Welcome Message from Congressman Gabe Vasquez
Co-Chair, Bipartisan Public Lands Caucus
As a lifelong New Mexican, I grew up fishing, hunting, and camping on our public lands with my family. Those outdoor experiences taught me resilience, self-reliance, and pride in my culture. Nature shaped who I am and the kind of leader I strive to be.
In 2017, I co-founded the Nuestra Tierra Conservation Project to ensure Latino and other underrepresented communities could see themselves in outdoor spaces and have equal access to them. I helped write the nation’s first Outdoor Equity Fund and worked to get hunting and fishing regulations translated into Spanish, because everyone deserves to feel like they belong on our public lands.
These experiences, and the lessons I learned from my community, guided me when I came to Congress. When I saw attempts to quietly sell off hundreds of thousands of acres of public land through backroom deals, I knew I had to act. I co-founded the Bipartisan Public Lands Caucus to defend one simple principle: our public lands must stay in public hands.
Together with my Republican co-chair, Rep. Ryan Zinke, we built bipartisan pressure to stop a proposed land sell-off in Utah and Nevada that would have benefited the wealthy at the expense of everyday Americans. We proved that when we work together — hunters and hikers, ranchers and conservationists, Democrats and Republicans — we can protect the places that make us who we are.
Public lands are part of who we are as Americans, symbols of freedom, opportunity, and responsibility. By standing together across party lines, we can keep these lands open, healthy, and thriving for the people who depend on them and the generations who will inherit them.
Sincerely,
Gabe Vasquez
U.S. Representative for New Mexico’s Second Congressional District
Co-Chair, Bipartisan Public Lands Caucus