Thread: La Raza "Punishing" Senators who voted against Amn

We really have to stop the funds to La Raza - they just keep getting worse and worse - they are like the Mafia. Now they are going to "punish" the Senators who voted against the Amnesty bill and they are only able to do this because businesses are giving them the money!

http://dyn.politico.com/printstory.cfm? ... BAA22C80B7

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."

TM & © THE POLITICO & POLITICO.COM, a division of Allbritton Communications Company

I predict this strategy will backfire.

THERE ARE MANY MANY MORE NON HISPANICS THAN THERE ARE HISPANICS. SO WHEN IT COMES TO VOTING.....THEY ARE ON THE WEAK END. THEY WONT WIN ANY VOTING "PISSING MATCH"

BUT I TOTALLY AGREE THAT ALL FUNDING TO LA RAZA HAS GOT TO BE HALTED. ALL FUNDING TO ANY OF THOSE GROUPS HAS GOT TO BE HALTED. THAT IS TAXPAYER MONEY.

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.

Ira Mehlman is making over $125,000 per year from Americans concerned about illegal immigration, but he will fight you with a pair of metal tongs if you try to give an ALIPAC supporter or a blogger allied with our cause a cheap bagel and coffee!

No wonder things are so bad in DC with people like Mehlman playing point.

W

"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."

Blah, Blah. If the amnesty bill would have passed, the vast majority of VOTERS (i.e., LEGAL U.S. CITIZENS) would have been a lot angrier AND had the ability to actually do something about it (i.e., vote). And if I recall correctly, after 500,000 illegals marched in the streets of LA back in early 2006, there was going to be an "unprecedented" voter registration of Hispanics that did not pan out.

As the article later states:

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

I think La Raza and these other racist hispanic groups gained most of their power under the Bush adminatration. Before Bush they were somewhat pushing their racist agenda but not like they are now, if fact most people never heard of them. By allowing uncontrolled illegal immigration in huge numbers into this country over the last six years, and the close relationship this president has with Mexico has given them more power to do damage to the rest of us. Of course the big corporations are funding La Raza because they see illegals as new customers... Unfortunately that is what we are seeing now.

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

It's a two-way street! We want to replace those individuals that support amnesty and the pro-illegal immigrant advocates want to replace the politicians that are against it. Now you tell me, if you were a politician which group would you fear the most? Geez, comparing their power at the polls to ours is like comparing the battle of Gettysburg to a home invasion or a dinosaur to a lizard.

Yawn! They're REALLY REALLY REALLY going to pull out all the stops THIS TIME! What will it be - another grand march? O good! More Americans waking up! Civil disobedience? ditto. A Boycott? I remeber how hard the last one was to endure

LOTTA MOUTH!

Originally Posted by Melissa

"We are the fastest-growing sector of the electorate,

Only because the traitors in DC have made you the fastest growing sector. Once the traitors are gone Hispanics may be the fastest shrinking sector.

Plus half of Hispanic-Americans who vote oppose amnesty for illegal aliens.

Acually, I get a kick out of this. Do they really think after telling these Senators they're going to vote them out, that Cole or any other Senator is going to help more get citizenship so they've got more Latinos to boot them out? HA! HA! HA! What a joke! Even our do-nothing Senators are smarter than that.

Our poor Senators are being pushed from both sides. Too bad for the Hispanic crowd that we Americans know how to push a whole lot harder than they do.