Saturday, November 06, 2010

Immigration in the new House

This could get ugly quickly.  It may serve to start answering the question of whether Republicans care about the Latino vote.


A newly empowered House GOP lawmaker said he hopes to advance legislation to end the right of U.S. citizenship for the children of illegal immigrants who are born in the United States. 
Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa), a staunch opponent of illegal immigration who will become chairman of a key subcommittee handling immigration rules, said that he thinks he'll be able to pass a bill out of the House to end the Constitution's birthright citizenship for U.S.-born children of illegal immigrants.
This is unlikely to play well to the non-Latino general public, which is generally not eager to mess with the constitution, and since this issue is tangential to issues that polls show are of most concern.

6 comments:

Pablo 7:03 PM  

When Lindsay Graham raised questions about the 14th amendment, one could easily assume that he was playing to his base. After all, (1) there is no chance on God's green earth of changing the 14th amendment (Graham knows this) and (2) Graham had been sanctioned by his own party in South Carolina three times. It was red meat.

However, with King, I think it is different. I think he really does want to tinker with the 14th amendment. This is not just political maneuvering.

Either way, eventually the conservative movement will lose its anti-immigrant rhetoric. It will have to or it will cease to exist.

mike a,  9:17 AM  

These fringe far right wing politicians are barking up the wrong tree. Why are guys like King trying to push away the single most important demographic for the future of the Republican Party?

I think you'll start to see a massive push among the Republican base to appeal to Latino voters, led by Marco Rubio. If the Republicans play their cards right (certainly no guarantee), this guy could be on the short list of national candidates in 2016. Anti-immigrant Republicans need to and will be eventually sidelined, plain and simple. The growth of the Latino population and the natural fit between Republicans and Latino values makes it an easy decision for both groups.

Randy Paul 7:13 AM  

It's worth noting that Marco Rubio will hold the seat once held by Mel Martinez, a Cuban-American who, as a child ws one of the Pedro Pan children IIRC. Martinez left precisely because he didn't like the direction the GOP was moving in on that issue.

Rubio comes in with zero seniority. I wouldn't expect his presence to change the direction.

mike a,  10:06 PM  

Point taken on the seniority as far as policymaking is concerned. Obama didn't have any seniority either. It doesn't matter in a primary if Rubio can sell himself.

Randy Paul 11:25 PM  

There's a world of difference between being president and a freshman senator.

mike a,  10:42 PM  

Indeed there is a massive difference, and we are all suffering for it because we have a freshman senator in the White House right now!

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