Thread: Latino advocates look for political payback

Latino advocates look for political payback
By: Carrie Budoff
July 9, 2007 07:48 PM EST

The goal was to work within the halls of Congress. Now, immigrant-rights groups want to replace the lawmakers who walk them.

Labor unions, immigrant advocates and Democratic activists have spent the two weeks since the Senate squashed a comprehensive immigration overhaul bill constructing the early framework of a political payback plan. Capitalizing on the Latino voting bloc and its disaffection with the Republican Party, the groups intend to use the recent debate as a rallying shriek in the 2008 election.

"We are the fastest-growing sector of the electorate, and we have shown a capacity to show up when we are good and angry," said Cecilia Munoz, senior vice president of the National Council of La Raza. "And we are good and angry."

The multipronged effort is still taking shape, but interviews with a half-dozen leading immigration proponents suggest a combination of targets.

Senators such as Norm Coleman (R-Minn.) and John Cornyn (R-Texas), who are up for reelection next year and opposed moving the bill to a final vote, will likely find themselves in the immigrant community's cross hairs. The whole Senate will be singled out this week as the Coalition for Comprehensive Immigration Reform places full-page ads in ethnic newspapers listing senators by name, party affiliation and their vote on the Senate bill.

Presidential candidates will be held to -- or dogged by -- their positions on the issue. And advocates plan to mount what some are calling an unprecedented effort to mobilize Hispanic voters and encourage legal immigrants to apply for citizenship and receive the right to participate in elections.

The Service Employees International Union is meeting this week with potential donors for a national campaign, said Eliseo Medina, the union's executive vice president. He declined to disclose a fundraising goal but said they "will raise enough money to have a program in every major city where immigrants are concentrated."

The push continues work that began after massive protests last year to a House bill by Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner Jr. (R-Wis.) that would have resulted in the toughest crackdown on illegal immigration in a decade.

"The immigrant community has finally understood the connection between voting and social change, and they can only make that happen through their vote," Medina said.

Hispanics still turn out in relatively small numbers: 8 percent of all voters in 2006, up from 7 percent two years earlier, according to CNN exit polling. But as the country's fastest-growing minority -- swelling in the Western and Southwestern states that President Bush relied on for his wafer-thin victories -- this slice of the electorate will only rise in prominence, political strategists say.

Bush took about 40 percent of the Hispanic vote in 2004, but that support dropped last year, as Republicans received only 30 percent.

Immigrant-rights advocates said they expect last month's immigration debate to be as galvanizing as California's Proposition 187, a 1994 measure that eliminated government benefits for illegal immigrants. It passed with 60 percent of the vote and propelled Republican Gov. Pete Wilson to a second term, but the backlash has since been cited as a key reason why California later turned Democratic.

Naturalization rates soared in California and nationwide from 1994 to 1996, immigrant-rights advocates said.

"We are entering a similar situation," said Simon Rosenberg, president of NDN, the New Democrat Network, a Washington group that has studied the politics of immigration.

His evidence: Like in 1994, immigrants feel as if they are under siege -- and have since the Sensenbrenner bill passed the House in 2005. The debate in recent months has been "manifestly out of bounds," Rosenberg said.

"When they are called criminals rather than workers, that is a very powerful message," Medina said.

Ira Mehlman, spokesman for the Federation for American Immigration Reform, which opposed the Senate bill, agrees that the electoral prospects for Republicans are grim, but for reasons that go beyond immigration.

"There may be a lot of anger among the illegal aliens (on immigration), but people try to conflate the interests and agenda of illegal aliens with the agenda of Hispanics in general," Mehlman said.

Hispanics are not single-issue voters, said Tracey Schmitt, spokeswoman for the Republican National Committee, which is headed by Sen. Mel Martinez (R-Fla.), a Cuban immigrant who has cautioned against the party alienating these voters.

"We are confident that the GOP and the Hispanic community share priorities," Schmitt said.

It should be noted that opposition to the Senate bill was bipartisan: 15 Democrats and one independent joined 37 Republicans to vote against it. Thirty-three Democrats, one independent and 12 Republicans backed the measure.

Democratic strategists argue that the Republican brand has suffered far more damage. Still, Rosenberg said, Democrats can't simply play a blame game for the next 18 months.

"It would be a serious strategic mistake if we said, 'Republicans stopped immigration reform,'" Rosenberg said. "They took a big swing on comprehensive immigration reform and it failed. That's not a good way to go to the Hispanic electorate."

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immigrants feel as if they are under siege

I challenge anyone to come up with a IMMIGRANT who is under siege. They don't want to understand what ILLEGAL means and that we will NOT stand by and watch our laws be compromised.

It's an indictment against our leaders that we have people who have broken our laws and they stand up and demand of us and threaten. This should not be happening in this country. For every 1 illegal alien supporter there are HUNDREDS of patriotic citizens who will not stand by idly and watch us go straight to hades in a handbasket!

They are mad??????? Well, we are p---ed! And p---ed trumps mad every time! Let them go back where they came from and be mad at their own governments!!!!!!! The illegal aliens are a bunch of cowards afraid of their own corrupt governments. If they don't fight them, they are dooming all their countrymen. Some principals!

Girlygirl...Amen Sista...You read my mind........

I suppose it shows how simple minded I am about the issue, but
it blows my mind every time people like Cecilia Munoz say they
are going to retaliate at the ballot box because the majority of
Americans will not give preferential treatment on a racial basis
for groups who want to break our laws. It just seems like a
majority of American will retaliate back & vote against candidates
who pander to these ethno/race baiting transparent dirt bags, i.e.
Lindsay Grahamnesty.

I think the Dems are in for a rude awakening come election time cause I know many Dems who are UPSET too.

WHOA 8 per cent of the vote, were in big trouble now folks These people really believe they have the power to undermine the citizens of this country.

excuse me many legal hispanic's like "you do not speak for me" do not agree with you La Raza and you are just not that powerful enough to take down anyone unless we the people want them taken down!!

excuse me many legal hispanic's like "you do not speak for me" do not agree with you La Raza and you are just not that powerful enough to take down anyone unless we the people want them taken down!!

Right you are. Today is not too early to make sure that everyone we know is registered to vote and make sure they vote. There is a pitiful apathy among voters 18-25; it is our civic duty to nag them into compliance.