, announced the withdrawal in joint statements. Richardson, one of the nation’s best-known Latino politicians, promised to stay on as governor and said his administration had “acted properly in all matters.” But he said he had concluded that the inquiry could last weeks or even months, drawing out his confirmation hearings and distracting the new administration as it grappled with the economic crisis.

Obama said he accepted “with deep regret” Richardson’s decision to bow out. People familiar with discussions between the two men said that while the president-elect did not press Richardson to step aside, neither did Obama try to talk him out of it.

The announcement, just days before the Senate is to begin confirmation hearings for some of Obama’s cabinet selections, was a setback for the president-elect, who has assembled his cabinet in near-record time. It raises questions about the thoroughness of Richardson’s vetting, deprives the Obama administration of a prominent Hispanic — Obama has, however, named two other Latinos, Representative Hilda Solis of California and Senator Ken Salazar of Colorado, to cabinet posts — and leaves a hole in the new White House economics team at a critical juncture.

Obama officials could not say on Sunday how quickly the president-elect would move to fill the job, or who may be on his short list. Obama is hoping to persuade Congress to pass an ambitious economic stimulus plan that he can sign quickly after taking office, and he is set to meet with his economic advisers on Monday. The commerce secretary would play an integral role in that process, as Richardson himself noted on Sunday.

“Given the gravity of the economic situation the nation is facing,” the governor said, “I could not in good conscience ask the president-elect to delay for one day the important work that needs to be done.”

The investigation concerns CDR Financial Products Inc., a Beverly Hills, California, company that in 2004 was awarded two consulting contracts worth about $1.4 million to advise the State of New Mexico on a large bond issue for building infrastructure, one of Richardson’s initiatives. The company’s president, David Rubin, a major Democratic contributor, gave about $100,000 to two political action committees controlled by Richardson, as well as $10,000 to his re-election campaign in 2005, according to published reports.

The FBI began examining the contracts last year; in August, the inquiry was reported in the New Mexico news media. But an Obama transition official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the president-elect’s team, while aware that one of Richardson’s donors was being investigated, did not know that the inquiry extended to Richardson until after Obama announced the New Mexico governor as his commerce secretary choice in early December.

About two weeks after the announcement, newspapers reported that a federal grand jury was examining accusations that the Richardson administration had awarded the contracts because of the political contributions. Whether the Obama team learned of the grand jury inquiry through news reports, or perhaps from Richardson himself, was unclear on Sunday. Obama officials would not say.

But Robert Gibbs, the incoming White House press secretary, defended the vetting process. “The totality of our cabinet picks, it’s impressive and I think our vetters have done a good job,” he said.

Sunday’s announcement comes as Obama was still dealing with the uproar over another inquiry, this one into whether Governor Rod Blagojevich of Illinois had tried to sell Obama’s Senate seat. But while the president-elect has distanced himself from the Illinois governor, he praised Richardson on Sunday as “an outstanding public servant” who would have brought “great insights accumulated through an extraordinary career” to the Obama administration.

“It is a measure of his willingness to put the nation first that he has removed himself as a candidate for the cabinet in order to avoid any delay in filling this important economic post at this critical time,” Obama said.

Richardson and Obama spoke Friday, officials familiar with the conversation said, and Richardson informed the president-elect that he intended to withdraw his name from consideration. The Obama transition team had grown concerned that Richardson’s confirmation could be delayed because of the federal investigation, which would have kept Obama’s full economic team from being in place as the new president tried to jump start the economy.

Associates of Richardson said the governor was convinced that the investigation would clear him, and that ultimately he would be confirmed. But they said the inquiry was taking longer than he thought, and that he decided to drop out on his own.

Obama did not ask Richardson to step aside, associates close to both men said. But when Richardson offered to withdraw, the officials said, Obama simply accepted, without trying to persuade Richardson otherwise.

Richardson, whose mother is Mexican, has long been a fixture of Democratic politics and has deep experience in public life. He is known for his easy sense of humor — during the 2004 Democratic convention, he distributed jars of salsa with his picture on them — and remains popular in his home state. Prior to becoming governor, he served in Congress and in the Clinton administration as energy secretary and ambassador to the United Nations. But after his own bid for the Democratic nomination for president failed last year, he made a public — and by his own account, painful — break with the Clintons to endorse Obama; in return, some speculated he might be selected for a top-tier cabinet position, like secretary of state.

Instead, Obama rewarded him with the commerce secretary’s job; at the press conference announcing the appointment, the president-elect dismissed the notion that the post was a “consolation prize,” adding, “I think the notion that somehow commerce secretary is not going to be central to everything we do is fundamentally mistaken.”

Popularity: 2% [?]

By AMY TAXIN, Business Week

The recession may have taken its toll on Central Americans who needed to postmark their immigration renewal paperwork by Tuesday to remain in the U.S. legally, consular and embassy officials said.

More than 300,000 immigrants from El Salvador, Honduras and Nicaragua had to renew their temporary protected status — which was granted by the U.S. government to help the countries overcome natural disasters.

As of Friday, only 54 percent had filed papers to do so, according to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.

Many immigrants went to consulates to get help in filling out the paperwork the day of the deadline. But consular officials questioned whether last-minute applicants would make up the difference in what have so far been low renewal numbers.

Honduran and Salvadoran officials say many immigrants put off extending their permission to remain in the country because they couldn’t afford $420 in processing fees after losing their jobs and having their work hours cut in the recession.

At the Salvadoran Consulate in Santa Ana, Salvador Morales, 41, said he waited until the last minute because he needed to save nearly $2,000 to cover the cost of renewing paperwork and obtaining work permits for himself, his wife, and their three children.

“In past years we would have been among the first ones here,” said Morales, who has seen revenue from his trucking business cut in half during the last three months. “This year, we feel like going to El Salvador. The government isn’t going to kick us out, but the economy will.”

Immigrants must pay $80 to renew their status and another $340 for a work authorization card, which many say they can’t afford.

Consular officials had been urging immigrants to renew their legal status now and worry about the work permit later — especially since their current work authorization cards are valid through the middle of 2009.

Berta Alicia Gonzalez, 46, said she filled out the forms two weeks ago but didn’t have money for the fees after losing her job in May. The Salvadoran citizen plans to ask the federal government for a fee waiver. Such waivers are granted on a case-by-case basis.

The U.S. government has the ability to grant temporary protected status to citizens of countries ravaged by natural disasters to allow them to stay and work here legally while their countries recover. The U.S. granted the status to Salvadorans when a pair of earthquakes ravaged the country in 2001 and to Hondurans and Nicaraguans in the aftermath of Hurricane Mitch in 1999.

Anna Bessie de Recinos, consul of El Salvador in Santa Ana, said she could only hope that Christmas mail slowed the receipt of applications and that more were on their way to the U.S. government.

David Hernandez, minister at the Honduran Embassy in Washington, D.C., said his government urged Hondurans to call their relatives in the U.S. and tell them to renew their paperwork to avoid becoming illegal immigrants.

“The crowds have been small (at Honduran consular offices),” Hernandez said. “Economic problems have been one of the biggest causes.”

Popularity: 5% [?]

USA Today

The fence that the U.S. government is erecting along the border with Mexico had been a vague notion to Victor Serrano — until he drove by a new section near his house last month.

An 18-foot-high, steel-mesh structure planted in Jersey barriers stood behind a four-lane boulevard. The view of sprawling Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, was gone.

“I was like, oh, man, I can’t believe this is happening,” Serrano, 20, says, standing in his yard three blocks from the border. “We’re actually going to have a Berlin Wall here.”

U.S. Customs and Border Protection has installed hundreds of miles of steel fence along the U.S.-Mexico border that stretches 1,934 miles from San Diego to Brownsville, Texas. The $2-billion fence — or “wall,” to opponents — is the most visible symbol of stepped-up U.S. efforts to stop illegal border crossings, and the most controversial.

As construction crews have moved into El Paso, a working-class, largely Hispanic city of 600,000 in Texas’ western corner, emotions have intensified. Some residents quietly support the fence, saying it will make their city safer and improve conditions for legal El Paso residents. Many others say it will destroy the sense of community the two cities had.

The crews have been greeted with protests and lawsuits seeking to halt building. Local officials are pleading with President-elect Barack Obama to stop the project he voted for in late 2006, or to begin tearing it down.

“It does violence to our sense of community,” says El Paso County Attorney José Rodriguez, whose county has sued the federal government over the fence. “For 400 years, people have been going back and forth across the river. All of a sudden for the first time, you see this major structure separating the communities.”

Crossing the border

Fencing already blocks 70% of the 693-mile border in California, Arizona and New Mexico, according to a USA TODAY analysis of Border Patrol and Census Bureau figures.

Much of the border in those states is vacant desert. About half of the fencing is a thigh-high barrier aimed only at stopping vehicles.

A total of 670 miles of fence will be in place by the end of 2008, including sections at the east and west end of Texas’ 1,241-mile border with Mexico. In the rest of the state, the Rio Grande will serve as the blockade.

The fence does not stop people from crossing the border legally. Thousands of cars from Juarez line up each day at the three bridges leading to El Paso, where visitors shop boulevards packed with discount stores offering $6 sweaters and $10 jeans.

Nor is fencing new to El Paso. A chain-link fence about 6 feet high has stood for years in the crusty embankment on the U.S. side of the Rio Grande, which itself is virtually dry. The fence was useless, Border Patrol Supervisory Agent Ramiro Cordero says.

Cordero plays a surveillance-camera video showing people hauling bales of marijuana into El Paso through a slit in the fence.

Another video shows a pickup suspected of carrying marijuana escaping Border Patrol pursuit by driving through the fence into Juarez.

Five miles outside El Paso, in Sunland Park, N.M., where suburbs fade to desert, a five-strand barbed-wire fence stands in the sand. “This is what protected our country,” Cordero says.

A few feet away, the new fence rises out of the desert and extends endlessly into the horizon. The quarter-inch-thick mesh still allows a view of Mexico but is weaved tightly enough to prevent easy climbing.

Cordero says the new fence will not stop people from digging underneath it, driving around it or cutting through it with a blowtorch. Nearly 2,000 people a day are caught trying to sneak into the USA from Mexico, Border Patrol figures show.

But in urban areas, where most of the border is under video surveillance, agents can spot someone trying to climb or cut the fence and have a few extra seconds to catch him before he enters the USA and disappears into a city, Cordero says.

“It makes the job a lot easier when you have that fence,” he says.

Dividing communities

In an El Paso neighborhood of small houses and neat lawns next to the border, Oscar Davila walks his two dogs and says the new fence makes him feel safer from the drug-related violence raging in Juarez. “We can stop people from coming here,” says Davila, 42, a maintenance worker.

Ruben Alvarado, 55, a custodian whose mother and sister live in Juarez, is skeptical. “To me, Juarez and El Paso are the same city. I don’t care how many fences you put up, the people will still try to come over illegally.”

Serrano, the El Paso Community College student who recently saw the new fence for the first time, says it takes away some of his pride at being a frontera, a border resident. “What made us proud is that we can easily see Juarez,” he says. “With the wall, it’s like, are we allowed over there?”

Popularity: 8% [?]

By JULIANA BARBASSA – AP

SAN JOSE, Calif. (AP) — As it prepares to turn 100, the Boy Scouts of America is honing its survival skills for what might be its biggest test yet: drawing Hispanics into its declining — and mostly white — ranks.

“We either are going to figure out how to make Scouting the most exciting, dynamic organization for Hispanic kids, or we’re going to be out of business,” said Rick Cronk, former national president of the Boy Scouts, and chairman of the World Scout Committee.

The venerable Scouts remains the United States’ largest youth organization, with 2.8 million children and youths, nearly all of them boys. But that is nearly half its peak membership, reached in 1972.

Its rolls took hits through the 1980s and ’90s over a still-standing ban on gay or atheist leaders, and scandals surrounding inflated membership numbers. In addition, teenagers raised on TV and shoot-’em-up games had less use for learning to build a campfire or memorize the Scout oath.

The country changed too. One in five children under 18 is Hispanic, according to the U.S. Census. But they make up only 3 percent of Scouts.

Cronk made Hispanic outreach a focus after he realized that just translating brochures into Spanish, or combining Cub Scouting with soccer, was not enough to meet the goal of doubling Hispanic membership by the group’s centennial in 2010.

“We were nibbling around the edges,” Cronk said. “We knew very little about the Hispanic family, how they see us, what they value.”

Cronk, past president of Dreyer’s Grand Ice Cream, grew up a city kid in Oakland, Calif. He fell in love with Scouting in the Sierra Nevada, during his first backpacking excursions.

He looked at the problem of Latino underrepresentation as a businessman. The Boy Scouts had a good product but much of its new consumer base had never heard of it.

So the group set out to sell Scouting, hiring a Washington-based media and marketing company that targets Latinos. To spread the word, the Scouts gathered a committee of Hispanic leaders, including the CEO of AT&T’s wireless unit, a U.S. senator from Florida and the archbishop of the Diocese of Laredo.

In 2009, the Boy Scouts is kicking off pilot programs in six heavily Latino cities, from Fresno, Calif. to Orlando, Fla., to test ways of introducing Scouting to immigrant parents. The group is also planning radio and television spots, hiring bicultural, Spanish-speaking staffers, partnering with churches that serve Hispanics and shaping programs to fit the family-oriented community.

“We’re serious about this,” said Rob Mazzuca, Chief Scout Executive. “This is a reinventing of the Boy Scouts of America.”

To work, the changes will have to run deep, said Julio Cammarota, a University of Arizona professor who has researched Hispanic youth.

Scouts will have to work with Latinos’ strong family connections and relax the focus on individual achievement, Cammarota said. Creating activities where younger boys learn from the older ones — much as they rely on siblings and cousins within the extended family — will also feel more comfortable.

“They’d be better off starting with a carne asada in a city park,” Cammarota said. “Sending their kids away on their own, that’s not familiar.”

Scouting’s traditional values dovetail well with those of Hispanic families — respect, discipline, and community involvement — said Carlos Alcazar, CEO of Hispanic Communications Network, which developed the 2009 strategy after conducting a yearlong survey of Hispanic attitudes toward the Scouts.

As a dozen boys wearing the light blue Soccer and Scouting jerseys tumbled into an auditorium in San Jose’s Seven Trees Elementary School, nearly breathless from a game played in the December chill, it was clear they loved the program — certainly the soccer part of it. But the connection to Scouting remained tenuous.

Michael Gudino, 7, and his brother Matthew Gudino, 6, talked about what they loved best: dribbling the ball, learning to pass and playing on a real field.

Pressed on what they like about Scouting, they stopped to think.

“Learning to be nice to each other?” Michael said tentatively. “Folding the flag?”

Their mother, Sandy Gudino, was pleased to find that Scouting was no more expensive than other youth activities, and she likes the discipline that comes with it.

Valente Morales, whose 6-year-old son Valentin’s soccer skills had improved in just a few months, was won over by the coach — a Hispanic parent like himself.

“The trust came from becoming familiar with the people who run it, the people in this community,” he said.

While soccer may be the draw, the Scouts’ challenge is to keep the youngsters involved when the game is over, said Marcos Nava, director of the National Hispanic Initiatives Division, who was visiting the San Jose program.

“One hundred years — that’s a great benchmark for us,” Nava said. “But we have to remember, to Hispanics, we’re just at the introduction, the basics. Because if we don’t get past that stage, we won’t live to see another 100 years.”

Popularity: 9% [?]

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Kansas legislators who want to crack down on illegal immigration are changing their strategy for getting something passed.

Lawmakers spent a lot of time earlier this year debating an immigration mega-bill but failed to pass it. Next year, supporters have decided, smaller might be better after lawmakers reconvene Jan. 12, especially with a looming budget crisis likely to dominate the 2009 session.

Rep. Lance Kinzer, who pushed this year’s big bill, says he’ll focus on specific issues, including repealing a state law providing lower, in-state tuition at state universities and colleges to some illegal immigrants.

“Starting out with goals that are achievable is a good way to start and may give us a chance to go with some bigger things,” the Olathe Republican said. “Going down the road on passing another comprehensive bill, we end up closer to where we were last session, with gridlock.”

Hispanic groups contend the federal government should address illegal immigration. But many states have grown weary of waiting on Congress.

“The worst type of immigration enforcement is one that varies from state to state,” said David Ferreira of the U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce in Washington. “It diminishes commerce and makes families fear for their livelihoods.”

A 2004 Kansas law allows qualified illegal immigrants to attend a state university, community college or technical college and pay the same tuition as legal Kansas residents. To qualify, the immigrant must graduate from a Kansas high school and either be seeking legal status or planning to do so when eligible.

About 170 students are taking advantage of the policy.

“It’s bad public policy and it needs to be repealed,” Kinzer said. “We have a new Legislature, so there is always an opportunity with new members for the votes to change.”

Kinzer also noted that in September, the California Court of Appeals reinstated a lawsuit against a similar law in that state, with the opinion containing language seen as favorable to a challenge.

Kris Kobach, a University of Missouri-Kansas City law professor who specializes in constitutional and immigration issues, has been helping Kinzer draft legislation. Kobach was the lead attorney in the California case.

“This is important to Kansas because it was virtually identical to the California law almost word for word,” said Kobach, who’s also state GOP chairman. “Now we have an authoritative ruling and this will answer questions by some legislators about whether this is legal.”

Kobach said Colorado, Missouri, Oklahoma have passed laws cracking down on illegal immigrants.

“Kansas now is the illegal immigration magnet of the Midwest because we have nothing on the books to discourage immigration and the one thing on the books to encourage them, in-state tuition,” he said.

But Luis Figueroa of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund in San Antonio said Oklahoma’s economy was hurt by its new laws.

“The fear the legislation generated among the Latino community caused Latinos to leave Oklahoma, legal or otherwise,” he said. “Many were U.S. citizens who didn’t want to be targeted so they just left.”

Other goals for Kinzer are requiring law enforcement officers to be trained by federal officials to assist in enforcing immigration laws and mandating citizenship checks for anybody arrested.

Kinzer also wants to create a legal presumption that an illegal immigrant is a flight risk. He said that would mean in most cases, the court wouldn’t set bail.

“They bond out and you never see them again,” he said.

The major problem with this year’s bill was disagreement over requiring employers to use the federal E-Verify database to see whether new hires are legally in the country.

Business and agriculture groups balked, saying it turned employers into immigration police and that E-Verify was unreliable.

“We’re not trying to create a loophole, but we want to make sure businesses aren’t unfairly penalized when they follow the law and try to do the right thing,” said Amy Blankenbiller, president of the Kansas Chamber which was part of the coalition.

Popularity: 13% [?]

In a year when jobs have become scarce for everyone, the proportion of working-age Latino immigrants participating in the labor force has fallen, according to a new report.

The slowdown in the growth in the number of Latino immigrants who are employed or actively looking for work is a testament to the depth of the recession, according to the report issued last week by the nonpartisan Pew Hispanic Center.

“Latinos are still an important source of workers to the U.S. economy,” wrote Rakesh Kochhar, Pew’s associate director for research. “However, this growth is now led more by native-born Hispanics and less by immigrant workers.”

Latino immigrants, including many undocumented workers, had found plentiful job opportunities in the construction boom earlier this decade. It was a sector in the economy that grew even during the 2001 recession.

But Latino immigrants aren’t immune from the current economic disaster spell, which was triggered by the slump in housing markets.

“You’ve had hundreds of thousands of jobs lost in the construction industry. Immigrants are particularly hard hit because you have so many immigrants working in that industry,” said Jose Calderon, a professor of sociology and Chicano Studies at Pitzer College in Claremont.

According to the Pew analysis, the decrease in the percentage of Latino immigrants in the labor force was 1.1 percent, from 72.4 percent in the third quarter of 2007 to 71.3 percent in the third quarter of this year. The drop was about twice as high among Mexican immigrants and among immigrants who arrived in the country since 2000.

While slight, the decline is significant because there had been steady annual growth in the Latino immigrant workforce over the past decade, the report states.

Overall, the unemployment rate for Latino immigrants in the third quarter of 2008 was 6.4 percent, compared to 6.1 percent for the total workforce and 9.6 percent for Latinos born in the United States.

But workers who drop out of the labor force are not counted among the unemployed. If Latino immigrants had remained as active in the labor market in 2008 as they were in 2007, their unemployment rate would be much higher today, the report says.

“I think the numbers are much larger than the statistics,” Calderon said. “That’s how deep this recession is.”

The Pew report, based on the latest Census Bureau data, says it is not possible to conclude whether Latino immigrants who left the labor force have returned to their home countries.

But it is clear, according to another recent Pew report, that the number of illegal immigrants entering the country has decreased since 2005.

Calderon, who is on the board of directors of the Pomona Day Labor Center, said that many Mexican immigrants are realizing that economic conditions here “are as bad or maybe worse” than back home.

“Either they have given up looking for jobs or they are returning back,” he said. “At least back home they have a family and a place to stay and a community to support them.”

Going back to Mexico has crossed the mind of Federico Galicia, a 56-year-old Colton resident who came to this country in 2002.

When he arrived in the United States, Galicia said he quickly found a $9.50 per hour soldering job at a San Bernardino company that manufactured safe deposit boxes.

Nine months ago, he was laid off when the company moved its operations to Tijuana.

He now provides for his wife and three children by trimming trees, doing yard work, cleaning garages and performing assorted odd jobs for friends and neighbors. His wife also earns $100 every weekend making tortillas at a Mexican restaurant.

But the couple is having a hard time paying the $650 monthly rent on its 1 1/2 bedroom home.

Galicia said his children are divided about whether the family should return to Mexico. His 20-year-old daughter wants to leave, while his two younger kids, ages 18 and 15, want to stay.

Galicia said he has looked for jobs at several factories and construction companies, but to no avail. If he doesn’t find work by March, he said he will have to decide whether to move.

“I didn’t think this was going to happen,” Galicia said in Spanish. “I thought it was going to be easier to get my children ahead in this country.”

Popularity: 11% [?]

WASHINGTON (AP) — A labor official says Rep. Hilda Solis of California will be nominated as labor secretary by President-elect Barack Obama.

The Democratic congresswoman was just elected to her fifth term representing heavily Hispanic portions of eastern Los Angeles County and east L.A. She is the daughter of Mexican and Nicaraguan immigrants and has been the only member of Congress of Central American descent.

The official spoke on conditions of anonymity because an announcement has not been made yet. A call to Solis’s office was not immediately returned.

Solis, 51, has focused on immigration and environment issues while in the House.

An announcement is expected from the Obama transition team in the next few days.

Popularity: 15% [?]

By Kathy Kiely, USA TODAY

WASHINGTON — For Hispanics, Sen. Ken Salazar’s selection as Interior secretary represents both a milestone and a setback.

President-elect Barack Obama’s choice of Salazar to join his Cabinet — the second Hispanic, along with Commerce Secretary-designate Bill Richardson — acknowledges the political clout of the nation’s fastest-growing voting bloc.

It also leaves the Senate with a shrinking Hispanic caucus. And it underscores a paradox that underlies Obama’s historic election: Minorities remain underrepresented in Congress.

Hispanics, now the nation’s largest minority group, are 14.7% of the population, but hold only 5% of the seats in the current Congress. Blacks make up 12.4% of the nation’s population, but just 8% of the current Congress. Obama’s election left the Senate without any African-American members.

Asian Americans, at 4.5% of the population, hold 1% of the seats.

Since 2006, the Senate has had three Hispanic members — a first in the nation’s history. But now Salazar, a Colorado Democrat, is departing for the executive branch, and Sen. Mel Martinez, R-Fla., has announced he will not run for re-election in 2010. That raises the prospect that Sen. Robert Menendez, D-N.J., could become the Senate’s lone Hispanic representative.

“It’s bittersweet,” Arturo Vargas, executive director of the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials, said of Salazar’s selection.

Some Hispanic leaders are hoping Colorado’s Democratic governor, Bill Ritter, will appoint another Hispanic to replace Salazar. John Trasviña, president of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, suggested Salazar’s brother, Rep. John Salazar, D-Colo., or Federico Peña, a former Denver mayor who served in then-president Bill Clinton’s Cabinet.

Vargas says both Democrats and Republicans need to work harder to recruit and support minority candidates. This year, Democrats “really missed a bet,” he said, by not funding the challenge that state Rep. Rick Noriega mounted against Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas. Noriega got 43% of the vote, despite being outspent by more than 4 to 1.

Noriega said the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC) gave him only $39,900.

The Democratic committee did spend heavily to support two Hispanics in recent years: Menendez got more than $8 million in 2006 and Salazar got about $3 million in 2004, records show.

In a letter last week to Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., who headed the DSCC the past two years, Texas state Sens. Mario Gallegos and Leticia Van de Putte, accused the committee of writing off the Texas race because Noriega is “not wealthy or white.”

Schumer declined to comment on the letter. Menendez, who is taking over as chairman of the Democrats’ Senate campaign committee for the next election cycle, defended the decision. He said that campaign dollars should go to states where Democrats have a chance of winning, and that President Bush’s home state was not one of those. “Rick Noriega is a great public servant,” he said, “but he wasn’t able to lay the foundation financially.”

Menendez said he’d like to recruit a diverse crop of Senate candidates for the 2010 elections. He added, however, “My first and foremost priority is to make sure I have candidates who can win the seats statewide.” That means candidates who have a high profile and “the ability to raise the resources,” Menendez said.

Noriega and Van de Putte say that favors wealthy or well-connected candidates — such as Bill White, an independently wealthy Democratic mayor of Houston, who just announced his intention to seek a Senate seat in Texas. Hispanics make up 35.5% of the state’s population.

Two Hispanic members of Congress, Reps. Nydia Velázquez, D-N.Y., and Luis Gutierrez, D-Ill., took themselves out of the running for two Senate vacancies created by the incoming Obama administration. Velázquez told New York Gov. David Paterson not to consider her for the seat Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton will leave to become secretary of State, and Gutierrez declined consideration for Obama’s seat.

Van de Putte said she’s thinking about running for a U.S. Senate seat in Texas, and that party leaders who argue she doesn’t have enough financial backing won’t faze her. Hers is a confidence inspired by the 2008 election.

Said Van de Putte, “The days of women and minorities asking permission are gone.”

Popularity: 8% [?]

Within weeks of Hispanic lawmakers publicly airing concerns that President-elect Barack Obama wasn’t putting enough Latinos into top jobs, Obama’s team bragged today that it has done more than any other administration.

Obama is expected to add to his count of Hispanics Wednesday when he formally names Senator Ken Salazar of Colorado as his nominee for interior secretary.

“Based on what I can cull from records, we have more Hispanics in senior positions in this White House than under either President Bush or President Clinton,” incoming White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel told Politico.

“Diversity wasn’t the driving force here,” Emanuel added. “I’m proud of the fact that it is a diverse staff. But most importantly, the quality is of a single standard. We wanted to make sure that we got a great staff of seasoned people — both on the policy front and on the political front — who know their stuff.”

The Congressional Hispanic Caucus had complained earlier this month, noting that Latino voters had helped Obama win several Western states that a Democrat hadn’t carried in recent elections.

Popularity: 8% [?]

By Alejandro Lazo, Washington Post Staff Writer

The percentage of Hispanic immigrants who are working or looking for a job in the United States has declined for the first time since 2003, according to a study released yesterday.

The Pew Hispanic Center, which published the report, said the findings are a testament to the nature and depth of the recession, which is rooted in slumping housing values, as many Hispanic immigrants found work in construction in the boom years.

“The recession has widened and deepened, and, driven by construction, it has certainly seemed to put Latino immigrants in a state of transition,” said Rakesh Kochhar, an economist with Pew and author of the study. “The question is: What is the next thing to emerge? Are we now going to see a return back home?”

The study was based on data from the Current Population Survey, which is produced jointly by the Bureau of Labor Statistics and the Census Bureau. The Pew center said it found a small but significant decline in the share of Hispanic immigrants active in the U.S. labor force.

The percentage of Hispanic immigrants who were either employed or actively looking for a job at the end of the third quarter was 71.3 percent, compared with 72.4 percent a year ago, according to the study. The drop comes after steady yearly increases since 2003.

The number of Hispanic immigrants in the labor force increased 150,000 from the third quarter of 2007 to the third quarter of 2008. But that growth was much smaller than the growth in the working-age population of Hispanic immigrants. Overall, there are 17.1 million foreign-born Hispanics in the working-age population.

The decrease was sharpest among immigrants from Mexico, who make up more than two-thirds of the U.S. Hispanic immigrant population. The share of Mexican-born immigrants in the U.S. workforce declined to 70.7 percent from 72.7 percent, according to the study.

Michael Fix, director of studies at the nonpartisan Migration Policy Institute, said the modesty of the decline found by the Pew study surprised him because the construction industry and other low-skilled professions drove job growth for Hispanic immigrants in past years.

He said that one explanation might be that Hispanic immigrants are typically more mobile than the overall workforce and more willing to take a pay cut or reduced hours.

Popularity: 7% [?]