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Hispanics and Statewide Offices in California

When Cruz Bustamante became lieutenant governor of California in 1998, he was the first Hispanic to hold statewide office in more than 120 years. Although the history of Hispanic politicians in the state is distinguished, very few have held statewide office. During the first decades after California became part of the United States, Romualdo Pacheco was state treasurer from 1863 until 1867, then lieutenant governor from 1871 until 1875, finally ascending to the top office when Governor Newton Booth was elected to the United States Senate. Pacheco served out the final nine months of Booth’s term. Thereafter, few Hispanics even ran for statewide office, the highest-profile being Edward R. Roybal, who ran unsuccessfully for the Democratic nomination for lieutenant governor in 1954 before becoming the first Hispanic elected to Congress in more than eighty years in 1963. However, things began to change during the 2000’s. Even while Bustamante served as lieutenant governor, Peter Camejo ran for governor on the Green Party ticket. Latinos also are increasingly better-represented at the city, county, and congressional district level, a reflection of the growing political clout of Hispanic voters in the state.

Great Lives from History: Latinos

Cruz Bustamante

by Steven L. Danver

American politician

In the 1990’s and 2000’s, Bustamante was one of the highest-profile Latino politicians in California. After serving in the California State Assembly for five years, including two years as speaker, Bustamante was elected lieutenant governor of California in 1998. He became the first Hispanic American to hold statewide office in the state in more than one hundred years.

Areas of achievement: Government and politics

Early Life

Cruz Miguel Bustamante (BOOS-tah-MAHN-tay) was born in the small town of Dinuba, California, in the San Joaquin Valley, the state’s richest agricultural region, on January 4, 1953. The oldest of six children of second-generation Mexican Americans Cruz and Dominga Bustamante, he grew up in a close-knit extended family where Spanish was the main language spoken. Bustamante’s paternal grandparents emigrated from Chihuahua, Mexico, to New Mexico, and then to Dinuba, California, settling there because of the availability of agricultural jobs.

Cruz Bustamante.

324_Bustamante_Cruz.jpg

(AP Photo)

Bustamante’s father began the family’s interest in politics. A barber by trade who often worked three jobs to support his family, the elder Cruz was elected to the San Joaquin City Council, served as mayor pro tem, and sat on many community service and educational boards. Bustamante’s mother also was heavily involved in community groups, helping to shape her son’s values regarding public service. Bustamante graduated from Tranquility High School in San Joaquin before attending Fresno City College to pursue a degree in butchery. When not in school, he worked as an agricultural laborer, just as many members of his family had before him. These experiences strongly influenced his views and priorities during his political career.

Bustamante’s course into politics was set in the summer of 1972, when he left school to serve as an intern in the office of Congressman B. F. Sisk, the chairman of the House Rules Committee. Through this internship, Bustamante discovered the power of government to help people. Afterward, he returned to California to pursue a degree in public administration at Fresno State College (later California State University, Fresno), intent on a career in politics. Bustamante became involved with the Chicano rights group MEChA (Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlán), an association that provided him an opportunity to get involved with student government but that would haunt him later in his career.

Life’s Work

In 1977, Bustamante married Arcelia De La Pena and started a family, once more postponing his education. He was offered a part-time position by California state assemblyman Rick Lehman but needed full-time employment to support his family, so he took a job as director of the Fresno Summer Youth Employment Program. In 1983, Lehman, by then a U.S. congressman, offered Bustamante a position as a district representative. In 1988, Bustamante took the same position in the office of California state assemblyman Bruce Broznan and won his seat in a special election in 1993 after Broznan decided to abandon his run for reelection.

During the first three years of his tenure in the California State Assembly, Bustamante became known as a moderate and reconciler. Bustamante did not take many controversial stands but was not shy about speaking out on issues he considered important, such as the agriculture industry, immigrant rights, education, public safety, and employment. Although he is a Democrat, Bustamante also has espoused positions that are less traditionally Democratic, such as support for the death penalty and backing agribusiness against environmental groups in some lawsuits. One issue that was especially important to him was opposition to California’s Proposition 187 in 1994. The ballot initiative, which voters passed with a 60 percent majority, effectively cut off undocumented immigrants from the state’s social services. It was later declared unconstitutional and never enacted. Although Bustamante had strongly opposed the proposition, he was easily reelected to his Assembly seat in that same election, and, shortly thereafter, began actively campaigning among his colleagues to become speaker of the Assembly when Democrats took control of the chamber in 1996.

Bustamante’s election and speakership owed as much to non-Hispanics as it did to Hispanic voters, which may help to explain his centrism and moderation. However, this also disappointed some supporters, who expected Bustamante to take a more revolutionary approach. In 1998, Bustamante decided to run for lieutenant governor of California, alongside gubernatorial candidate Gray Davis. Both Democrats won their seats, although it quickly became clear that they did not get along well. Although both were reelected in 2002, their relationship grew even more strained the following year, when opponents launched an effort to recall Davis through a special election. Bustamante tried to balance support for his party’s standard-bearer in the state and his own political ambition, urging voters to reject the recall but vote for Bustamante as Davis’s replacement just in case the bid was successful.

Bustamante’s Republican opponent in the recall election, film star Arnold Schwarzenegger, enjoyed several advantages, including wealth, name recognition, and charisma. Bustamante also weathered controversy over his college affiliation with MEChA, an organization whose radical roots unnerved conservatives. The recall succeeded, Schwarzenegger won the governorship handily, and Bustamante went back to work as lieutenant governor until the end of his term in 2006. After the end of his second and final term as lieutenant governor (term limits kept him from pursuing reelection again), Bustamante won the Democratic nomination for state insurance commissioner but was defeated by Republican Steve Poizner.

Significance

When he won California’s lieutenant governorship, Bustamante became the first Hispanic to be elected to statewide office in the California since 1878. When he ran for governor, he sought to become California’s first Hispanic governor since Romualdo Pacheco served briefly in 1875. Although he was unsuccessful in his bid to become California’s chief executive, his achievements paved the way for many other Latinos to pursue state and federal office. He demonstrated that, although he was proud of his Hispanic roots, his politics could embrace a wider agenda that transcended racial issues.

Citation Types

Type

Format

MLA 9th

Danver, Steven L. "Cruz Bustamante." Great Lives from History: Latinos, edited by Carmen Tafolla & Martha P. Cotera, Salem Press, 2012. Salem Online, online.salempress.com/articleDetails.do?articleName=GLL_10013240010601001.

APA 7th

Danver, S. L. (2012). Cruz Bustamante. In C. Tafolla & M. P. Cotera (Eds.), Great Lives from History: Latinos. Salem Press. online.salempress.com.

CMOS 17th

Danver, Steven L. "Cruz Bustamante." Edited by Carmen Tafolla & Martha P. Cotera. Great Lives from History: Latinos. Hackensack: Salem Press, 2012. Accessed October 22, 2025. online.salempress.com.

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