California Democratic Rep. Pete Aguilar is taking over the highest-ranking office ever held by a Latino - the third-in-the-party leadership - with the promise that Democrats will regain a majority of seats in the U.S. House of Representatives by 2024.

Aguilar was elected by his colleagues in late November to serve in the next Congress as chairman of the House Democratic Caucus. Aguilar is 43 years old and has been serving as caucus vice chair.

According to NBC News, “Aguilar’s job will be to help steer the House Democrats, now in the minority, as they try to push their legislative priorities, keeping members united on issues, conveying the party message and working to take back the majority in 2024”.

“We are going to do everything we can to stay united, to lower the cost of prescription drugs for Americans, lower everyday costs at the pump. Those are the things the House Democratic Caucus is going to stand for, as well as implementing the legislation we’ve already passed, bipartisan infrastructure bill to create good paying jobs in our communities”, he said.

Part of a new generation of leaders — one that is more diverse and younger — Aguilar said he wishes for a governing style of the past. 

“Traditionally, Democrats and Republicans, we can have some policy disagreements. Some of these individuals, they don’t want to have policy disagreements, they want to do anything they can to win and subvert the vote, rerun elections and deny free and fair elections,” Aguilar told NBC News on the eve of the leadership elections. “I want to go back to that time when that courtesy was at the forefront”.

“I think it’s important to have a Latino to be in the top three in House leadership. I think the time has come. I think our growing number in the Hispanic Caucus of the Democratic Caucus and we were successful in delivering Latino representation in seats in Denver, Colorado, and Portland, Oregon, and Las Cruces, New Mexico and Chicago, Illinois, and an Afro Latino in Orlando, Florida”, Aguilar said on Tuesday night, November 29.

“They will tell their own stories. I want to be an ally and I want to speak with them and for our own communities,” said Aguilar, who is Mexican American but whose family has deep roots in the U.S.”.

Two other Latinos also served as chairman of the House Democratic Caucus, Senator Bob Menendez of New Jersey, when he was in the House, and Xavier Becerra, secretary of Health and Human Services, when he was in the House representing California.

However, the position was not previously one of the top three leadership positions of the Democratic Party when they held it.

Aguilar said in a 2021 interview that he doesn't like to lose. For him, his defeat in the 2012 congressional primary taught him about consensus building.