President
Obama, Democratic Senate leaders, and immigration rights groups heaped praise on
GOP Senate leaders for finally getting enough of their party members to pass an
immigration reform bill. It was indeed quite a feat considering the long,
relentless, and dogged fight by the GOP majority to duck, dodge, and bury
proposals on immigration reform. The conventional wisdom is that the 2012
presidential elections was the icy slap in the face to the GOP when the party
saw the faint chance it had to recapture the White House buried in the
avalanche of Hispanic votes against it. This was chalked up to its implacable
hostility to immigration reform. Many in the GOP, most notably former George W.
Bush political guru Karl Rove, have pounded away at GOP leaders to change their
ways and actively court Hispanic voters or risk sliding into permanent minority
party status in national elections. And backing immigration reform is supposedly
the quantum step forward to get more Hispanic votes. But they are still far and
away in the GOP minority.
The
proof is the immigration bill itself, and what it took to get it through the
Senate, and what its fate is likely to be in the House. Senate GOP leaders
overloaded the bill with a dizzying array of qualifiers, penalties, target triggers,
and the ultimate ploy, embedding into the bill top heavy demands for wildly
inflated border security spending and measures that are unnecessary. The border
is more secure than ever, and billions are spent on every surveillance method
under the sun and thousands of border patrol agents on the ground to keep it
that way. The bigger ploy to limit or kill outright immigration reform is the
House. GOP Senate leaders gave strong hints that they have little hope that the
House will pass the bill. Key GOP House leaders confirmed that by quickly
branding the bill an amnesty bill. This, along with the border security demand
have been the twin aces the GOP has played to kill immigration reform. It's no
different this time.
From
the view of many in the GOP, there are two sound political reasons to keep
playing hardball on immigration. The first is the calculus that Hispanic voters
won't leap over themselves in a headlong rush to the GOP simply because the
party has changed its mind about immigration. The hard reality is that the majority of
Hispanic voters are wedded to the Democratic Party for the same reason that
African-Americans, the poor, and for most of the country's recent political
history, rank and file white blue collar workers have been Democratic Party
stalwarts. They perceive that the Democrats will protect and fight for their
economic interests. The GOP is seen as the enemy of their interests. Hispanics
closely parallel African-American in that they suffer the same gaping
disparities in income, health care, and education in comparison to whites. They
are more likely to live in poor, segregated, urban communities, and their children
attend segregated, grossly underserved public schools.
Government
has always been viewed as their backstop to protect their interests. In exit
polls following the 2008 presidential election, voters were asked whether they
thought government or private business did the best at solving the country's
pressing economic problems. The overwhelming majority of Hispanics gave the
government the nod.
In
years past the GOP might have had a shot at attracting more Hispanic voters by
skillfully exploiting the wedge issues of abortion, gay marriage and
traditional family values. But this too has changed. A Pew survey in 2012
found that a majority of Hispanics now back gay marriage, abortion, and more
than half were single parents. In 2012 election exit polls, Hispanics supported
Obama's position that "health insurance organizations should be required to
cover contraceptives" by a huge margin.
The
other reason is the GOP's white conservative base. Polls do show that a
significant percent of GOP conservative voters favor some kind of immigration
reform. But they also show that the majority of GOP voters still cling tightly
to the notion that the borders are too porous and that any provision for
amnesty in a bill rewards law breaking. This is in part the ingrained belief in
the insecure border myth and in part the equally ingrained xenophobic, nativist
and borderline racist view of many in the GOP's core base. The fear is that a
full throated embrace of comprehensive immigration reform will alienate even
more conservative white voters that the GOP still heavily relies on to win
state elections. The hope is that with a better effort to get millions of
disaffected conservative and evangelical white voters back to the polls in 2014
and 2016 the GOP will have a real shot at winning national elections again, and
without Obama as the Democratic presidential incumbent in 2016 the even more hopeful longing of winning the White
House.
The
supposed GOP breakthrough on immigration reform is on closer look not the breakthrough
many think. And for many in the GOP immigration reform is still seen as a lose
lose.
Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political
analyst. His new ebook is America on
Trial: The Slaying of Trayvon Martin ( Amazon ). He is an associate editor of New America Media. He is a weekly
co-host of the Al Sharpton Show on American Urban Radio Network. He is the host
of the weekly Hutchinson Report on KTYM 1460 AM Radio Los Angeles and KPFK-Radio
and the Pacifica Network.
Follow Earl Ofari Hutchinson on Twitter:
http://twitter.com/earlhutchinson
