Thread: GOP's Standing With Latinos Faces Test

GOPs Standing With Latinos Faces Test in Wake of Immigration Debate


By Eleanor Stables, CONGRESSIONAL QUARTERLY

Published: June 29, 2007


President George W. Bush, and other Republicans who advocated the immigration overhaul bill during a bitter Senate debate, warned that failure to pass the measure would set back Republicans hopes for gains among Hispanics a constituency that is growing fast, is increasingly engaged in politics and generally leans strongly to the Democrats.


On Thursday, the legislation failed in the Senate, under an assault led by conservative Republicans who said the bill was too soft on illegal immigrants. Now, the upcoming 2008 elections will provide a quick test of whether Bush's warnings to his party are borne out.


Republican officials took a more upbeat approach in the wake of the immigration bill's scuttling. Republican National Committee Press Secretary Tracey Schmitt said in an e-mail to CQ that Hispanics are not single-issue voters.


They care not only about immigration, but also about key priorities such as better education for our children, fiscal and national security, minority home ownership, energy independence and family values, Schmitt said. On issue after issue, the GOP and the Hispanic community share priorities.


But the proposition that the Republican Party has been damaged among Hispanics draws agreement across party lines among many outside supporters of the plan, which would have provided a form of legal status to the estimated 11 million to 12 million illegal immigrants; created a temporary guest worker program; and provided $4.4 billion in mandatory spending for border security and enforcement.


Among those who believe the GOP may have hurt itself among Hispanics is Bettina Inclan, executive director of the Republican National Hispanic Assembly, who says her group supports comprehensive immigration overhaul.


Inclan said in an interview, If the Republican Party doesn't understand that you have to be more careful on focusing on the problem without blaming a certain sector of society, they’re going to be really hurting in the upcoming election among Hispanics.


Inclan said Republicans can “fix” immigration law without negative rhetoric about immigrants, and without losing appeal among either the party base or Hispanics. She cited as an example the success enjoyed in the 2006 campaign by Republican Sen. Jon Kyl of Arizona, a state that borders Mexico and is an entry point and home to many illegal immigrants.

Kyl did really well with his base and Hispanics,” according to Inclan, as he won a third term with 53 percent of the vote and a nearly 10 percentage-point margin over well-funded Democratic real estate developer Jim Pederson. Kyl emerged this year as one of the lead Republican backers of the Senate's failed immigration legislation.


Some Republicans have used very negative rhetoric and some of them continue with negative rhetoric, said Inclan, but she contended that the rhetoric has subsided compared with last year's immigration debate, in which both Democrats and Republicans had negative campaign ads about immigrants. Everyone's trying to be more cautious now, she added.


Nonetheless, the Republicans do appear to be at least at risk of mortgaging some of the apparent gains they had made with Hispanics during the Bush era. Many Hispanic activists and others dispute the accuracy of exit polls showing Bush received 44 percent of the Latino vote to Democrat John Kerry's 53 percent in 2004. But it does seem clear that Bush, with his actions as the past governor of Texas and his position as a moderate on immigration issues, had unusually strong outreach to the Hispanic constituency for a Republican leader.


There are Democratic activists who are happy to proclaim that the Republicans have turned over the keys to the White House by alienating Hispanic voters.
Simon Rosenberg, president and founder of partisan advocacy group New Democrat Network, said, Republicans are handing the Democrats the presidency with the way they are handling the immigration debate.


At a press conference held before the Senate bill failed, Rosenberg predicted that if Congress did not pass immigration overhaul legislation, Republicans would lose their ability to be a majority party in the 21st century.


Republicans, he said, are losing popularity in states with large Hispanic populations, such as Florida, Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico and Nevada — all states that Bush carried in 2004 and were vital to his relatively narrow electoral vote victory over Kerry.


Hispanics are a new electorate . . . that hasn't settled down, though it leans Democrat, Rosenberg added.


Cecilia Muñoz, vice president of the office of research, advocacy, and legislation at the National Council of La Raza, a Hispanic organization, said at the press conference that recent Republican gains among Hispanics are being reversed by the immigration debate.


The Democrats are being handed an opportunity here, there's no question, that the Republicans are in danger of framing themselves for a generation of Latinos as the party of immigrant bashing and of harmful policy,” she said.


But Democrats are also at risk of such perceptions if they too vote for "xenophobic" immigration policy, Muñoz said.
The Latino community will remember this particular moment, it will shape a generation of politics in our community and in our country,” she forecast.

Yet Christine Sierra, professor of political science at the University of New Mexico, dismissed claims that immigration will be such an crucial issue to Hispanics during the 2008 elections.
Immigration may be important, but I don't think people will base their votes solely on that single issue, said Sierra.


Sierra predicted that the only people who would vote based solely on the immigration issue are those most against legalization of illegal immigrants a constituency that proved to be the most mobilized and politically potent during the stormy debate over the immigration bill. So some Republicans trying to compromise on the issue might be vulnerable from the right of their party, Sierra said.


In fact, the only current aspirant for the 2008 Republican presidential nomination who might stand to gain among Hispanics from the immigration debate is Arizona Sen. John McCain, a co-sponsor and strong advocate of the Senate bill.
And the backlash against the bill and against McCain among a large segment of hardcore Republicans has cast doubt upon his ability to successfully compete in upcoming primaries and caucuses that are likely to be dominated by voters on the party's conservative wing.

"A lot of the Republican base was passionate about the issue, and they made their influence felt," McCain admitted after the Senate bill's failure.

© 2006 Congressional Quarterly

A VERY HIGH PERCENTAGE OF HISPANICS IN THIS COUNTRY ARE HERE ILLEGALLY AND CANT VOTE ANYWAY. BESIDES THAT THERE ARE TEN TIMES MORE NON HISPANICS IN THIS COUNTRY THAN THERE ARE HISPANICS. SO WE DROWN THEM OUT

Pandering to illegals is not a good way to go. Most Hispanics here legally did not agree with the amnesty bill. The only ones who should worry are the likes of Sellout Lindsey Graham, McCain and other GOP Senators who may be up for re-election.

More empty rhetoric and threats from the disappointed liberal amnesty backers.