From the National Review: Trump leaves Texas Republicans morose and anxious.

Texas is not excited about their candidate, or what he might mean for the future of the party's coalition.

- Click here for the article.

“We are in trouble,” says Artemio “Temo” Muniz, chairman of the Texas chapter of the Federation of Hispanic Republicans. Muniz is the evidence for both sides of the immigration debate: He is the son of an illegal alien, a goat-herder from near San Luis Potosi and a beneficiary of the 1986 Reagan amnesty. He probably took a job or two that a native-born American might otherwise have taken, but he also created a lot of them, having started a mattress-manufacturing company that is now one of the largest home-furnishings businesses in the region, employing about 90 people. Muniz works for the family business and has just finished law school. When I ask about the lack of Hispanic participants in the convention, he says my observations are accurate. “The chairman says he wants a convention that looks like Texas, but we have a long way to go to get there.” (The Texas GOP leadership is not exactly covered up with Hispanic officers.) There are a number of problems facing Republicans looking to court Hispanic voters, starting with the fact that the target demographic is about 70 percent Mexican American while the Hispanic-outreach consultants are about 100 percent Cuban American. South Texas isn’t South Florida, but then South Florida isn’t South Florida anymore, either: Republicans lost the Cuban-American vote in the 2012 presidential race for the first time.

From CNN: Latino vote: Will the sleeping giant finally choose the next president?

This has been predicted - incorrectly - for several elections. Will it be true this year?


- Click here for the article.

Will Latinos -- now the nation's largest minority -- choose the next president and make history, too?

The answer may boil down to Nevada and eight other states, all places where Latinos could determine who becomes the next president -- if they vote in sufficient numbers, according to a new study by City University of New York in partnership with CNN en Español. 

The signs are optimistic.

Latinos are already voting in higher numbers: In 1992, they cast only 3.9% of all votes at the national level, but their share is projected to approach 10% in November, the study said.

The study identifies nine small and big states where Latinos could flex their growing muscle and actually swing the vote for the White House: Nevada, North Carolina, Virginia, Colorado, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, as well as the delegate-rich states of Florida and Ohio.

"States with relatively small percentages of the total national Latino electorate will probably determine who will be the next president of the United States," the study said.

From the National Journal: Why Texas Could Remain a Republican Stronghold for Another Generation

Talk about Texas turning blue might have been overblown.

Republicans have been trying to lure Latinos to identify with the party:

Governor-elect Greg Abbott won with 44 percent of the Latino vote, and Sen. John Cornyn won 48 percent, both improvements over the 38 percent Gov. Rick Perry earned when he was elected in 2011 for his third term.

Republican strategists in the state point out tha Abbott made 17 visits to the heavily Hispanic Rio Grande Valley during his campaign and ran months' worth of ads featuring his Latina wife and mother-in-law. His campaign ran his first Spanish-language spot during the World Cup game between Mexico and Brazil.

"The Latino voters cannot be taken for granted. The right candidate with the right message can make a difference," says Jorge Lima, the policy director for the LIBRE Institute, a nonprofit that promotes free-market principles in the Hispanic Community.

Another factor, Republicans say, that helped Abbott win Latino voters and undermined Democratic efforts in the state, was the candidate Abbott was running against. His Democratic opponent, Wendy Davis, had burst onto the national scene as a fierce defender of abortion rights. Latino voters, however, tend to be much more socially conservative than other Democratic constituencies. While reproductive rights might motivate millennials and single women voters, it's not an issue that drives Latinos to the polls for Democrats in droves.

"The results were partly a backlash against that blatant liberalism from the Davis campaign and from Battleground Texas," Texas-based Republican strategist Ray Sullivan says. "The message she delivered did not play with Hispanic Texans."

For today's discussion in 2305 - 10/21/14

Supreme Court Will Consider Police Searches of Hotel Registries.
- Motel owners don't like a city ordinance that requires them to open up their books whenever the police want them to.

Why House Republicans Alienate Hispanics: They Don’t Need Them.
- At least this year - 2016 might be different. Gerrymandering plays a role, as does the distribution of population.

Buying Your Vote: Dark Money and Big Data.

- More and more of what's spent on campaigns is hidden.

Political Polarization & Media Habits.
- Liberals and conservatives get their news from entirely different news sources.

From the Texas Tribune: GOP Platform Complicates Hispanic Outreach for Abbott

This story compliments the previous post.

While the Democratic Party has - and continues to try to expand - its coalition, forces within the Republican Party resist similar efforts for that party. The greater effort is to purify the party and expel people that do not conform to the party line.

At least that what some of the activists within the party attempt to do, to the chagrin of party leaders that see this as self defeating - if not in the near future - sometime ahead when the Latino population gets to the point where due to size they become a legitimate political force.

This author points out the difficulty the party's recent platform make it to make the party appealing to Latino voters. While activists approved language that might drive Latino voters away, the party's candidate for governor is trying reach out.

- Click here for the post.

In the wake of the GOP's approval of a platform that includes a hardline stance on immigration, Attorney General Greg Abbott finds himself at the top of the ticket for a party whose members are deeply divided over the subject and under fire from opponents who say the Republicans' position is offensive to Hispanic Texans.

And it all comes during an election cycle in which Hispanic Texans are seen as an especially critical voting bloc that Abbott has worked to woo.

"It effectively puts him in an awkward position," said Mark P. Jones, a political scientist at Rice University, because the attorney general does not want to risk alienating Hispanic voters or contradicting the official party stance.

Last week, the Republican party adopted a political platform that no longer endorses a provisional visa program for immigrants and calls for ending in-state tuition for undocumented immigrants and for prohibiting “sanctuary cities” that do not enforce immigration laws.

Abbott has largely been silent on the issue. Representatives for the Abbott campaign did not respond to requests for comment for this story, and they have not responded to previous inquiries about his position on the immigration plank of the platform.

The growing Hispanic population in Texas

Click here for Texas Tribunes' interactive graphic displaying the greater number of Hispanics aged 0-4 than the rest of the population. This provides visual confirmation of looming changes in party competition in the state.

Battleground Texas might be making Texas Republicans nervous

After neglecting Texas for a couple decades, the national Democratic Party sees an an oppotunity to turn Texas blue. The organization is called Battleground Texas and it includes people instrumental in Obama's campaigns.

They see the rise of the Latino population in the state - and the group's traditional adherence to the Democratic Party - as giving them a democgraphic edge over Republicans.

From an NYT analysis:

Texas is ripe for realignment. Insofar as demographics count, Texas is on a path to first turn purple and then blue. The question is when. Whites are already a minority of the state’s population, 44.8 percent, down from 52.4 percent in 2000; blacks are at 12.2 percent, slightly up from 12.0 percent; Hispanics are at 38.1 percent, up from 32.0 percent; with Asian-Americans, Native Americans, and others making up the remaining 4.9 percent. Whites are teetering at just over 50 percent of Texans eligible to vote; according to demographic projections, they will become a minority of voting age citizens in 2016.

What makes Texas such an inviting target for Democratic organizers is that Hispanic turnout in the state is strikingly low, 38.8 percent of those eligible to vote, compared to the national average of 48 percent.

Even if Latino turnout in Texas increases to the national average, Democrats will be unable to win statewide in the short term, but the long term they may well.

From the FWST: George P. Bush to run for land commissioner

From what I can see, this is the first announced candidate for the 2014 Texas election. His Hispanic heritage - backed by the political machine that surrounds the Bush family - is intended to help lure the Latino vote to the Republican Party. His Uncle W did well with the Hispanic community when he ran for governor in the 90s.

From the story:

George Prescott Bush filed the paperwork Tuesday to run for Texas land commissioner next year, hoping to use a little-known but powerful post to continue his family's political dynasty in one of the country's most conservative states.


A Spanish-speaking attorney and consultant based in Fort Worth, Bush is considered a rising star among conservative Hispanics, and his political pedigree is hard to match.

He is the grandson of former President George H.W. Bush, the nephew of former President George W. Bush and the son of Florida Gov. Jeb Bush -- often mentioned as a 2016 presidential hopeful.

Bush unveiled a campaign website with a "George P. Bush for Land Commissioner" logo and a three-minute video in which he says, "Texas is an exceptional state because we as Texans are exceptional."

Well, now we know. He has already attracted a large number of contributors, which might suggest he'll have little trouble winning, but are Texans tired of the Bush name?

[Current Land Commissioner Jerry] Patterson said he believes that running with the Bush name is "both a blessing and a curse."


Some critics accused Bush of cynically shopping for the most politically opportunistic Texas office rather than showing serious interest in one.

But Patterson said that was a mere byproduct of Bush not being ready to make an announcement.

"That's the problem you have when your last name is Bush," Patterson said. "It's impossible to control the message."

From MySA: It's not your father's Legislature any more

Gary Scharrer details how the 83rd Session of the Texas Legislature has changed. He points out how the changes in the past 25 years. The principle change has been the decrease of Anglo Democrats.

- In 1988 there were 83 Anglo Democrats, now there are 10.

- Only 3 of the 181 total members of the legislature are Hispanic Republicans.

- In 1988 56 Democrats were elected to represent rural areas, now there is only one.

- In 1988, 12 Anglo Democrats represented the Houston area, now only one does. John Whitmire.

Whitmire argues that the state has grown more urban, but the legislature is still dominated by agrarian interests. He anticipates that further increases in urban - and minority - population will lead to changes in state policies. Obama won 5 of the 6 largest counties in the state.

The reduction in Anglo Democrats was intentional. In an effort to make the Democratic Party weaker, Anglo Democrats were targeted for defeat, or weakened by redistricting. Doing so however may have solidified Hispanic support for the party however. Democrats are hoping that since demographics show the Latino population continues to grow, this suggests a bright future for the party. This assumes Republicans will not be able to increase its support among Latinos. That will be the party's challenge. 

Obama uses executive order to effectively implement the Dream Act

Story in the NYT. We'll elaborate on this more this week since we will be digging into the executive branch.

Under the change, the Department of Homeland Security will no longer initiate the deportation of illegal immigrants who came to the United States before age 16, have lived here for at least five years, and are in school, are high school graduates or are military veterans in good standing. The immigrants must also be under 30 and have clean criminal records.



. . . The group of illegal immigrants that will benefit from the policy is similar to those who would have been eligible to become legal permanent residents under the Dream Act, legislation that Mr. Obama has long supported. An effort by the White House to pass the bill in late 2010 was blocked by Republicans in the Senate. Mr. Obama called on Congress again Friday to pass that legislation.

The president was facing growing pressure from Latino leaders and Democrats who warned that because of his harsh immigration enforcement, his support was lagging among Latinos who could be crucial voters in his race for re-election.

Something to consider: Is this executive overreach or an inevitable consequence of gridlock? Maybe both?

Can Congress do Immigration Reform?

To follow a theme: No. At least according to this author:

In a breakfast interview with Bloomberg View on Monday, Jeb Bush, the former governor of Florida, expressed general disappointment with the Republican Party’s rightward drift since his brother left the White House in 2009. He also cited a specific place where his party needs to return to the center: The issue of immigration reform. According to Bush, Mitt Romney’s focus on border enforcement has placed him “in a box” and limited his appeal to Hispanic voters.

Similarly, in a piece in this week’s New Yorker on President Obama’s potential second-term agenda, Ryan Lizza reported that many White House aides believe that comprehensive immigration reform offers the president his best chance of “achieving a major piece of domestic legislation in his second term.” If Obama wins re-election narrowly while Romney runs poorly among Hispanics, the White House theory runs, Republican leaders will feel that they have a strong political incentive to accept some kind of path to citizenship for the nation’s illegal immigrant population.

To the extent that Republican lawmakers are influenced by the conventional wisdom of the city they inhabit, then this theory might be correct. But there’s a reason the push for some sort of amnesty or earned legalization for illegal immigrants failed repeatedly under George W. Bush, and a reason it wasn’t much of a priority for Democrats during their Obama-era window of Beltway dominance. At the grass-roots level of both parties, the politics of the issue are simply more fraught, and the advantages of the pro-legalization position less obvious, than the elite consensus tends to assume.
What follows is a good breakdown of the politics of immigration. It's not that Congress is broken, we've simplified the issue and made it seem easier than it really is. Conflict in Congress is a manifestation of this hidden complexity.

Low voter turnout among Latino voters

The trend continues. The Dallas Morning News points out that only 83 people voted in a precinct where 6,910 people live. 6,400 of the residents are Latino.

Those who track voting patterns on the national level are especially alarmed because 2012 has produced a decline in the number of registered Hispanic voters, despite population gains that guarantee the addition of thousands of potential voters every month.

There are several reasons offered for why so many eligible Latino voters are not taking part in elections, including a prolonged recession and the collapse of the housing market, both of which can displace people and interrupt their voting habits.

In our area, an important factor also appears to be a lack of tradition in voting. Unlike in San Antonio or El Paso, where Latinos have been enfranchised for generations, too many eligible Hispanic voters in North Texas are simply not in the habit of voting. How else do you end up with a turnout of 3 percent among registered voters in a heavily Hispanic district, which is what happened in Arlington on primary day?

This is not a partisan issue, contrary to perception. Republicans and Democrats, at the party level, need to invest significant resources to mobilize this electorate. In Texas alone, there are about 2.1 million eligible Latino voters who are not registered. Some of them, no doubt, live in voting precinct No. 4085. Getting them on the rolls and then to the polls should be a priority.

Will Republicans continue to lose the Latino vote?

Again from Politico, this time Republican lawmakers are concerned that strident language against illegal immigrants has weakened the party's affinity with the Latino population, but those position are popular with the Republican base. So how does it keep the base happy while reaching out to the fastest growing segment of the electorate? 


While Republicans say they aren’t about to embrace “amnesty” for undocumented immigrants, the ideas being considered on Capitol Hill amount to a recognition that the party needs to appear more friendly to the country’s powerful voting bloc.

“You can’t win without doing well among Hispanic voters, and I don’t think it’s any secret that the primary has not been particularly helpful from the standpoint of the tone,” said Texas Sen. John Cornyn, who is leading GOP efforts to take back the Senate. “I think there is a sense on our side that we need to come forward with a responsible approach that if we don’t define ourselves what that approach is, other people are more than happy to take advantage of the void to try to define us.”

The short-term upside is obvious for Republicans: The Hispanic vote in 2012 looms large in swing states like Florida, New Mexico and Nevada, and the party has miserable approval ratings with Hispanics. The longer-term outlook is just as critical — Hispanics are a rapidly growing demographic group in the country and one of the youngest, and the GOP needs to sell the next generation of American voters on its policies.

But it also amounts to a risk: pushing measures to appeal to Latinos could split the party’s base that is steadfast on border security and enforcement.

Driving a wedge between gays and blacks

Andrew Sullivan points to a report highlighting a strategy opponents to gay marriage initiatives are developing. These can have ramifications beyond this one issue. The two groups tend to be part of the Democratic coalition. Animosity between the two could cause one to bolt the party. While they may not necessary vote Republican, weakened allegiance to the Democrats would advantage Republicans.

The report also points out ways to drive a wedge between Latinos and the Democratic Party. Other posts will focus on Republican efforts to appeal to this group - and the various difficulties it has in doing so.

Tensions over immigration tear away at GOP candidates - TheHill.com

2301 students will soon be reading up on the two political parties, which are best understood as being composed of coalitions of groups that tend to see eye to eye on issues, but do not always. Parties are also difficult to control - sometimes it is difficult to determine who is actually in charge of a party at a particular point in time, and who determines what the party stands for.

This story in the Hill points out the difficulty the Republican Party is facing in expanding its coalition since parts of its membership - and most of its announced presidential candidates - are anti-immigration. This doesn't make the party attractive to the Latino community. 

Will "Sanctuary Cities" Galvanize Texas Latinos?

Here's a provocative story in the Texas Tribune. In 2301, when we discuss voter turnout, we cover the low turnout numbers of Latino voters. This hurts Democrats primarily. The question thsi story poses is whether legislation passed by the Texas legislature that some argue works against Latino interests might increase turnout. 

Some Latinos and Democrats argue the bill could spark what they dubbed Texas’ Proposition 187 movement. In 1994, Proposition 187 was introduced in California as a ballot initiative to eliminate an illegal immigrant’s access to health care, education and other services. Many consider it the precursor to Arizona’s controversial bill, which in turn led to similar proposals in other states, including Texas. The bill, though approved by voters, created a backlash that many say led to waning support for the GOP in that state. It is credited with the party’s failure to win a statewide seat for several election cycles after it was introduced. (The legislation subsequently faced several challenges in court and was never implemented.)
“Before that California was very much a purple state, and it was solidly more on the red side than it was on the blue side,” Kumar said. “He [former Calif. Gov. Pete Wilson] politicized the Latino community in a way that we had never seen. California now is a solidly blue state close to 20 years later and that is not insignificant.”
Texas is a different matter altogether, however . . .

Please read on.

Some Texas Republicans Concerned about Latino Support

There are concerns within the Texas Republican Party that some of the measures pushed by Governor Perry - the sanctuary cities bill for example - might make it difficult for the party to reach out to Latino voters. This is a general concern the party leadership has had for a while and showcases an area of disagreement between leadership and the rank and file. Tea Partiers especially have been anxious to push this and similar measures, but considering that 89% of Texas' growth in the past decade was Latino, coupled with expectations that this will be the case the next decade as well, these measures may doom the party to eventual minority status.

Divisions Within the Democratic Coalition

The Democratic Party has always been more diverse than the Republican Party, and though it generally leads to more people identifying with the party - though not recently - it creates a unique set of problems. The groups within the party do not always get along, and sometimes can be hostile towards each other.

Here are two current examples:

From WOAI San Antonio, evidence of tension between Latinos and gays and lesbians: Bexar County Democratic Chair Dan Ramos is in hot water after comments referring to gays, blacks, whites, and Jews outraged the community. The Texas Democratic Party Chairman, Boyd Richie, asked Ramos to resign. Richie accused Ramos of bigotry and creating chaos since his election a year ago.

On Friday, Ramos was quoted in the San Antonio Current. "He called Stonewall Democrats Nazi termites that have wormed their way into the party hierarchy," explained Dee Villarrubia, an openly gay Bexar County Democratic Deputy Chair who was elected in June. "I'm shocked and appalled," said Villarrubia. "Dan Ramos' comments are an affront to the founding principles of our democracy."

From KTRK, conflict between Latinos and African-Americans flare up over the recent sexual assault in Cleveland: On March 10, in Cleveland, there was a rally focused on the now 19 defendants accused of raping an 11-year-old girl. The event was organized by community activist Quanell X. The defendants are black and the girl is Hispanic.

Among Quanell X's statements at the event was, "How does a child get from one community to another and nobody in her home has any idea of what's going on? Stop by her parents' house and ask a serious question about how this happened from September to November and they knew nothing?"

On Monday, a group of Hispanic advocates pushed back.

"Transferring the responsibility of 19 perpetrators to the shoulders of this child's parents is unspeakable," said Yolanda Black Navarro with AAMA. "Comments made about this 11-year-old's way of dressing, her parents' supervision and/or lack thereof, is unacceptable."

Did Sharron Angle Rally the Latino Vote?

There's evidence that her harsh tome towards Latinos drove them to the polls, and to vote against her.

Sobering News For Republicans

David Frum thinks they may not do as well as they hope in November.

Tom Schaller and Ruy Teixeira thinks they have serious work to do if they want to avoid becoming the permanent minority party.

Update: Alan Abramowitz argues that Democrats have more safe seats this year the 1994, which gives Republicans less to work with this November.