The Congressional Hispanic Caucus said Thursday that President-elect Trump’s failure to nominate any Hispanics to his Cabinet is a blow to democracy.
The chair of the group, Rep. Michelle Lujan Grisham, D-N.M., said Trump’s decision to exclude Hispanics is “inexcusable and deeply damaging to our respective democracy.”
Trump’s Cabinet will be the first without any Hispanics since 1988. Hispanics are the United States’ second-largest ethnic group.
Lujan Grisham said her caucus, which is made up of 30 Democratic lawmakers of Hispanic descent, “will live up to our duty and hold [Trump] accountable” if he fails to “live up to his statement that he will be a president that unites and works on behalf of all Americans.”
In 1988, President Ronald Reagan named the first Latino to the U.S. Cabinet when he picked Texas Democrat Lauro Cavazos to be secretary of education.
Trump’s spokesman, Sean Spicer, defended Trump’s incoming Cabinet on Wednesday.
“He has continued to seek out the best and the brightest to fill out his Cabinet,” he said. “We have 5,000 positions and I think you’re going to see a very strong presence of the Hispanic community” as senior administration appointments and White House staff. “I don’t have any concern about diversity.”
