David Contreras - When a Vote Means Something: LULAC Must Honor the Will of Its National Assembly

When a Vote Means Something: LULAC Must Honor the Will of Its National Assembly

By David Contreras

For nearly a century, the League of United Latin American Citizens has demanded that public institutions respect voting rights, follow the rule of law and remain accountable to the people they represent.

Those principles must apply inside LULAC as well.

A troubling question has emerged from LULAC’s 2026 National Assembly, and it deserves a straightforward answer:

Did the organization implement the constitutional amendment that delegates actually approved?

This is not a dispute over terminology. It is a question about institutional integrity, constitutional governance and the meaning of a delegate’s vote.

On June 21, 2026, the National Assembly considered a proposed constitutional amendment intended to establish a new form of digital affiliation with LULAC.

The proposal originally used the designation “E-Member.”

I objected to that terminology and offered a friendly amendment replacing it with “Digital Affiliate.”

My reason was explicit:

“The title of ‘Member’ should remain an earned distinction for those who pay dues and attend local meetings.”

Those words mattered.

I was not proposing a cosmetic edit. I was drawing a deliberate distinction between membership in LULAC and participation in LULAC’s growing digital network.

Leadership accepted the change.

Because constitutional amendments should never depend upon somebody’s recollection of a hallway conversation, I specifically asked that the agreed-upon change be announced to the National Assembly before delegates voted.

It was.

The delegates then voted.

Three days later, on June 24, I memorialized in writing the language and position I had presented to the Assembly.

Yet the constitutional amendment subsequently distributed to Council Presidents for ratification did not use “Digital Affiliate.”

It used another term:

“E-Associate.”

That raises a simple but fundamental question:

How did the terminology accepted by leadership and announced to the delegates before their vote become different language in the amendment subsequently submitted for ratification?

There is now an even larger issue.

LULAC National President Roman Palomares recently informed me in writing that E-Associates are considered “members of the organization” and constitute “a distinct non-dues paying, non-voting category of membership.”

That interpretation is precisely what my amendment was intended to prevent.

If delegates were told before voting that “Member” was being removed in favor of “Digital Affiliate,” and if that clarification was accepted and announced to the Assembly, then subsequently interpreting these digital participants as a new class of LULAC members raises a serious governance question.

What exactly did the delegates approve?

The answer cannot depend upon what anyone—including a National President, former National Historian or staff member—remembers or prefers.

The official record should decide.

That is why this issue is bigger than a disagreement between two individuals.

It concerns the authority of the National Assembly itself.

If language approved by delegates can subsequently be changed, recharacterized or administratively interpreted to mean something materially different, then we diminish the significance of the constitutional process.

And there are real-world consequences.

LULAC’s national website now reports approximately 896,972 members across 359 councils.

That is an extraordinary number.

But the constitutional language circulated for ratification says E-Associates pay no national, state, district or council dues. They cannot vote. They cannot hold elected office. They cannot be counted toward quorum. They cannot contribute to delegate strength.

Instead, that language says they are part of the “LULAC National Network.”

Those distinctions matter.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with LULAC having hundreds of thousands of digital supporters. In fact, such reach could be an extraordinary organizational achievement.

Celebrate it.

Build upon it.

Turn digital supporters into activists, donors and eventually dues-paying council members.

But describe it accurately.

If LULAC has approximately 900,000 people in its broader national network, say so proudly. If a portion are dues-paying members and the overwhelming majority are digital affiliates or E-Associates, disclose those numbers separately.

The public should be able to see something as simple as:

Dues-paying LULAC members: ___
Digital Affiliates/E-Associates: ___
Active councils: ___
Total LULAC National Network: ___

That is not an attack on LULAC.

That is transparency.

And transparency protects organizations.

Membership numbers are not merely marketing statistics. They communicate organizational strength to elected officials, corporations, foundations, journalists, prospective donors and the public.

There is an enormous difference between saying an organization represents nearly 900,000 dues-paying or conventionally understood members and saying its digital network reaches nearly 900,000 people.

Both can be impressive.

They are simply not the same thing.

President Palomares has also suggested that concerns such as mine should move through an established chain of command—from Council President to District Director, State Director and ultimately national leadership.

I respect organizational structure.

But constitutional accountability cannot become a game of telephone.

A Council President did not conduct the National Assembly.

A District Director did not determine what constitutional language was announced before the national delegates voted.

A State Director cannot determine who changed language before an amendment was circulated nationally for ratification.

Those are national governance questions. They deserve answers from the national organization and its official records.

The solution is neither complicated nor confrontational.

Produce the amendment as approved by the National Assembly on June 21.

Produce the official record showing what language was announced before the vote.

Establish when “Digital Affiliate” became “E-Associate,” by whose authority and under what constitutional procedure.

Explain the constitutional basis for classifying E-Associates as “members” for public membership reporting.

And disclose how many of the 896,972 individuals currently reported as members are dues-paying members and how many are E-Associates or other digital participants.

Then let the record speak for itself.

I have been associated with LULAC for most of my life. I raise these questions not because I want this institution diminished, but because I believe its history deserves to be protected.

LULAC was founded in 1929 by men and women who understood something profound: institutions earn legitimacy when their rules mean something.

For generations, LULAC members challenged school segregation, discrimination, voter suppression and unequal treatment by insisting that government honor its laws and democratic principles.

We cannot demand accountability from city halls, state legislatures, Congress and corporate America while treating accountability within our own institution as an inconvenience.

Nor should questioning leadership ever be confused with disloyalty to an organization.

Healthy institutions are strong enough to examine their own records.

Healthy leadership welcomes legitimate questions.

And healthy democracies—whether governing nations or membership organizations—understand that once people cast their votes, their decision belongs to them.

No officer should be able to accomplish through administrative interpretation what delegates did not approve through the constitutional process.

That principle should transcend personalities.

It should transcend administrations.

And it should survive all of us.

The question before LULAC is therefore much larger than whether someone should be called an E-Member, E-Associate or Digital Affiliate.

The question is whether the words presented to delegates—and the votes those delegates cast—still mean what they meant when the vote was taken.

For an organization whose history is inseparable from the struggle for voting rights, there should be only one acceptable standard:

Every vote matters.
Every delegate deserves to know what they are voting on.
And once the vote is taken, the organization has an obligation to honor it.

Trust requires transparency.

Integrity requires consistency.

And constitutional governance requires something even more fundamental:

What the National Assembly approved must be what LULAC implements.