[INSPRATIONAL MUSIC STING] - Hi everyone, Steve Adubato.

We kick off the program with a compelling and important conversation about politics, women in politics, women of color in politics with Dr. Patricia Campos Medina, President of Latina Civic Action.

Doctor, good to have you with us.

- What a pleasure to be here this morning with you.

- Tell us a little bit, as we put the website up of the organization, what is the organization, and what is it trying to do?

- Latina Civic Action is our organization by Latina women for Latina women that was originally founded after the 2000 census.

When we looked around, and we saw that only 3% of Latinas, Latinos overall, were represented in the New Jersey legislature.

At that point, we decided that we needed to do the work of training, supporting, and elevating Latina women, so that we can improve those numbers.

Since 2000 when we were founded, we have grown, and we have changed our name.

We were founded as LUPE, and now we are Latina Civic, and we have a foundation, a PAC, and an action arm, and our main priority is to make sure that the representation of Latinos in New Jersey and Latinas specifically, is reflected in our legislative body, in our government offices, and in our local political positions.

- Doctor, why is it so difficult to break in to elected office for Latinos?

What are the primary barriers?

- First of all, we, at the Latina Civic aim to create a network of women supporting each other to erase this narrative, this stigma, that there is not enough interested Latinas out there to run for office, or that somehow we don't have the ambition to run for office, because what we, Latinas, don't have is an ambition gap.

What we have is an opportunity gap to run and be selected to run for office.

So the number one challenge that women face in running for political office, and Latinas even more at a greater number, is the lack of recruitment.

Our political parties have failed to recruit women and support them to run for office.

And there's one simple reason in New Jersey, well it's not a simple reason, it's a structural issue.

Our political parties invest in what's called the Democratic line or the Republican line, the party line, and the party line in New Jersey favors incumbents, and incumbents are in the majority.

They're white, and they're male, and unless the parties make a conscious, proactive choice to recruit women to run for office, we will never change the numbers.

So what we do at Latina Civic is to ring the alarm and say both political parties, party leadership has the responsibility, not just to say, "We want more women in office," but to recruit them, to invest in them, and to support them once they get elected.

- Doctor, I'm curious about this.

We've had a leader in the state senate, Senator Teresa Ruiz on many times, and you should go on our website and check out previous interviews with Senator Ruiz.

With Senator Ruiz and other women who come from the minority community, to what degree do they influence, in your view, other women of color, minority women, to say, "You know what, I'm gonna give this a shot."

- We truly believe in the whole saying, "You cannot be what you cannot see."

And having more women be in positions of power in leadership, inspire younger women to run for office and aspire.

Senator Teresa Ruiz is one of our biggest joys in leadership.

She's a number two position in New Jersey's legislature, and she spends a lot of time talking to young women.

She's very (indistinct) in Latina Civic, in our Latinas Building the Bench, because she believes in being a role model for other women.

So that is essential for more women to be elevated for office.

That is why, once we get Latinas elected, and remember, Latina Civic was part of the movement to get Senator Nellie Pou in office, Teresa Ruiz in office, Nilsa Cruz-Perez in the South, who was the first Latina to run for a legislative assembly.

Those three senators that we have, they are role models for all of us- - That's right.

- and (audio breaks) legislators.

So, but they're not enough.

We need six, we need nine, we need 12, and more Latinas in the Senate, and we need to see a Latina go to the United States Congress.

We never sent a Latina to the United States Congress from New Jersey- - Never?

- We have (audio breaks) one run.

- We've never had a Latina in the congressional delegation in New Jersey?

- No, we never have.

So that's what I say, we don't, we have, and we have people who wanna run.

We have people interested in running, so we don't have an ambition gap, we wanna send a Latina to Congress, and that's one of our main priorities for Latina Civic in the next 10 years, to build the bench to send a Latina to Congress.

What we have is an opportunity gap for more Latinas to be supported to run.

Now, the political parties have a responsibility, not just to say, and I'm gonna repeat it, because this is important.

Latina Civic can only create the opportunity.

We can train women.

We can raise political money through our PAC.

We can advocate for policies for Latinas, so the legislators who are in office have issues to work on and win and have a record of accomplishments.

But it is the responsibility of the political leadership of the state to allow Latina women to build a record of accomplishment in legislature, to be out there and put in charge of leadership and allow them to build the network to fundraise money based on the records.

One of the biggest obstacles that Latinas have and the biggest disincentive to run for office is that they make it very difficult or have this belief that it's very difficult to raise political money, and it is- - It is.

- Political money gets raised based on what networks do you have, what professionals invest in you, because they see you as having influence.

So, if we want the political class to invest in Latinas, to advance political issues and advance policy issues, the party leadership has to allow and to have leadership to create a legislative record, to be in charge of things.

And unless we change that around, it's not an either or, it's both.

And this is why we, at Latina Civic, keep saying, we are sounding the alarm that it's not just about training women for office, and we have a great partnership with the Center for American Women in Politics, in which we have what we call AIA Wins.

It's a leadership and campaign training program.

We also have a program called Latinas Building the Bench, where we're going to every county to create a network of women.

Our responsibility is to raise the alarm that there's not enough opportunity for Latinas to run.

The responsibility of the political parties and the leadership of the state is to create the opportunity and invest in Latinas.

- Last question, we have a few seconds left.

Doctor, do you believe that women, particularly women of color, Latina leaders, would in fact govern differently than white men?

- Most definitely.

(laughs) There is research that shows, both from the Center for American Women in Politics and from the Peer Research Center that shows that when women come into public service, come into government, they are focused on making sure that there are policy wins.

They are focused on consensus building.

They are focused on issues of bread and butter issues, about family- - Child care.

- Economic advancement, education and therefore, they are focused on building policy gains, and they're shown to be more ethical and less prone to corruption.

And therefore, if we can get real policy and less corruption, it will be a win for New Jersey.

- You've been listening to Dr. Patricia Campos Medina, President of Latina Civic Action.

Doctor, thank you so much for joining us, we appreciate it.

Come back soon.

- Yes, thank you.

Thank you for having me.

- You got it, stay with us, we'll be right back.

- [Narrator] State of Affairs with Steve Adubato Is a production of the Caucus Educational Corporation.

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