Director, FairVote New Mexico
Born and raised in Ecuador, Maria Perez immigrated to the United States in the 1990s to pursue a B.S. in Biology and later a M.S. in Chinese medicine. She has crafted a career guided by her passion to address social disparities. With 18 years of experience working on equity and equitable policy, she is a seasoned organizer, facilitator, health care practitioner, advocate, coalition builder and a firm believer in the power of people coming together to address complex social problems.
Before joining FairVote, Maria worked on place-based health equity initiatives in the Bay Area, where she supported collaborative groups in planning and implementing campaigns around issues of health access, education, economic opportunity, and housing.
As a health care practitioner and advocate, Maria spent over ten years serving uninsured and underinsured populations. She is also a former health educator, having served in faculty and curriculum development roles for community health workers and Chinese medicine students. Maria spent several years deeply involved with Affordable Care Act outreach, education and enrollment, and legislative work in the state of New Mexico.
For the first time in Santa Fe, New Mexico history, there will be a full-time mayor elected in March of 2018 with additional powers, duties and a higher salary. It is important that the majority of Santa Fe voters elect the new mayor with ranked choice voting (RCV), an electoral reform that was approved by city voters 9 years ago and has yet to be implemented.
With the upcoming launch of the Fair Representation Act, legislation in Congress to end winner-take-all elections, we examine the state of representation of people of color in the current Congress and how it might change with enactment of the Act. This installment looks at the impact on Latino representation in five states in the American Southwest, where more than half of Latino Americans live.
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