Arizona

I've had a hard time sitting down this weekend and writing about what happened to Representative Gabby Giffords and the good people in that strip mall parking lot on Saturday morning.   I know Representative Giffords.  To me she has always represented the best of what a Member of Congress could be.  Smart, hard-working, in touch with her complicated district, willing to take a stand even on tough ones like immigration reform and SB1070 (just take a look at the bio on her Congressional website to get a sense of her - remarkable stuff).  It is unimaginable that this thoughtful, respectful, serious elected leader was gunned down on Saturday.  In hearing the news my kids saw their daddy cry for the first time in their lives.  Am still strugging to make sense of it all, and am trying awfully hard not to put anything down in writing until I take a bit more time.  

But I also can't see what happened outside the prism of the extraordinarily contentious politics in Arizona these last few years.   NDN and its affiliates have spent millions of dollars in Arizona over the past decade, working to enfranchise and empower a Latino community that has been steamrolled and scapegoated to a degree far worse than other Latino community of size anywhere in the US.  In this past election cycle, NDN ran a major Spanish language media campaign in AZ, CO and NV, in part driven by the coursening of the debate and dialogue in Arizona (so well captured by the courageous Sheriff Dupnik) and ended up spending more money in the Tucson media market than any other.  As EJ Dionne writes about today, Rep. Giffords has been on the receiving of this extra-ordinary threatening  and contentious brand of politics (her opponent held fundraisers on a shooting range) more than perhaps any politician in the US these past several years.   

As we prepare for the Monday Martin Luther King holiday next week, let us reflect on his message, and in particular our own willingness to combat intolerance in our midst.  There is perhaps no greater founding principle of our nation than tolerance for those not like us.  It certainly predates the revolutionary spirit of the Boston Tea Party so very much in vogue these days, and in many ways is much more appropriate to the moment we are in.

Our nation in growing through profound and historic change right now.  We are leaving the security of a post WWII "American Century" culture, and entering a period of our national story much less certain.  We are have seen vast waves of immigration which is changing who we are.  Technology and media have become both liberating but also disruptive forces, literally reshaping the way we do just about everything in our lives.  Rising powers and greater global competition are remaking the world as we know it, forcing us to re-imagine America's role in a new century.  More must be done by our leaders to talk about these changes, help people understand them, and to craft plans and strategies which maximize our national chance for success.  This next great American project will have to be grounded in the value of tolerance and civil discourse, for we, Americans, have become much more diverse, and success in this new more complicated world of the 21st century will require America to inter-act with, and partner with, a vastly more diverse set of global actors than in the past.  Tolerance of people not like us will become a bedrock value of the emerging American ethic of this new century, or this next great American project will not turn out as we all hope it will.  

But i digress. and will certainly have more to add here in the days ahead.  I end by expressing my deepest and most profound hope for Gabby's recovery, and sympathy for those families who lost loved ones in this terrible, terrible tragedy.

Update - NYTimes has a thoughtful take along similar lines here.

Over a month ago, NDN launched a major Spanish-language radio campaign in three southwestern states designed to increase Hispanic participation in the upcoming elections. Our supporters have chipped in more than $350,000 so far for this campaign, and thanks to new donations received this week, we were able to significantly increase our media buys in Arizona and Colorado, and put a new closing ad on the air in each state.

You can listen to or read the scripts of these powerful, creative ads-- featuring Joe Arpaio, Jan Brewer and Tom Tancredo-- here.

But there are more stations to buy in our three states - Arizona, Colorado and Nevada - and more ads we can produce and run.  Can you help us expand our final weekend ad buys with a contribution of $25, $50 or more to our campaign? Every dollar you give will go into buying more time for our powerful ads which are now saturating the airwaves in these three states, but we must receive your donation by 4pm today.

Please support our campaign today and help us make sure that the fastest-growing part of the American electorate turns out strong this November.

And thanks for all that you do.

Earlier this morning, NDN announced that we had purchased a substantial amount of advertising time on Spanish-language radio stations in Arizona, Colorado and Nevada.  The campaign in each of the three states focus on messages encouraging Latino-American to vote in the upcoming 2010 elections.

The campaigns in Colorado and Nevada are designed to increase awareness of the early voting option, which begins Saturday, October 16th, in Nevada and Monday, October 18th in Colorado.  The campaign in Arizona, which has already been on the air for several weeks, makes the case that the only way for Latinos to push back and eventually prevail against scapegoating politicians like Governor Jan Brewer and Sheriff Joe Arpaio is to participate in local civic life and to vote in elections.

Participation of Latino voters in American politics is on the rise.  In recent years the share of the Latino electorate has increased from 5% to 9% in national elections.  In Colorado the Latino share of the electorate has increased from 8% in 2004 to 13% in 2008.  In Nevada the share has increased from 10% in 2004 to 15% in 2008.  With investment this cycle Arizona could start to see the kind of increases neighboring states have seen in recent elections.

You can find the ads and scripts here. We are proud of these campaigns, and feel they will powerfuly supplement the hard work already being done by many groups on the ground.

NDN is still raising money for these aggressive campaigns, and hopes to expand its initial media buys in the coming days.  If you want to support this effort, please consider making a donation to NDN today. While it is still late in the election, these campaigns can use more money to increase our buys and reach - and all new money raised will go directly to putting more ads on the air.

For many years NDN has been a leading national advocate for Hispanic and Latino Americans.   These campaigns are the latest in a series of efforts to speak more directly to Spanish-speaking voters in the United States, and encourage their participation in American politics. I hope you will learn more about this effort and consider supporting it today. 

Thanks for all that you do.

In the last few days I've done a slew of interviews with reporters discussing the politics of SB1070 and the decision by the Department of Justice to declare the law unconstiutional.  The national GOP has gone into big time spin mode on this, declaring from the reporters I've spoken to the DOJ suit is political death for "Democrats in the West."   While that scenerio is possible of course, lets look at what we know about how this debate has played out in recent years. There two things we know for sure:

1) When Latinos are demonized by the GOP there is a backlash.  In California in the 1990s, and in national politics in this past decade, when Republican leaders launch a sustained anti-immigrant, anti-Latino Latinos respond, applying for citizenship in higher numbers, registering in higher numbers, voting in higher numbers, and voting aggressively against the Republican Party.  Given that Latinos now make up 15 percent of the national population, and large percentages of the voting population in major states - CA, FL, TX and key Presidential states - AZ, CO, NM, NV - a big shift in the Hispanic vote can dramatically alter the politics of a community, state and the nation. 

2) The Republicans have not shown that their anti-immigrant position works outside a Republican primary audience.   The polling on immigration has been consistent over the past five years.   About 15-20 percent of the country want the undocumenteds to leave and consider immigration a voting issue.  They are largely base Republican voters.  Hispanics too view immigration as a voting issue.  The rest of the country sees immigration as a second tier issue, trailing way behind more important issues like the bad economy, need for better health and foreign policy matters.  And for most of those who view it as an issue of secondary importance they are comfortable with the solution Congress has been proposing called comprehensive immigration reform (in this recent WaPo poll, for example, 57% support allowing illegal immigrants to stay in the US permanently while also giving majority support to SB1070).

So what this means in campaign terms is that a hard-line anti-immigrant stance can work well in a contested Republican primary - think Jan Brewer - but has not shown the capacity to motivate non-Hispanic general election voters in battleground races.  The Republican Party will have a hard time naming a single race the last several elections where a hard-line anti-immigrant candidate won purely on this issue, and virtually no GOP campaign has spent money on the issue in the last month of any race we've studied. In fact, I've argued before, that the emphasis the GOP has put on immigration has actually been a big negative with swing voters for it reinforces the worst attribute of the GOP of recent years - their willingness to put poliitics over problem solving.  For many their obsession with anti-immigrant politics looks feckless, partisan and helps reinforce their lack of seriousness as a party.  For while immigration matters, of course, it is just not as important as some of the more wild-eyed immigrant haters want to believe it is.  Most Americans are just way too smart for that.

Sometimes ithe anti-immigrant stance doesn't even work in a Republican primary audience.  In the 2008 Presidential election, the most liberal Republican on immigration, John McCain, won his party's nomination.  The anti-immigrant candidate, Tom Tancredo, never received more than 1% in any poll taken during the primary season.  And of course Senator McCain was then beaten by someone much more liberal than he on immigration reform, Barack Obama, who despite his pro-immigration reform stance received the largest vote share a Democratic Presidential candidate had received in 44 years. 

Unfortunately, Politico bought this GOP spin about how the GOP candidates will turn support of SB1070 into a winning regional issue and published this largely unsubstantiated and disapointing piece yesterday. Already, this morning we have a clear repudiation of the national GOP narrative in the largest state in the West, California, where Republican Gubernational candidate Meg Whitman has launched billboards in Spanish proclaiming her opposition to SB1070.  Newsweek has published this thoughtful essay making the case that the DOJ suit is smart politics for Obama. My gut is that this piece is closer to the truth than Politico's slightly hysterical initial take.

Whatever the politics of the DOJ suit are I think the government did the right thing.  Once SB1070 was passed, the federal government had to act.  If SB1070 succeeds we could end up with 50 different immigration policies in the US, not a single federal one.  The President was right last week to challenge Congress to quit kicking the can down the road on immigration reform and step up to build a better immigration system.  The Department of Justice was also right to challenge SB1070, a serious threat to the integrity of our federal immigration system. 

So what do we know about the politics of SB1070? Here is my take:

1) It will make it more likely that there is a large Latino vote against anti-immigrant candidates in the heavily Mexican-American West.

2) Outside of Arizona, I have serious doubts that a hard-line anti-immigrant stance will work for the GOP.  Most anti-immigrant voters in the West have already been motivated by many of the anti-Democratic messages of this cycle, and there just isnt a lot of data or experience to indicate that in this tough economy the GOP will be able to make the issue pop with non-Hispanic audiences beyond their base.  There is evidence and experience, however, which shows that if GOPers continue to talk about the issue deep into the fall it can actually hurt them, as it will help brand the GOPer as one those "more extreme" Republicans, a political brand which has been serially rejected by the American people over the past five years, and a positioning that today remains remarkably unpopular.

3) As the legal, economic and societal costs of SB1070 become better understood, it is very likely that the popularity of SB1070 - an extreme approach to a very real problem - will begin to drop.  From a policy standpoint SB1070 is a bad idea, and overtime I think most folks "in the West" will come to agree. 

4) The way the issue plays in each race in the West will, as Meg Whitman has shown, be determined by how each candidate plays it.   Democrats would be smart to hold firm on demanding a comprehensive national solution and not give into the early politics of this new post SB1070 environment.

That's it for now.  Thoughts welcome of course.  For more on these matters check out my first cut reaction to the DOJ suit and this backgrounder on NDN's work on immigration reform.

Given the news that the Department of Justice has filed its suit against the new Arizona immigration laws, it was an interesting day to go on Fox News to talk about immigration. You can watch my segment, which included the well known anti-immigrant crusader Dan Stein from FAIR talking about changing the 14th Amendment and other fun matters, below and here.

In prepping for my segment I found this following passage from the FAIR website about "anchor babies:"

What Does This Mean?

Higher Taxes: The federal government has control over immigration law for the United States. By not correcting this mis-application of the 14th Amendment, the funds that state and local governments must provide to anchor babies amounts to a virtual tax on U.S. citizens to subsidize illegal aliens.

Disrespect for the rule of law: Congress, by failing to act on legislation aimed at correcting the interpretation of citizenship by birth, in effect rewards law-breakers and punishes those who have chosen to follow the rules and immigrate legally.The original intent of the 14th Amendment was clearly not to facilitate illegal aliens defying U.S. law and obtaining citizenship for their offspring, nor obtaining benefits at taxpayer expense. The United States is unusual in its offer to extend citizenship to anyone born on its soil. Other developed countries have changed their citizenship practice to eliminate the problems caused by the practice of birthright citizenship.[1] The anchor baby problem has grown to such large proportions that the United States can no longer afford to ignore it. The logical first step for correcting the problem is for Congress to adopt legislation clarifying the meaning of the 14th amendment.

(we've added the bold face here)

What struck me was how clear FAIR is in this passage that federal law trumps state law when it comes to immigration, and the proper course for those wanting a different immigration system in the US was to pressure Congress to act. This is of course is the same argument the President made last week in his American University immigration speech, and the same argument the Department of Justice made today in bringing suit against other FAIR-inspired laws in Arizona.

I hope those politicians in Arizona are aware of the real game FAIR is playing here. As we saw in the remarkable movie, 9500 Liberty, FAIR views political actors in the states as local chess pieces in a more national game of anti-immigration chess. As the movie details, the local community in Prince William County, VA who tried the FAIR-crafted "probable cause" statute (an ancestor to the current AZ law) saw their economy tank, racial polarization increase, forclosures skyrocket. The movie details how FAIR fed a group of ambitious conservative politicians a legal and political strategy which ended up backfiring on the local community, caused tremendous harm to the residents of the county, cost the local government a lot of money, and was ultimately reversed by the politicians themselves.

In Arizona we are starting to see the same thing play out. The economy and reputation of the state are being harmed. Racial discord is soaring. Local newspapers, police chiefs and businesses are fighting back against the law. And now the federal government is properly inserting itself into the debate, reminding those in Arizona that their law is, simply, illegal. Arizona cannot set its own immigration policy, just as it cannot craft its own foreign policy. Increasingly all this stuff around SB1070 may be, at the end of the day, a massively damaging escapade by a group of ambitious politicians in Arizona led astray in part by the Rasputin-like leaders of FAIR.

But what is so sad to me is that if the leaders of the Arizona effort had actually read FAIR's website they would have understood that even FAIR itself doesn't believe that the law the people of Arizona have passed is legal. Increasingly the nation and the people of Arizona will come see the passage of SB1070 and other legislation begin cooked up now (see the clip of my Fox debate today with FAIR about the legality of the 14th Amendment!) as another chapter in FAIR's grand and so far failed strategy to fundamentally change the immigration debate in America.

It is possible that a local court prevents a stay of SB1070, and it goes into effect on July 29th. But I think the die is cast here now. Eventually we will get a federal law and a new federal immigration system, and the sooner folks like Russell Pearce stop listening to FAIR's crazy and failed ideas and start working with Congress to construct this new law, the better off the nation and the people of Arizona will be. For as in Prince William County, my bet is that pretty soon the people of Arizona are going to want to find a way out of the mess created for them, and will begin to view this law much more negatively than in some of the early "sugar high" polls showing broad initial support.

Update - In the Fox News discussion today I read a portion of the 1st Section of the 14th Amendment. Here is the whole passage:

Section. 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

Update 2, More on FAIR - Our friends at 9500 Liberty just released one of the most compelling parts of their remarkable movie. It comes in the latter half of the movie, when all of a sudden our understanding of how the debate around "probable cause" - essentially the same law as SB1070 in Arizona - came to Prince William. It was brought there by FAIR, a national anti-immigrant advocacy group, whose President Dan Stein I debated today on Fox, and who is featured prominently in the video below.

Please watch the video below my friends, for what you learn is that FAIR views counties like Prince William and states like Arizona as "laboratories;" they admit to being the "mad scientists" behind the spread of these strategies across the country; and they admit, on camera, to colluding with Republican politicians to use this issue to help them win elections, a particularly odd goal for a 501 (c) issue advocacy organization.

Why does this matter so much? For I hope the good people of Arizona understand that they are being used as a laboratory by a national anti-immigrant group, a group who has shown very little concern for the communities who've been torn apart by their divisive strategies in the past.

Talk about a home run...

New York, NY, Friday, April 30, 2010 ... The following statement was issued today by Major League Baseball Players Association Executive Director Michael Weiner regarding the immigration law recently passed by the state of Arizona.

"The recent passage by Arizona of a new immigration law could have a negative impact on hundreds of Major League players who are citizens of countries other than the United States.  These international players are very much a part of our national pastime and are important members of our Association.  Their contributions to our sport have been invaluable, and their exploits have been witnessed, enjoyed and applauded by millions of Americans.  All of them, as well as the Clubs for whom they play, have gone to great lengths to ensure full compliance with federal immigration law.
 
"The impact of the bill signed into law in Arizona last Friday is not limited to the players on one team.  The international players on the Diamondbacks work and, with their families, reside in Arizona from April through September or October.  In addition, during the season, hundreds of international players on opposing Major League teams travel to Arizona to play the Diamondbacks.  And, the spring training homes of half of the 30 Major League teams are now in Arizona.  All of these players, as well as their families, could be adversely affected, even though their presence in the United States is legal.   Each of them must be ready to prove, at any time, his identity and the legality of his being in Arizona to any state or local official with suspicion of his immigration status.  This law also may affect players who are U.S. citizens but are suspected by law enforcement of being of foreign descent.  
 
"The Major League Baseball Players Association opposes this law as written.  We hope that the law is repealed or modified promptly.  If the current law goes into effect, the MLBPA will consider additional steps necessary to protect the rights and interests of our members.

"My statement reflects the institutional position of the Union.  It was arrived at after consultation with our members and after consideration of their various views on this controversial subject."

With the passage of the "probable cause" law in Arizona the immigration debate has entered a new phase  It will now be impossible for federal lawmakers and the Obama Administration to argue that nothing needs to be done, or that reform can wait.  This is a new dynamic in this complicated debate, and one that forces the hand of both political parties.   For there is universal agreement - right and left - that the immigration system is broken and needs to be fixed.  The question now for both parties is - what is your plan for fixing it?

The Democrats offered up their plan yesterday, a descendent of the original McCain-Kennendy legislation which passed a Republican led Senate with 62 votes in 2006.  I take the Senate leadership at their word and believe they will attempt to pass this new bill this year, and bring it up for a vote soon.

What will the Republicans do? So far only one GOP Senator has been even willing to sit down with the Democrats and discuss the bill.  This is a big problem for the GOP, for there are 11 GOP Senators who voted for McCain-Kennedy legislation in 2006 who really have no reason not to vote for this new immigration bill.  If anything the new bill has moved to the right, and has added elements that the Republican Senators should support.  If the GOP fails to deliver anyone on this new bill and the bill fails it will be accurate and fair to say that the bill failed because the GOP walked away from legislation they once supported.  This 2006 vote is the key here.  Unlike health care and financial services reform, for example, the GOP has a history of working with the Democrats on immigration reform (the last major reform was championed by President Reagan, and President George W. Bush was a major supporter of the 2006 bill).   There is no public option here, or consumer projection agency that the GOP can use as a figleaf not to support the new CIR bill.  Essentially the argument that the Senate Republicans have been making is that given all the primary challenges their candidates are facing from the right they cannot do it this year.  It is not the substance of the bill they are opposing.  Their internal politics won't allow them to move on CIR this year, at this time, this close the election.

For immigration reform now it is a question of when not if.  If the Democratic bill fails this year due to GOP opposition, the President and the Democratic leadership will bring the bill back early next year.  At that point the GOP will be totally out of excuses for why they cannot work with the Democrats.  The country is demanding that our broken immigration get fixed; the tragedy of Arizona will keep the failed system in the news; the Democrats have stepped up and are leading now.  I think the Republicans will have to support CIR next year for they will simply no longer have any logic to oppose.  And as we all know a sustained period of public opposition to this bill without any real reason other than political fear of their base will not only further damage the GOP brand with Latinos, the fastest growing part of the American electorate, but with most Americans looking for a Party willing to step up and solve the great problems facing the country. 

Update: you can find more of my thinking on this new post-Arizona landscape in articles in Politics Daily, and  Talking Points Memo.

Yesterday, our affiliate New Policy Institute released a report by Andres Ramirez and Kristian Ramos on the rapid increase of the Hispanic population, fueled by recent waves of immigration to the United States.  You can find the Executive Summary here and the full report here.

If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me at ssanchez@ndn.org.

Hispanics Rising 2010 Executive Summary

Hispanics Rising 2010 Full Report

Thanks!

EJ Dionne found this nugget from an Arizona Republic editorial on the new law:

The broad anti-immigrant bill passed by the Legislature this week makes it a crime to be in the country illegally and gives local cops the job of demanding documentation if they have reasonable suspicion someone lacks it.

The need to carry proper ‘papers’ falls squarely on Arizona's Latino population -- including those born and raised in the Grand Canyon State. The bill invites racial profiling and ignores the fact that Latinos are an intrinsic part of Arizona's history and its future. Arizona's senators should know that.

The bill . . . is bringing thundering bad publicity that will echo for years to come. It will lead to lost economic-development opportunities, lost tourism and lost opportunities to expand our trade and commercial ties with Mexico.

As those who have seen the remarkable documentary film, 9500 Liberty, the people of Arizona do have every reason to be concerned about the long term impact to their state.   As this film, which will be premiering in Arizona this weekend (more on that soon), documents, the cost to a local DC county in Virginia of implementing similar statute was economically and culturally devastating.

For those in the Boston area, 9500 Liberty is screening today at the Boston Independent Film Festival.  See it if you can.  It is one of the most powerful films I have ever seen.

Of course all this just goes to remind us how important it is that the Federal government acts to fix our broken immigration system.  Soon. 

And to learn more about the growing power of the US Hispanic population, watch or attend our event in DC this Tuesday.

Arizona Governor Jan Brewer is poised to sign the toughest immigration bill in the country.  It is intended to terrify Arizona's undocumented immigrants, but the consequences of Arizona Senate Bill 1070 aren't limited to any one community. SB 1070 attacks and demeans the civil rights of every hard-working, tax-paying American citizen.  And like every piece of Draconian legislation before it, SB 1070 has the potential to ignite and empower the very community it seeks to disable.

On its face, SB 1070 is bad and impractical policy: the legislation makes it a misdemeanor for foreign nationals to lack proper immigration paperwork in Arizona.  But since it's impossible to identify a foreign national by sight, it effectively mandates that all individuals in Arizona carry papers.  That's right: you, American citizen, can't walk your dog or buy milk from the grocery store without having papers on you that confirm your legal residence.  If you take your kids to the park and forget your documentation at home, you can be held in police custody until your information is verified, even if you're a U.S. citizen.

The legislation directs police officers to inquire as to immigration status on a "reasonable suspicion" that a person might be undocumented.  Forget that this turns local police into immigration enforcers, and that the Arizona Association of Chiefs of Police opposes the bill, contending it will likely erode already waning trust with immigrant communities.   What exactly does reasonable suspicion look like?  Driving the wrong car?  Having the wrong haircut?  Speaking to your children in Spanish?  How many Latinos could be reasonably suspected of not belonging?

The passage of this legislation will have a devastating impact on Arizona, but those realities will pale in longevity to the political consequences of Governor Brewer making it law.  The House vote on SB 1070 divided along partisan lines: all 35 ayes came from Republicans, and all 21 nays came from Democrats (four Democrats did not vote).  Although the frustration and anger of Arizona's immigrant, Latino and activists communities will likely spill over to the national Democratic leadership, which is perceived as being ineffective in getting the job done on comprehensive reform, history teaches us that the real political downfall will be Republicans', and Republicans' alone.

In 1994, California Republicans led a fight to pass Proposition 187, the "Save Our State initiative," which was designed to prohibit undocumented immigrants' access to social services, health care, and public education.  Just as with SB 1070, Prop 187 smacked of xenophobic motives, and just as with SB 1070, it was introduced and promoted by Republicans, including Republican Governor Pete Wilson.  And just as the Republican Party's advocacy for Prop 187, and its galvanizing affect on the state's Latinos (augmented - of course - with a gold-standard voter registration campaign) marked the decline of the party's fortunes in California, passage of SB 1070, if matched with proper organizing, will define the political legacy of the Arizona Republican Party.

In the short term, Governor Brewer signing her name to this legislation will likely help her maintain support within her party, but in the long term, she will go down in history as the executor of the Arizona Republican Party's demise.

This is cross-posted from Latinovations blog.