Salon.com > Hispanics

Have Republicans read their new rebranding report?

Mon, 18 Mar 2013 21:13:00 +0000

How serious are Republicans about their effort to reach out to minorities, one of the core doctrines of their big new Growth and Opportunity Project report they released this morning? We may find out pretty quickly with a series of tests that will demonstrate whether Republican elites at the Republican National Committee can control the more unsavory elements in the base.

The report says "we have to engage" minority voters "and show our sincerity.” A first test of that strategy approached them almost instantly, with President Obama’s nomination today of Tom Perez to serve as labor secretary. And so far, they don't seem to be implementing it very deftly.

Perez, who is currently the head of the Department of Justice’ Civil Rights Division, has had his name dragged through the mud over factually inaccurate, race-baiting charges of impropriety. Some conservatives claim that Perez, a Latino working under the first black president and first black attorney general in history, dismissed a case against a handful of New Black Panther activists in some kind gesture of racial solidarity.

You call this immigration reform?

Sat, 02 Mar 2013 12:00:00 +0000

Remember when a big takeaway from the 2012 elections was the changing political calculus behind immigration reform? After Republicans got trounced among Hispanics and Asian Americans, the political logic of legalization seemed all but inevitable, setting the stage for the passage of comprehensive immigration reform early this year.

Fast forward four months, and we remain mired in the same tired debates we were having back in 2007.

It was rational to assume that the election of 2012 would augur trouble for the partisans of business-as-usual in immigration policy. For a time, Republicans were thought to have learned a lesson or two from their historically pitiful performance at the polls among voters of color (with their share of the Latino vote plummeting from 44% in 2004 to 27% in 2012).

Conservatives revolt over immigration shift

Fri, 09 Nov 2012 22:25:00 +0000

After getting trounced Tuesday, thanks in large part to lopsided Latino support for Democrats, some Republican leaders are having a bit of a come-to-Jesus moment and saying for the first time they need to moderate on immigration policy to win back Hispanic voters. Speaker John Boehner, along with pundits Sean Hannity and Charles Krauthammer, have been leading the charge. But as Steve Kornacki noted this morning, there’s a real chance the hard-liners and nativists in the GOP base could sabotage this strategy.

Indeed, the response has already been as swift as it's been blunt.“I think what you’re seeing now is desperation on the part of the Republican Party. And when people get desperate, they tend to do things that don’t quite make much sense,” Ira Mehlman told Salon. He’s the spokesperson for the Federation for American Immigration Reform, which has been at the center of conservative immigration thinking, helping to promote laws like Arizona’s SB-1070 and its author Kris Kobach, who works for FAIR’s legal arm. “My message to the Republican Party is: Don’t act of out of desperation ... by simply embracing the same position that the Democrats are embracing. They’re only going to be digging the hole deeper for themselves.”

Condoleezza Rice: GOP sent ‘mixed messages’

Fri, 09 Nov 2012 13:47:00 +0000

WASHINGTON (AP) — Former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice says the Republican Party must adapt better to rapidly changing demographics in the United States, saying the GOP sent "mixed messages" in the election campaign on immigration and women's issues.

Rice tells "CBS This Morning" the changing face of America "really necessitates" new thinking. She says, quote, "When you send mixed messages, sometimes people hear only one side of that." Rice says the GOP came close to matching the Democrats in the popular vote. But she also acknowledges that "clearly we are losing important segments" of the electorate. Rice adds that the party needs to "appeal to those groups."

Rice says she wouldn't be interested in succeeding Hillary Rodham Clinton as secretary of state, even if asked to do so by President Barack Obama.

Obama’s big Hispanic win worries GOP

Thu, 08 Nov 2012 15:48:00 +0000

DENVER (AP) — Omayra Vasquez blinks and does a double take when asked why she voted for President Barack Obama. The reason for her was as natural as breathing.

"I feel closer to him," said Vasquez, a 43-year-old Federal Express worker from Denver. "He cares about the Spanish people."

Millions of Hispanic voters seconded that emotion Tuesday with resounding 71 percent support for Obama, tightening Democrats' grip on the White House and putting Republicans on notice that they must seriously court the nation's largest minority group if they want to win the presidency again.

According to initial exit polls, Republican candidate Mitt Romney, who backed hard-line immigration measures, came away with 27 percent Hispanic support, less than any presidential candidate in 16 years and a sharp drop from the 44 percent claimed by President George W. Bush in 2004 after he embraced immigration reform.

"We could have won this election if the party had a better brand name with Hispanics," said Al Cardenas, chairman of the American Conservative Union. "I don't believe there's a path to the White House in the future that doesn't include 38 percent-40 percent Hispanic support."

Is Sheriff Joe Arpaio driving Arizona voters to the Democrats?

Tue, 16 Oct 2012 21:30:00 +0000

Arizona has earned its reputation as a sort of conservative laboratory where right-wing fetishes too kooky for other parts of the country can be brought to life. Among other experiments, there's been SB-1070, the infamous immigration measure, and a law to allow people to carry concealed weapons without permits or background checks. Oh, and the state has seen plenty of flirtation with birtherism. It’s fitting Arizona has its very own time zone, a Democratic flack joked to me recently.

But you reap what you sow, as they say, and the nativist fervor state officials have been whipping up for years may be turning on them. Former state Senate president Russell Pearce, the author of SB-1070, has already been deposed. And on Nov. 6, the state’s even more famous immigrant-fighter, Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, could be next. Despite a massive war chest, Arpaio is now clinging to a mere 4-point lead, according to the latest poll. The most likely reason? Arpaio's racially charged antics have politicized and mobilized Latinos

Rosie Pérez to Mitt: “Your policies suck”

Mon, 15 Oct 2012 15:58:00 +0000

Actress Rosie Pérez has a message for Mitt Romney, who infamously joked that the election would be easier if he were born to Mexican parents. In a new video, Pérez explains how the presidential candidate is dead wrong in his assertion that winning the election would be "easier" if he were Latino.

“The truth is the reason why Latinos aren’t voting for you is because your policies suck,” she says. “Being Latino wouldn’t win you the election, but saying jokingly that you wish you were might actually lose it for you.”

Watch the video here:

Can this activist save Arizona?

Fri, 21 Sep 2012 16:29:00 +0000

In the spring of 2008, after a short period of organizing immigrant construction workers for the Laborers’ International Union, Randy Parraz decided to launch his first battle in the Phoenix area to expose civil rights abuses, including racial profiling. Parraz was not dealing with Russell Pearce’s legislative policies but with the dragnet practices of [Maricopa County] Sheriff [Joe] Arpaio, whose immigrant crime sweeps had been spiraling unchecked in targeted Latino neighborhoods.

Establishing the Maricopa Citizens for Safety and Accountability, Parraz and his supporters appealed to the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors to address Arpaio’s 20-year reign of fear and clampdown. Over several months, Parraz’s group filed petitions and complaints, and turned out in scores at board meetings, but never managed to nudge the equivocating board into action.

And perhaps for good reason. Arpaio had teamed up with disgraced Maricopa County attorney Andrew Thomas to launch a bizarre witch hunt against county employees and supervisors who had questioned his reign of terror. It took years and a few destroyed careers before Thomas was finally called before an ethics hearing and tried for fraud and dishonest conduct in filing frivolous criminal and civil cases to harass his rivals, and disbarred from the courtroom.

Quote of the day: Obama’s biggest failure

Thu, 20 Sep 2012 22:38:00 +0000

The President was courting the Hispanic vote at a Univision News forum on Thursday, and during the interview he agreed with anchor Jorge Ramos that his biggest failure so far has been his inability to enact immigration reform:

"Jorge, as you remind me, my biggest failure so far is we haven't gotten comprehensive immigration reform done yet," Obama said, adding: "What I confess I did not expect, and so I'm happy to take responsibility for being naive here, is that Republicans who had previously supported comprehensive immigration reform -- my opponent in 2008, who had been a champion of it and who attended these meetings -- suddenly would walk away. That's what I did not anticipate."

Dems see Latino-based future as union clout wanes

Tue, 04 Sep 2012 21:56:00 +0000

CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) — On a precarious political bridge, Democrats are desperately trying to reach a promising future before their old foundation crumbles behind them.

Union clout has eroded. But Hispanic strength is growing, raising long-term hopes. What about now?

The party survived the mass exodus of Southern conservatives, nearly all of whom are now Republicans. That left labor unions as a backbone of Democratic activism, providing crucial foot soldiers and volunteers in countless elections. But steady and long-running attrition among American unions is one big reason Democrats have few realistic hopes of regaining control of the U.S. House this fall and are battling to keep their grip on the White House and Senate.

The chief bright spot in the party's future may still be several years away. Minority populations, especially Hispanics, are growing at a much faster rate than whites, and they lean heavily toward Democrats, partly because of Republicans' stern approach to immigration.

President Barack Obama lavishes attention on his party's traditional base, including union households, as well as on the up-and-coming minority constituencies. But it's not clear whether the shift in influence from the old blood to the new is progressing fast enough to save the president from a bad economy and a well-financed Republican opponent, Mitt Romney.

DoJ to monitor elections in Arizona

Mon, 27 Aug 2012 17:18:00 +0000

The U.S. Justice Department has announced that it will monitor primary elections in Arizona's Maricopa County.

The department said Monday that federal observers will be dispatched Tuesday to make sure that Maricopa County follows the federal Voting Rights Act of 1965. That law prohibits discrimination in the election process on the basis of race, color or membership in a minority language group.

Observers will watch and record activities during voting hours at polling locations.

Maricopa County officials, especially Sheriff Joe Arpaio, have come under fire for the treatment of Latino residents.

Arpaio is accused in federal court of ordering some patrols not based on reports of crime but rather on letters from people who complained about people with dark skin congregating in an area or speaking Spanish.

GOP platform adopts Arizona law

Wed, 22 Aug 2012 14:54:00 +0000

In addition to a plank calling for a total ban on abortion with no exceptions (which Democrats have quickly dubbed the Akin Amendment), and another taking a hard line against Shariah law, the Republican Party platform this year will most likely include a plank calling for more Arizona-style immigration laws. The draft platform, which still has to be approved next week by the full convention in Tampa, includes language stating that laws like Arizona’s SB 1070 should be "encouraged, not attacked,” and calls for federal authorities to drop challenges to the immigration laws.

Latino poll spells trouble for Romney

Fri, 06 Jul 2012 15:33:00 +0000

While immigration has been sidelined lately by debates over healthcare and jobs, new survey data today gets at the key question on the potential political impact of either party's border policy: How much do Latino voters actually care about immigration? Mitt Romney has bet they don't care very much. The presumed Republican nominee has stuck by the hard-line immigration position he adopted during the primary and has instead tried to sell a jobs message to Hispanics, arguing that they care about the economy far more than anything else.

This may have been a miscalculation, as Romney has still failed to poll anywhere near the 44 percent of the Latino vote George W. Bush captured in 2004. Today, the polling firm Latino Decisions offers some of the most comprehensive data yet to explain why, looking at the the key swing state of Florida. The poll asked Latino registered voters, “What are the most important issues facing the [Hispanic/Latino] community that you think Congress and the President should address?” Thirty percent said immigration reform or the Dream Act tops their list, while 30 percent chose fixing the economy, and 17 percent picked unemployment. So economic issues in general are more important, but immigration remains hugely important.