The Excellence of Kamala Harris Is Hiding in Plain Sight

March 2, 2023

Evelyn Hockstein/Reuters

By Donna Brazile

“Ms. Brazile teaches in the Women’s and Gender Studies Program at Georgetown University and is a contributor to ABC News.

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Vice President Kamala Harris occupies an office that can be the butt of jokes and criticism. The only duties of the vice president spelled out in the Constitution are to cast tiebreaking votes in the Senate and to become president if the office becomes vacant.

I’ve never run for government office, but as a Black woman who has spent my life working in politics — including as manager of Vice President Al Gore’s unsuccessful presidential campaign in 2000 — I know what it’s like to be underestimated, over-scrutinized and unfairly criticized, just as Ms. Harris has been. Yet I’ve never been under such a glaring spotlight as hers.

I have watched politicians up close for decades. And‌ I have known Vice President Harris for years and urged Joe Biden to make her his running mate in 2020. I ‌believe that the criticism of her is unrelated to her performance as vice president and fails to account for the role she plays in the White House.

As a consequential and successful vice president himself for eight years under Barack Obama, President Biden has a keen understanding of the job he once held and he has tasked Vice President Harris with major responsibilities. She has done an outstanding job and her record in two years stands up to that of her predecessors. Has she solved every problem? No, but name me one vice president who has.

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We should think about our expectations for the vice presidency. It was only starting with the presidency of Jimmy Carter, and the role Vice President Walter Mondale played in foreign and domestic policy, that the job became more than a ceremonial position. Vice President Harris ranks third in breaking Senate ties (and first in the first two years in office), after John C. Calhoun and John Adams. While some claim that her duties breaking ties in the Senate have limited her scope of influence, the reality is that Ms. Harris regularly traveled the country to meet with Americans even as she cast the tiebreaking vote on key legislation to better the lives of the American people, including the Inflation Reduction Act.

To advance President Biden’s objective to strengthen America’s foreign alliances, Ms. Harris has met (mostly in person) with more than 100 world leaders to repair damage to our international relationships caused by Donald Trump. At the Munich Security Conference in February she announced that the Biden administration has formally concluded that Russia is guilty of “crimes against humanity” in its war against Ukraine and warned China not to assist Russia in its invasion. Through public-private partnerships, she helped raise over $4.2 billion to address the root cause of migration from Central America.

Ms. Harris has pushed for federal legislation to secure voting rights, worked to expand access to the child tax and earned-income tax credits, is co-leader of the White House Task Force on Worker Organizing and Empowerment, was an integral part of the White House’s push to get Americans vaccinated against Covid, and is the chair of the National Space Council.

Questions have been raised about the fitness of just about every vice president to move into the Oval Office should the president die or is unable to continue serving for another reason. Mr. Biden knew what he was doing when he selected Ms. Harris to be his vice president and had confidence that she would be up to the task of succeeding him if necessary. I hope that never happens, but if tragedy strikes, Mr. Biden’s judgment will be proven correct.

Ms. Harris has more experience in elected office than several past presidents and vice presidents — a successful record beginning in 2004 as San Francisco district attorney and California attorney general and including four years as U.S. senator. By contrast, Presidents Trump, Dwight Eisenhower, Ulysses S. Grant, Herbert Hoover and Zachary Taylor never held elected office before becoming president. Many other presidents had fewer years in elected office than Ms. Harris has had.

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Ms. Harris has been derided by some as an affirmative-action hire, perhaps because Mr. Biden pledged to select a female running mate when he campaigned for the Democratic presidential nomination.

On many occasions when people of color and women have climbed the career ladder we’ve heard criticism that they advanced only because of their race and/or gender. This was the case last year during the confirmation process for Ketanji Brown Jackson, a brilliant and extraordinarily qualified jurist who is the first Black woman to serve on the Supreme Court.

For too many Americans, the idea that nonwhites and women actually got their jobs because of their qualifications, experience and talents is hard to believe. Maybe that’s because for most of American history, white men were the only people considered for high-level jobs in what amounted to affirmative action for them.

And as the first woman, African American and Asian American to serve as vice president, Ms. Harris has arguably faced greater — and a different type — of scrutiny than previous vice presidents.

The clothes and shoes she wears, the role of her spouse (Doug Emhoff, America’s first second gentleman), the way she sometimes laughs, her cooking skills and staff turnover in her office have all drawn greater attention than her predecessors experienced.

Mr. Emhoff summarized the challenges confronting his wife in a 2021 interview. “She has faced challenges as a groundbreaker her whole career,” he said. “When you’re breaking barriers, there’s breaking involved and breaking means you might get cut sometimes, but that’s OK.”

Vice President Harris is fulfilling the dream of the empowerment of Black women advanced by the Rev. Willie T. Barrow, a Black woman who was a field organizer for the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and a co-chair of the Rev. Jesse Jackson’s Rainbow PUSH Coalition and supporter of his presidential campaigns.

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Ms. Barrow, who was an inspiration to me when I was a young member of the staff on Mr. Jackson’s 1984 presidential campaign, died at age 90 in 2015. She was a mentor to Mr. Obama before he entered the White House but didn’t live long enough to see Ms. Harris become vice president.

Ms. Barrow never received the accolades and fame she deserved for her work because the most visible leadership roles in the civil rights movement, government and elsewhere were reserved for men. But I have no doubt that she and other Black female civil rights pioneers paved the way for Ms. Harris to climb to the second-highest office in our government.

Vice President Harris stands on the steely, unbowed shoulders of Black women like Willie Barrow and others who broke barriers before her. It shouldn’t be so hard for a leader like Ms. Harris, so visible in the office she holds, to get some credit where credit is due.“

Opinion | Give Kamala Harris the Credit She Is Due - The New York Times

The Excellence of Kamala Harris Is Hiding in Plain Sight

March 2, 2023

Evelyn Hockstein/Reuters

By Donna Brazile

"Ms. Brazile teaches in the Women’s and Gender Studies Program at Georgetown University and is a contributor to ABC News.

Vice President Kamala Harris occupies an office that can be the butt of jokes and criticism. The only duties of the vice president spelled out in the Constitution are to cast tiebreaking votes in the Senate and to become president if the office becomes vacant.

I’ve never run for government office, but as a Black woman who has spent my life working in politics — including as manager of Vice President Al Gore’s unsuccessful presidential campaign in 2000 — I know what it’s like to be underestimated, over-scrutinized and unfairly criticized, just as Ms. Harris has been. Yet I’ve never been under such a glaring spotlight as hers.

I have watched politicians up close for decades. And‌ I have known Vice President Harris for years and urged Joe Biden to make her his running mate in 2020. I ‌believe that the criticism of her is unrelated to her performance as vice president and fails to account for the role she plays in the White House.

As a consequential and successful vice president himself for eight years under Barack Obama, President Biden has a keen understanding of the job he once held and he has tasked Vice President Harris with major responsibilities. She has done an outstanding job and her record in two years stands up to that of her predecessors. Has she solved every problem? No, but name me one vice president who has.

We should think about our expectations for the vice presidency. It was only starting with the presidency of Jimmy Carter, and the role Vice President Walter Mondale played in foreign and domestic policy, that the job became more than a ceremonial position. Vice President Harris ranks third in breaking Senate ties (and first in the first two years in office), after John C. Calhoun and John Adams. While some claim that her duties breaking ties in the Senate have limited her scope of influence, the reality is that Ms. Harris regularly traveled the country to meet with Americans even as she cast the tiebreaking vote on key legislation to better the lives of the American people, including the Inflation Reduction Act.

To advance President Biden’s objective to strengthen America’s foreign alliances, Ms. Harris has met (mostly in person) with more than 100 world leaders to repair damage to our international relationships caused by Donald Trump. At the Munich Security Conference in February she announced that the Biden administration has formally concluded that Russia is guilty of “crimes against humanity” in its war against Ukraine and warned China not to assist Russia in its invasion. Through public-private partnerships, she helped raise over $4.2 billion to address the root cause of migration from Central America.

Ms. Harris has pushed for federal legislation to secure voting rights, worked to expand access to the child tax and earned-income tax credits, is co-leader of the White House Task Force on Worker Organizing and Empowerment, was an integral part of the White House’s push to get Americans vaccinated against Covid, and is the chair of the National Space Council.

Questions have been raised about the fitness of just about every vice president to move into the Oval Office should the president die or is unable to continue serving for another reason. Mr. Biden knew what he was doing when he selected Ms. Harris to be his vice president and had confidence that she would be up to the task of succeeding him if necessary. I hope that never happens, but if tragedy strikes, Mr. Biden’s judgment will be proven correct.

Ms. Harris has more experience in elected office than several past presidents and vice presidents — a successful record beginning in 2004 as San Francisco district attorney and California attorney general and including four years as U.S. senator. By contrast, Presidents Trump, Dwight Eisenhower, Ulysses S. Grant, Herbert Hoover and Zachary Taylor never held elected office before becoming president. Many other presidents had fewer years in elected office than Ms. Harris has had.

Ms. Harris has been derided by some as an affirmative-action hire, perhaps because Mr. Biden pledged to select a female running mate when he campaigned for the Democratic presidential nomination.

On many occasions when people of color and women have climbed the career ladder we’ve heard criticism that they advanced only because of their race and/or gender. This was the case last year during the confirmation process for Ketanji Brown Jackson, a brilliant and extraordinarily qualified jurist who is the first Black woman to serve on the Supreme Court.

For too many Americans, the idea that nonwhites and women actually got their jobs because of their qualifications, experience and talents is hard to believe. Maybe that’s because for most of American history, white men were the only people considered for high-level jobs in what amounted to affirmative action for them.

And as the first woman, African American and Asian American to serve as vice president, Ms. Harris has arguably faced greater — and a different type — of scrutiny than previous vice presidents.

The clothes and shoes she wears, the role of her spouse (Doug Emhoff, America’s first second gentleman), the way she sometimes laughs, her cooking skills and staff turnover in her office have all drawn greater attention than her predecessors experienced.

Mr. Emhoff summarized the challenges confronting his wife in a 2021 interview. “She has faced challenges as a groundbreaker her whole career,” he said. “When you’re breaking barriers, there’s breaking involved and breaking means you might get cut sometimes, but that’s OK.”

Vice President Harris is fulfilling the dream of the empowerment of Black women advanced by the Rev. Willie T. Barrow, a Black woman who was a field organizer for the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and a co-chair of the Rev. Jesse Jackson’s Rainbow PUSH Coalition and supporter of his presidential campaigns.

Ms. Barrow, who was an inspiration to me when I was a young member of the staff on Mr. Jackson’s 1984 presidential campaign, died at age 90 in 2015. She was a mentor to Mr. Obama before he entered the White House but didn’t live long enough to see Ms. Harris become vice president.

Ms. Barrow never received the accolades and fame she deserved for her work because the most visible leadership roles in the civil rights movement, government and elsewhere were reserved for men. But I have no doubt that she and other Black female civil rights pioneers paved the way for Ms. Harris to climb to the second-highest office in our government.

Vice President Harris stands on the steely, unbowed shoulders of Black women like Willie Barrow and others who broke barriers before her. It shouldn’t be so hard for a leader like Ms. Harris, so visible in the office she holds, to get some credit where credit is due."

Opinion | Give Kamala Harris the Credit She Is Due - The New York Times

Joy Reid: DeSantis’ people came to America in 20th century from disfavor...

Outcry after New York mayor dismisses separation of church and state | Eric Adams | The Guardian

Outcry after New York mayor dismisses separation of church and state

"Amendment I

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

How stupid can Eric Adams be.  That's right he is a former cop's IQ is only 104.  Average IQ is 100-110

Eric Adams says ‘Don’t tell me about no separation of church and state’ at an interfaith breakfast

Martin Pengelly

Eric Adams delivers remarks at his annual interfaith breakfast at the New York Public Library on Tuesday in New York City. Photograph: Erik Pendzich/Rex/Shutterstock

Civil rights groups blasted the mayor of New York City, Eric Adams, after he said he believed God had made him mayor, appeared to support compulsory prayer in public schools and said: “Don’t tell me about no separation of church and state.”

The head of the New York Civil Liberties Union led the condemnation.

“We are a nation and a city of many faiths and no faith,” Donna Lieberman said. “In order for our government to truly represent us, it must not favor any belief over another, including non-belief.”

The mayor made the controversial remarks at an interfaith breakfast at the New York Public Library on Tuesday.

Discussing his rise to power, the former police officer said he “strongly believe[d] in all my heart” that “God said, ‘I’m going to take the most broken person and I’m going to elevate him to the place of being the mayor of the most powerful city on the globe.’ He could have made me the mayor of Topeka, Kansas.”

The voters of New York City elected Adams as mayor in 2021, by a comfortable margin over the Republican Curtis Sliwa and after winning a crowded primary in the solidly Democratic city.

Adams’s time in office has proved controversial, from his approach to tackling crime, homelessness and sanitation, to allegations of nepotism, inconsistent veganism and bizarre remarks about how cheese is addictive.

At the prayer breakfast, Adams also said “When we took prayers out of schools, guns came into schools” and “Don’t tell me about no separation of church and state”.

He added: “State is the body, church is the heart. You take the heart out of the body, the body dies. I can’t separate my belief because I’m an elected official.”

Lieberman pointed to the US constitution.

“The very opening passage of the Bill of Rights makes clear that church and state must be separate,” she said.

“On matters of faith, the mayor is entitled to his own beliefs. On the constitution, he must uphold his oath.”

An Adams spokesperson said the mayor “personally believes all of our faiths would ensure we are humane to one another.

“While everyone in the room immediately understood what the mayor meant, it’s unfortunate that some have attempted to hijack the narrative in an effort to misrepresent the mayor’s comments.”

Rachel Laser, president and chief executive of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, said: “It’s especially disheartening to hear the mayor of New York city promoting rightwing, Christian Nationalist talking points about prayer solving gun violence.

“Not only is it simply untrue that prayer alone will end school shootings, but his words ignore the fact that students are free to voluntarily pray in public schools because of the separation of church and state.”

"To Messrs. Nehemiah Dodge and Others

A Committee of the Danbury Baptist Association in the State of Connecticut

January 1, 1802

Gentlemen,

The affectionate sentiments of esteem and approbation which you are so good as to express towards me, on behalf of the Danbury Baptist Association, give me the highest satisfaction. My duties dictate a faithful and zealous pursuit of the interests of my constituents, and in proportion as they are persuaded of my fidelity to those duties, the discharge of them becomes more and more pleasing.

Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between man and his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legislative powers of government reach actions only, and not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should "make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof," thus building a wall of separation between church and State. Adhering to this expression of the supreme will of the nation in behalf of the rights of conscience, I shall see with sincere satisfaction the progress of those sentiments which tend to restore to man all his natural rights, convinced he has no natural right in opposition to his social duties.

I reciprocate your kind prayers for the protection and blessing of the common Father and Creator of man, and tender you for yourselves and your religious association, assurances of my high respect and esteem.

Thomas Jefferson
President of the United States"

Too Smart To Be A Cop?

September 10, 1999 / 11:47 AM

Forty-five-year-old Corrections Officer Robert Jordan believes he has been discriminated against after the city of New London, Conn., deemed him too smart to be an enforcement officer and denied him employment.

After he filed a lawsuit, the federal judge dismissed it, ruling that the police department's rejection of Jordan did not violate his rights. Jordan strongly disagrees and tells CBS This Morning's Thalia Assuras why. 

---

"I was just taken aback," Jordan says.  "Philosophically, I found it offensive to the entire profession of law enforcement. We all know talented, intelligent people that pursue successful careers in law enforcement."

In May 1997 Jordan filed a lawsuit against the New London Police Department for denying him the opportunity of becoming a law enforcement officer in the city where he was born and raised and which he still lives nearby.

"I just couldn't accept it. And I found out there is absolutely no evidence.Â…There is no connection between your basic intelligence and job satisfaction or longevity on the job," he says.

Jordan was deemed too smart for the police force because he received a high score on an intelligence test. Jordan, then 45, scored a 33, the equivalent of having an IQ of 125. 

The average score nationally for police officers as well as for office workers, bank tellers and salespeople is 21 or 22, the equivalent of having an IQ of 104.

The city's rationale for the long-standing practice is that candidates who score too high could get bored with police work and quit after undergoing costly academy training.

Recently U.S. District Judge Peter C. Dorsey ruled the New London Police Department's rejection of Jordan, because of his high IQ test score, was not in violation of his rights. 

The court dismissed his lawsuit Aug. 31 and his attorney informed him on Wednesday.

Jordan feels the New London policy is ludicrous primarily because the city, through President Clinton's Fast Cop Program, received federal money to hire new recruits for the police academy, he says.

"I don't think it's setting really good seeds for the future of [its] public employees in the town, " he adds.

Jordan is not new to law enforcement. He had served as a part-time officer in Groton Long Point, Conn., in 1989. 

In 1993 he became a seasonal officer for the Department of Environmental Protection, which takes care of law enforcement in state parks. He never took off a single shift, he says. 

Jordan was never late and he felt he really did his job well. So when he decided to try for his local police force, he thought it could turn into something good, he says.

He is currently a corrections officer for the state of Connecticut, on the line, in direct contact with prisoners. 

Jordan would love to appeal but the cost of litigation may be too much for him, although he has not ruled out the option, he says.

Outcry after New York mayor dismisses separation of church and state | Eric Adams | The Guardian

Opinion | The Spectacular Fall of Lori Lightfoot and the Politics of Race and Crime - The New York Times

The Spectacular Fall of Lori Lightfoot and the Politics of Race and Crime

March 1, 2023, 12:24 p.m. ET

Akilah Townsend for The New York Times

"It was a stunning rebuke. On Tuesday, Mayor Lori Lightfoot of Chicago, the first Black woman and first openly L.G.B.T.Q.+ person to lead the city, failed to advance to a runoff, earning just 17 percent of the vote and becoming the first incumbent mayor in 40 years to lose a re-election bid.

Four days before the election, I interviewed Lightfoot in her Chicago office. The space, with its soaring ceiling, was a clash of aesthetics, like many government buildings, displaying a kind of prudent grandeur, evoking the gravitas of the office without signaling excess, much like Lightfoot herself, who settled her small frame, dressed in a smart gray suit, into a large chair.

During our nearly hourlong interview, she choked up and fought back tears when discussing the sacrifices her parents had made for her and her siblings. A smile lit her face when talked about all the memes that had made her a folk hero in the early days of her term, and she puffed with pride when discussing her proudest moments as mayor, including how she and her team had dealt with the Covid-19 crisis.

But those weren’t the reasons I’d trekked to the frigid city on the lake. I’d come because Lightfoot belongs to a group of recently elected Black mayors of major American cities, including Eric Adams in New York, Sylvester Turner in Houston and Karen Bass in Los Angeles.

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In those cities, Black people are outnumbered by other nonwhite groups, and in New York City and Chicago their ranks are dwindling.

Each of these four mayors was elected or re-elected around the height of two seismic cultural phenomena — Black Lives Matter and the pandemic. Of the four, Lightfoot would be one of the first to face voters and test the fallout. (Turner is term-limited and can’t run again.)

It clearly did not go well.

On one level, the results of Tuesday’s election speak to how potent the issue of crime can be and how it can be used as a scare tactic. Lightfoot said that it was absolutely used as a political tool in her race: “You’ve got people who are using it as a cudgel against me every single day. You’ve got the only white candidate in the race who’s acting like he’s going to be a great white savior on public safety.”

That white candidate is Paul Vallas, who finished at the top of the crowded field on Tuesday with 34 percent of the vote. Vallas had run a tough-on-crime, law-and-order campaign in which he told one crowd that his “whole campaign is about taking back our city, pure and simple.”

Lightfoot called the remark “the ultimate dog whistle.”

In our interview, she was brutal in her racial assessment of Vallas: “He is giving voice and platform to people who are hateful of anyone who isn’t white and Republican in our city, in our country.” She is also surprisingly candid about how race operates in the city itself: “Chicago is a deeply divided and segregated city.”

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It is that division, in her view, fomented by candidates who see politics in the city as a zero-sum game, that provided Vallas with an opening to win over the city’s white citizens. As she put it, “People who are not used to feeling the touch of violence, particularly people on the North Side of our city, they are buying what he’s selling.”

Indeed, Vallas won many of the wards in the northern part of the city, while Lightfoot won most of the wards on the largely Black South Side of town.

But two things can be true simultaneously: There can be legitimate concerns about rising crime, and crime can be used as a political wedge issue, particularly against elected officials of color, which has happened often.

In this moment, when the country has still not come to grips with the wide-ranging societal trauma that the pandemic exacerbated and unleashed, mayors are being held responsible for that crime. If all politics is local, crime and safety are the most local. And when the perception of crime collides with ingrained societal concepts of race and gender, politicians, particularly Black women, can pay the price.

In 2021, Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms of Atlanta chose not to seek re-election, becoming the city’s first Black mayor to serve only a single term, after wrestling with what she called the “Covid crime wave.” Mayor LaToya Cantrell of New Orleans is facing a possible recall, largely over the issue of crime in her city, and organizers said this week that they have gathered enough signatures to force a recall vote.

Even in cities where Black mayors aren’t likely to be removed from office, their opponents are searching for ways to limit their power, using criminal justice as justification.

The Mississippi House recently passed a bill that would create a separate court system and an expanded police force in the city of Jackson, one of the blackest cities in America. The new district “would incorporate all of the city’s significantly populated white-majority neighborhoods,” as an analysis by The Guardian pointed out. Jackson’s mayor, Chokwe Antar Lumumba, said the plan reminded him of apartheid.

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Crime often comes in waves, but a question lingers about how people, even liberals, respond when a crest arrives under Black leadership: Are Black mayors too quickly and easily blamed for rising crime, and if so, why? Because of an unwillingness to crack down on criminals, or because of a more insidious, latent belief in ineffectual Black leadership in times of crisis?

Lightfoot told me she understood that as a woman and as a person of color, “I’m always going to be viewed through a different lens, that the things I do and say, that the toughness that I exhibit, is viewed as divisive, that I’m the mean mayor, that I can’t collaborate with anyone.”

Even so, she conceded, “If you feel like your life has been challenged because of the public safety issues coming to your doorstep, it doesn’t matter what the numbers are, you need to feel safe.”

But feelings on issues of politics, crime and race also tap into our biases, both conscious and subconscious. In that vein, Lightfoot may be a harbinger, or at least a warning, for the other big-city Black mayors: As the Covid crime wave wears on, will their mostly non-Black citizens feel that their safety is being prioritized and secured under Black leadership?

Charles M. Blow joined The Times in 1994 and became an Opinion columnist in 2008. He is also a television commentator and writes often about politics, social justice and vulnerable communities. @CharlesMBlow • Facebook"

Opinion | The Spectacular Fall of Lori Lightfoot and the Politics of Race and Crime - The New York Times

Some Republicans Want to Ban ‘Latinx.’ These Latino Democrats Agree. - The New York Times

Some Republicans Want to Ban ‘Latinx.’ These Latino Democrats Agree.

"In Connecticut, some Democratic lawmakers want to prohibit the use of the gender-neutral term in official government documents. The Republican governor of Arkansas does too.

March 1, 2023Updated 6:45 a.m. ET

State Representative Geraldo Reyes Jr., a Democrat from Waterbury, Conn., introduced legislation barring the use of the word “Latinx” in government documents.Jessica Hill/Associated Press

When Democrats in Connecticut introduced legislation to ban the word “Latinx” from government documents, they found themselves with unlikely allies: Republicans including Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders of Arkansas, who barred “Latinx” from state documents as her first official act.

Their reasons differ: Conservatives argue that the word, coined about 20 years ago as an inclusive, gender-neutral term to describe people of Latino descent, is a trope of liberal “wokeism.” But the bill making its way through Hartford was introduced by several Democratic members of the Black and Puerto Rican caucus. They argue, among other things, that the Americanized word disfigures the Spanish language and in doing so, is an act of cultural appropriation.

The situation has made for some of the oddest bedfellows in the culture wars. Ms. Sanders, who initiated her state’s ban in January, said the term “Latinx” was “ethnically insensitive and pejorative language.” Around the same time, she also forbade the teaching of “critical race theory” in Arkansas schools and the use of TikTok on state-issued devices — statements that have set the tone for her conservative administration.

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“One can no more easily remove gender from Spanish and other romance languages than one can remove vowels and verbs from English,” she said.

Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders of Arkansas signs an order banning the use of the term “Latinx” in government documents. Al Drago for The New York Times

In Connecticut, where the bill would bar the use of “Latinx” from government and state education documents, State Representative Geraldo Reyes Jr., who introduced the measure, called the term “offensive and unnecessary” in a statement. “The Spanish language has been around for 1,500 years, and it identifies male, female and neutral gender,” he said.

Representative Reyes, who represents Waterbury, cited the limited use of the word in Latin American countries and the lack of widespread discussion around its initial adoption.

His staff said the term has been used in state government documents, but infrequently.

He said that he did not intend his proposed legislation to be divisive, but the use of the word has stirred a passionate debate from Connecticut to Arkansas and beyond about “Latinx,” the value of inclusive language and the very idea of banning individual words.

The term “Latinx” emerged in the early 2000s. Its precise origins are unclear, springing from academia or activists or perhaps both.

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It was created to address a characteristic of Spanish that doesn’t exist in English: Spanish is among the many languages where words are gendered, and the male ending — here, “Latino” — is typically used to refer to a group broadly, even if it’s mixed-gender.

The x in “Latinx” serves a similar function as it does in Mx., the gender-neutral version of the honorifics Mr. or Ms.; it creates an alternative to “Latino” and “Latina.” The word was first added to the Merriam-Webster dictionary in 2018. Alternative terms exist, including “Latine” and even “Latin@.”

“The origin was specifically referring to people who didn’t want to be pigeonholed in the traditional gender binaries, but now it is about Hispanic culture in general,” said Orin Hargraves, a lecturer in semantics at the University of Colorado Boulder. “It is in line with everything that has been going on since the turn of this century of equalizing gender, the #MeToo movement, all of that together is one big bucket that you can put ‘Latinx’ into.”

Meilene Belmont, the transgender services manager at Translatinx Network, a New York City-based advocacy and support group for transgender people, embraces the term for its sense of inclusion. She said “Latina” is her preferred term as a transgender woman, though she values “Latinx” for peers who feel differently.

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“I believe that ‘Latinx’ is for anyone, for anyone who identifies as trans, gay, bisexual, cis gender — anyone,” Ms. Belmont said. “The X at the end stands for everybody.”

Some critics, like United States Representative Ruben Gallego, a Democrat who represents Arizona and has spoken out about his distaste for the term, reject “Latinx” not because of its attempt at inclusivity, but because, he says, it has been imposed by outsiders on a community. In an interview, Representative Gallego said he has asked his staff not to use it.

Others take issue with the “x” itself: It is not a plural ending original to the language, and they argue that the letter’s inclusion whitewashes a Spanish word. The Royal Spanish Academy, which oversees the most authoritative dictionary in the language, has not approved it.

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But attempts to restrict the language via government decree have also drawn criticism.

“Hispanic, Chicano, Latino, Latinx, Latine, Latino American — none of those terms encompass everyone in our community,” John Lugo, the director of Unidad Latina en Acción, a Connecticut-based workers advocacy organization, said in a statement. He has called Connecticut’s effort to bar the term “an attack on our diversity.”

“We should not be policing the language that people are using to describe their identity,” Mr. Lugo said.

The word “Latino” was first added to the U.S. census in 2000; before that, starting in 1980, the survey’s questions about ethnicity used the word “Hispanic.”

“At the time, similar conversations arose about the appropriateness of that term," said Mark Hugo Lopez, the director of race and ethnicity research at the Pew Research Center. Critics then argued that “Hispanic” was a label foisted upon people, not one they selected for themselves. Today, respondents to Pew’s polls regarding how they define themselves prefer country of origin, like Mexican American, or Cuban American, Mr. Lopez said.

Some concerns about “Latinx” echo that 1980s debate: “It’s a very white term, and a white term shouldn’t represent a nonwhite population,” said Victoria Almazan, 20, a psychology student at the University of Connecticut, who supports the Connecticut legislation. (There is also a movement in Spanish-speaking countries to create gender neutral alternatives.) The Republicans in Arkansas, Ms. Almazan added, were right too — but for the wrong reasons.

“I think inclusivity is important, but it’s better to find a different word to use,” she said.

“I think inclusivity is important, but it’s better to find a different word to use,” said Victoria Almazan, 20, a psychology student at the University of Connecticut.Luis Diaz for The New York Times

In December, Progreso Latino Fund, part of the Community Foundation for Greater New Haven, a philanthropic organization, voted on a change to its mission statement. Instead of “Latinx,” Progreso chose “Latine” as a gender-neutral term, said Liana Garcia, the fund’s staff liaison, because of its familiar Spanish word terminus — like the endings of “leche” and “carne,” Spanish for milk and meat.

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“We decided that ‘Latine’ would be more in tune with the Spanish language,” Ms. Garcia said. “It was the way of equitably valuing everyone’s dignity.”

For all the political and academic debate, “Latinx” seems of little concern to many people who describe themselves as Latino or Hispanic. That’s mostly because it’s largely unknown: According to a 2019 poll conducted by the Pew Research Center, just about a quarter of Hispanic Americans were familiar with the term, and only 3 percent used it to refer to themselves.

About two years later, an Axios-Ipsos Latino Poll taken in partnership with Noticias Telemundo showed about half of the respondents of Spanish-speaking origins had no objection to being referred to as Latinx.

“If it’s more inclusive, that’s a good thing, I don’t see anything wrong with that,” Marvin Estrada, 34, a cook at a local restaurant, said on a recent afternoon in Stamford. “But honestly, I hadn’t heard the word until today.”

Marvin Estrada, a cook in Stamford, Conn., had not heard the term “Latinx” but said he didn’t object to it.Luis Diaz for The New York Times

As debate over the bill continued at the Capitol in Hartford, Natalie Betancur, a nurse in Stamford, said she had heard the word, but only in the news and not among her peers. “If someone wanted to be referred to as Latinx, I would have no problem with that,” said Ms. Betancur, 39. “I would just ask that they have patience with me and not get mad as I get used to it.”

Trying the term’s unfamiliar syllables out for the first time, Briggit Barzola, 29, a restaurant worker in Stamford who grew up in Lima, Peru, said it might grow on her.

“We would just have to get accustomed to it, but we had to come to the United States and get accustomed to the culture here,” Ms. Barzola said. “We can get accustomed to new things — it just takes time.”

Wesley Parnell contributed reporting.

Sarah Maslin Nir covers breaking news for the Metro section. She was a Pulitzer Prize finalist for her series “Unvarnished,” an investigation into New York City’s nail salon industry that documented the exploitative labor practices and health issues manicurists face. @SarahMaslinNir"

Some Republicans Want to Ban ‘Latinx.’ These Latino Democrats Agree. - The New York Times