HispanicBusiness

I think it is this thing where people were unsure that if they end up paying more of their own money into property taxes, the School District would actually use the money to do what they said they were going to do.

LVS: You are a founding member of the Impacto Fund, a political action committee with members currently in Nevada, California, Arizona, Colorado and Texas, geared toward helping Hispanic Democratic candidates win election. What was the impetus behind the PAC?

Ms. Flores: Legislative colleagues from around the country, primarily the Southwest, and I saw that there was a need for pipeline development support. We all kind of agreed that when we first ran for office, there wasn't much help out there for us, and Hispanics are underrepresented in politics, especially in elected office, and that there needed to be a purposeful effort to support and recruit Latinos as they made their way into politics.

We also recognized that oftentimes Hispanics -- and not just Hispanics but people in general -- will get into politics via what are considered a lower-tier office, local offices like school board or department of education or maybe even a city council race, but they enter via these local offices and then kind of make their way up into statewide office or federal offices. It's those types of local offices that are incredibly difficult to fundraise for, and so what we saw was that there were a lot of really great and wonderful, qualified Hispanics who were running for these offices, but they weren't winning because they were unable to appropriately fundraise for them.

LVS: In October, you attended the annual conference for Latinos in Social Media, where you were awarded "Best Politician using Social Media." What is your social media strategy?

Ms. Flores: I think that I was probably the one who had the highest level of personal engagement, and most people know if it's the candidate or the elected who is maintaining their Twitter and Facebook and everything else or if it's a staffer. I felt that it was important for me to handle my own media, or at the very least the bulk of it, because I wanted to stay connected with my constituents and with people at large. I also think it was important for me to convey the fact that I'm a human being just like everybody else, and just because I'm an elected official doesn't make me in any way, shape or form different. We have to get back to the basics of this being about pubic service and not being on some sort of elevated pedestal and not being accessible.

LVS: How did you end up hospitalized for exhaustion during the campaign season?

Ms. Flores: It was the end of a long day at the end of the primary. I was exhausted because I was still working full time. I didn't take any time off to campaign, and I think I had worked every single day straight for at least three and a half months. So, I was just exhausted and I wasn't feeling very well.

In order to not upset my stomach or do anything weird, I just stopped drinking water because I had all these obligations that ended with a live interview on Univision at 11 at night. I said: 'I can't cancel that because it's live,' and I just had a thousand things to do that day that were campaign related.

So, by the time Univision finished, I was ready to die. I did the interview, and I actually looked fairly normal, but I seriously wanted to curl up and die.

Then, I went straight to the emergency room after that. I just needed fluids. They had me on an IV all night, and I didn't get out of there until 7 in the morning. ... Now I have water on me all the time.



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