As we noted before, 64 Democrats voted against women's right to health insurance funded abortion procedures. Many of these Democrats have claimed the ultimate fallacy: That proponents of forced pregnancy shouldn't "pay with their tax money" for abortions because it infringes on their civil liberties. As if anti-war activists and pacifists could claim the same when it comes to funding the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and any other wars they oppose.

Yet I'd like to focus on the "hispanics" that voted against women's rights. Long-time readers now that even though I am a proud  Puerto Rican and blatina, I've never been one to shy away from writing about the ugliness and even atrocities perpetrated by Latin Americans. It should come as no surprise my willingness to call out these so-called Hispanics and Latinos of dubiosity. Particularly since in Latin America and the US Latino community we have to still wrangle with the social and political consequences of the machismo and marianismo myths that permeate the cultures of Latin America.

Am listing all seven members of the Congressional Hispanics Caucus for a variety of reasons: If you are not looking closely, some of these votes do not make sense given the previous voting record of people like Costa ad Rodriguez. After all, wasn't Ciro Rodriguez a darling of the netroots? And yet when you look closely at their lists of donors, their votes actually become not just sinister but cynical as well (as in the case of John Salazar). So we can't just blame it on the fact that all of these guys happen to be Roman Catholics or members of the Blue Dog Coalition. It's those donors lists for 2008 and 2010 that really paint a clearer picture of their "conservatism".

Last but not least, compared to the Congressional Black Caucus, the CHC delegation voted atrociously : Artur Davis was the lone member of the CBC who voted for Stupak. Why couldn't the CHC conjure such discipline when voting a measure that would basically kill women's right to an abortion? Or are their votes exactly correlated to the 2007 "whore" scandal that rocked the CHC thanks to John Baca's leadership in disrespecting the women of the caucus?

Let's take a quick look at the faces of Los Siete Infames (the infamous 7) :

Joe Baca CA-34:
This fine specimen of Latino machoness took money from the Congressional Hispanic Caucus' PAC, meant to get more Latinos elected to Congress, and gave it to his children so they could run against other "hispanics" in state and local races. A number of CHC members distanced themselves from the PAC but matters got worse after he broke caucus rules and forced a public voting of his chairmanship. When Loretta Sánchez along with four other women demanded a new election just for procedural purposes, he allegedly went into an insult spree that culminated in a mass exodus of women from the CHC. If you need to know, Baca's well funded by the Finance, Insurance and Real Estate Industry. They raised over $145,000 for him alone in 2008. Only Labor Unions surpassed that by a mere $20K. 

Jim Costa CA-20
This is one of those WTF votes. Costa has shown a rather poor "right-to-life" record. He supports embryonic stem cell research, supports any and all state-funded contraception. Where he wins points with the forced pregnancy crowd is with his stance on treating under-age women: he has voted with the "parental rights" crowd to restrict minors from seeking abortions without their parents' consent. Even though most of his congressional support comes from the agri-business sector, as a state lawmaker most of his donors where in the insurance industry. BTW: Costa is technically the non-Hispanic of the bunch. He is from Luso (aka Portuguese) ascendancy.

Henry Cuéllar TX-28
Cuéllar has the dubious honor of being so conservative in his economic and political positions that he has the blessing of the Club For Growth. He almost lost his congressional seat after a photograph of him fanboying with delight over George W. Bush was used against him by his Democratic Party opponent (who happens to have been Ciro Rodriguez). After Agribusiness ($175K), Cuellar is a not only a darling of Finance, Insurance and Real Estate sector ($166K)  but Lawyers and Lobbyists seem to adore him too ($127K).

Solomon Ortiz TX-27
One of the oldest members of the CHC, he has served virtually unchallenged since his election in 1982. He gets an F from NARAL on his extremist positions on abortion and yet NRLC gives him an 80% for his stance on stem-cell research ---yet look at where he stands on abortion and you can see he is rather extremist. That said, papá Ortiz doesn't raise as much money like the younger whippersnappers on the list although he seems to be loved by BorderHealthCare, a health insurance company that claims to be the only bi-lingual on-line connection to health care resources available on the lower Texas-Mexico border region.

Silvestre Reyes TX-16
NARAL and the NRLC may not like him much, but this is one of those guys that gives me the creeps for his militaristic take on immigration. His claim to infamy was "Operation Hold The Line". He was Chief Patrol Agent for the US Border Patrol and his proto-militaristic treatment of undocumented immigrants crossing the border won him the support of nativists and domestic warhawks everywhere. Unfortunately one of the consequences of this push towards the desert has been a harvest of rape trees. That doesn't seem to phase his Defense donors who've forked over $165K for his election. When you add the money raised by interest groups in the Finance, Insurance, Real Estate, Lobbying and Health Care sectors ($290K) you can gather he's more intersted in money trees.

Ciro Rodriguez TX-23
As noted above, his claim to fame was his face-off with Cuéllar in the old gerrymandered CD-27 of Texas which, after a court-ordered re-mapping, became the CD-23 seat that he holds today.  Rodriguez is part of the Tejano political machine in Texas and yet his vote for Stupak is a big WTF given his 100% rating by NARAL and having ActBlue as one of his major donors in 2008. Looking closely at his donor rolls in 2010 you can see that AmeriPAC is one of his largest ideological contributors. In total, AmeriPAC has sinked more than $33K into his coffers.

John Salazar CO-03
John and Ken Salazar (now US Secretary of the Interior) have never been known for being to being even remotely liberal Democrats. NOW puts John as having voted with them only 31% of the time. The only interesting data point that jumped at me about Salazar is the massive amounts of money he gets from farming and industry lobbyists. I am actually confounded by the fact that in 2008 his biggest contributor came not from Colorado but Puerto Rico and in the guise of Hospital Hermanos Meléndez (the largest private, Catholic run hospital in the island).

One could say that the majority of Democrats that voted against women's rights were not of the "melanined" persuassion. Again, I think it is rather remarkable that from the 65 Democrats that voted for Stupak only one of them was an African American.

So I have to ask: Given these "hispanics" are not even remotely of the mestizo persuassion, wouldn't it be prudent to say that NARAL, NOW and other women's rights organizations would be better off getting more women AND men of color in Congress? Aren't these fine examples of Latino Machismo the best argument for not just throwing money to anybody who calls themselves a Hispanic but instead to actual Latinos who identify themselves as People Of Color (POC) and hence as the last champions of the Civil Rights Movement FOR ALL  and not just the privileged minority few?

What is clear to me is that our Latina sisters in Congress did not get the support they needed to rid the CHC and Congress from the pox of disgusting machismo that Joe Baca embodies. Loretta Sanchez, a champion of Latina rights albeit a conservative Democrat, left the CHC in disgust along with other latina Congresswomen. Yet where were the women's rights organizations aiding her, Nydia Velázquez and the women of the CHC with money, political actions and resources in their efforts to confront the misogyny within the CHC?

Let this be a lesson learned for feministas of all colors and persuasions. Let one group of our sisters out of the equation and you'll pay the political consequences in spades.