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  1. #1
    Senior Member concernedmother's Avatar
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    CA history hints immigration crackdown will hurt GOP

    http://nctimes.com/articles/2006/04/...4_134_4_06.txt

    California history hints immigration crackdown could hurt national GOP

    By: ERICA WERNER and PETER PRENGAMAN - Associated Press

    LOS ANGELES -- As Congress debates whether to rewrite immigration law, some Republicans recall a hard lesson learned here a dozen years ago -- get-tough policies targeting illegal immigrants can cause lasting political damage.

    In California, the GOP's struggles often are traced to a 1994 initiative to deny public services to illegal immigrants. A fierce backlash against Proposition 187 and its GOP backers drove Hispanics to register as and support Democrats, and Democrats now dominate government.

    That history isn't lost on the streets, where protesters have denounced immigration legislation passed by the Republican-controlled House.


    "The reality is that this community will eventually get citizenship, and we already know who we won't be voting for," said Dagoberto Zavala, 52, an El Salvadoran immigrant protesting at a weekend rally in Orange County, where signs read: "Tuesday We March. Tomorrow We Vote."

    Voting was one result of Proposition 187, which also prompted widespread protests.

    Even so, it initially seemed a Republican boon.

    Gov. Pete Wilson used immigration to boost his 1994 re-election bid, which included an ad showing illegal immigrants sprinting across the border while an announcer intoned, "They keep coming." In a banner year for Republicans, support for 187 -- which voters passed handily but federal courts later tossed -- helped ensure Wilson's victory and usher in tenuous GOP control over the Assembly.

    But the initiative's long-term implications soon became apparent.

    "Republican became a bad word among Hispanics of all stripes here in California," said Allan Hoffenblum, a GOP analyst in Los Angeles. "The only ones who dispute that are in total and complete denial."

    Wilson's share of the Hispanic vote plummeted from 47 percent in 1990 to 25 percent in 1994, according to research by the nonpartisan Field Institute in San Francisco.

    Meanwhile, the fast-growing Hispanic vote has become increasingly important -- by 2005, Hispanics were one-fifth of the electorate. They haven't been inclined to register Republican.

    The trends have produced disturbing results for the GOP: No Republican candidate for governor or president has won more than 40 percent of California's Hispanic vote since 1990, according to the Field Poll. Democrats firmly control the state Legislature and congressional delegation and all statewide offices except governor and secretary of state. Hispanic allegiance to Democrats helped the party retake the 80-member Assembly in 1996; the GOP has gone from 41 seats in 1994 to 32 Tuesday.

    California is on the mind of prominent Republicans such as Ed Gillespie, the former chairman of the party's national committee who has urged his party to embrace Senate legislation that would create a guest worker program and the prospect of citizenship for illegal immigrants already here. The Senate measure doesn't contain provisions in the House-passed bill which would classify illegal immigrants as felons and stretch a wall across the border with Mexico.

    Gillespie, who now works at a public affairs firm with clients that support a guest worker approach, noted that the Hispanic vote is increasingly decisive in swing states such as New Mexico, Florida and Colorado.

    "Mishandling the immigration debate Tuesday could result in the Republican Party struggling in these states and others in the same way it now does in California," Gillespie wrote in a weekend Wall Street Journal op-ed piece.

    Many House Republicans have a different political calculus.

    All but three of California's 19 GOP members voted for the House bill, rejecting comparisons to Proposition 187 and saying their constituents are galled by illegal immigration and protests featuring Mexican flags.

    "Most Americans sit back and say, 'This is ridiculous. They come here illegally and then they take advantage of our laws,"' said Rep. Gary Miller, R-Diamond Bar. "Overwhelmingly people want something done."

    Although the White House praised the House immigration bill, President Bush supports a guest worker plan and during his 2000 campaign said he opposed Proposition 187.

    Bush also has made inroads among Hispanic voters, and one school of thought holds that a law like the Senate legislation could consolidate those gains.

    Democrats are signaling they see their own political advantages in the national immigration debate.

    "It just amazes me," said California Democratic Party Chairman Art Torres, "that the Republicans don't pay attention to history."

    Associated Press writer Erica Werner contributed from Washington, D.C.; Associated Press writer Peter Prengaman contributed from Los Angeles.
    <div>"True patriotism hates injustice in its own land more than anywhere else."
    - Clarence Darrow</div>

  2. #2
    Senior Member CountFloyd's Avatar
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    I get so tired of reading this.

    At best, the GOP might get 40% of the hispanic vote, and only then when the candidate is an out and out panderer like Bush.

    So what is the GOP afraid of? That they'll lose be the hispanics by a margin of 7 out of 10 instead of 6 out of 10?

    Meanwhile, what used to be called "the base" is moving as far away from the GOP as possible. Isn't anybody worried about that loss?
    It's like hell vomited and the Bush administration appeared.

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