New Mexico Governor Susana Martinez said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) denigrated Hispanics in 2010 when Reid said he could not imagine how anyone of Hispanic heritage could be a Republican. Martinez charged that Reid, in those remarks, assumed Latinos are "not independent thinkers."

"Well, you know, I find that disappointing that anyone would think that we're not independent thinkers," Martinez said in an interview with Greta Van Susteren on Fox News' "On The Record" when asked about the remarks. "I'm an independent thinker. I am a woman. I am a Republican. And I think for myself and I decide where I vote and how I vote."

Martinez, a Republican governor who is of Mexican descent, said for Reid "to make a statement like that is to assume that we are not independent thinkers, and we are."

In 2010, Reid said: "I don't know how anyone of Hispanic heritage could be a Republican, okay. Do I need to say more?"

Martinez has often said she used to be a Democrat because her parents were, but decided she was a Republican after she realized she agreed with the GOP on more public policy issues than she did with Democrats.