Tag: immigration

By: Inoljt, http://mypolitikal.com/

Wisconsin, the badger state, constitutes a perennial battleground state. Like many of its Midwestern neighbors, the state leans Democratic but remains readily willing to vote Republican. While voting for Presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama by double-digit margins, the state also came within one percent – twice – of voting for Republican candidate George W. Bush.

These voting patterns have quite interesting historical roots. Indeed, they stretch back for more than a century.

To examine these roots, let’s first take a look at a map of German immigration patterns in 1890:

More below.

This map, derived from the New York Times, graphs the percentage of German-born immigrants in each Wisconsin county from the 1890 census. There is a striking correlation between this map and Wisconsin in the 2004 presidential election:

In that election, Senator John Kerry clung to Wisconsin by a razor-thin 0.4% margin, winning 49.7% of the vote to Mr. Bush’s 49.3%. As this map indicates, counties heavily settled by Germans form the Republican voting base which Mr. Bush relied upon. This pattern persists even more than a century after the height of German immigration.

It is also still quite powerful. Out of the twelve counties with greater than 20% German-born immigrants in 1890, only one (Milwaukee) voted for Mr. Kerry.

There are exceptions, of course – and German settlement patterns do not form the entire picture of Wisconsin’s electoral demography. Milwaukee, for instance, gave 61.7% of its vote to the Massachusetts senator, despite being composed of 38.9% German immigrants in 1890. This is due to its relatively high black population today and corresponding white flight, which depleted the city of its German-American population. Scandinavian settlement patterns in non-German rural Wisconsin, to use another example, account for their Democratic vote today (interestingly, rural Wisconsin constitutes one of the last Democratic bastions in rural America).

Nevertheless, the overall pattern is still quite striking. A more detailed look at Wisconsin in 2004 only strengthens the link:

As is evident, the correlation between German immigration and Wisconsin’s electoral geography finds a resemblance in both degree and strength. The most Republican-voting regions, located along the southeastern portion of the state, also counted themselves highest in German immigrants in 1890.

Finally, this type of demographic analysis can be used to explain why states vote as they do in far more than just Wisconsin. From Democratic strongholds in former cotton-growing areas of the Deep South to South Dakota’s Native-American and Democratic-voting reservations, history offers a fascinating insight into contemporary politics.

AR-Sen: The odious U.S. Chamber of Commerce is running ads on behalf of Blanche Lincoln, though they are refusing to say how much they are spending on their buy. As Salon says, with friends like these….

FL-Sen: Reid Wilson does some counting and finds that Arlen Specter has given back a rather amazing $1 million this election cycle, following his party switch. (Part of this was fueled by an aggressive campaign by the Club for Growth, which won FEC permission to contact Specter’s donors and push them to ask for refunds.) If Charlie Crist bails on the GOP, there’s no telling how much it might cost him financially, but the Specter precedent suggests it could be a hell of a lot.

IL-Sen: Even Mark Kirk is smart enough to skip an IL GOP fundraiser headlined by Sarah Palin.

IN-Sen: With the GOP primary just days away, Dan Coats has floated himself a $200K lifeline. I wonder if it will be enough.

NV-Sen: Fuck it – Sue Lowden knows that when you’re at the bottom of a 2,000-foot deep mineshaft, you should keep fucking digging until you’ve reached China. That’s why she is still advocating the barter system. While this prolonged episode of inspired insanity is not helping her win any elections, it is helping her become one of the most awesome candidates of 2010. Meanwhile, GOP primary opponent Danny Tarkanian is shish-kebobbing Lowden for her “poultry-based healthcare plan.”

OH-Sen: Quinnipiac should have a poll out of the Dem senate primary this morning.

PA-Sen: Michael J. Fox has cut an ad for Arlen Specter, citing his support for medical research. Fox had previously done an ad for Specter in 2004 as well.

FL-Gov: Mocking gun ownership? And pissing law enforcement off in the process? It sounds like a deranged GOP fantasy of something they think Dems would love to do, but in fact, the Republican Party of Florida is the guilty party here. They put out a shitty web video mocking CFO Alex Sink, who authorized the purchase of “advanced weaponry” for law enforcement officers who operate out of her agency. The state PBA blistered AG Bill McCollum (who posted the video on his website) for this offense, noting with irony that he’s the state’s chief law enforcement officer.

GA-Gov: Ex-Rep. Nathan Deal has come out in favor of Arizona’s draconian new immigration law, apparently the first Republican gubernatorial candidate in Georgia to do so. While Deal trails badly in the polls and isn’t very likely to win the GOP nod, in my opinion, he might succeed in driving the Republican field to the right on this issue.

NY-Gov: Steve Levy, the Dem-turned-Republican who is hoping to get buzz-sawed by Andrew Cuomo in the fall, is apparently “likely” to get the endorsement of the Queens Republican Party. In order to get a spot on the GOP ballot line, he needs the support of 51% of the state’s county-level parties (which are weighted by size), because he’s still a registered Democrat. He claims to be at around 45%, but it’s not clear if Queens is already included in that tally. If Levy pulls it off, this will be an extraordinary humiliation for Rick Lazio, a man I thought was incapable of being humiliated further.

FL-16: Shut up and go away.

ID-01: Some Very Wacky Dude dropped out of the GOP primary the other day. On his way out, Michael Chadwick attacked another candidate, Vaughn Ward, for representing “powerful special interest groups in New York City and Washington, D.C.” He also called Ward a “protégé and surrogate of the military-industrial-intelligence establishment” who will “vote to build up and sustain the Permanent War Machine.” I hadn’t realized this, but another Republican, Allan Salzberg, also bailed last week.

MI-01: Is it crowded in here, or is it just me? State Rep. Matt Gillard, a Democrat, is the latest to enter the race. He joins two other state Reps, Joel Sheltrown and Gary McDowell, as well as Connie Saltonstall, in the Dem primary field.

NY-14: Reshma Saujani may want to re-think her pro-bankster platform as she attempts to unseat Rep. Carolyn Maloney: A new Marist poll shows that even Manhattanites consider Wall Street to be “more of the problem” rather than “more of the solution” by a 49-31 margin.

NY-15: As Liz Benjamin observes, Assembly Adam Clayton Powell IV hasn’t gotten a whole lot of establishment backing in his attempt to unseat Rep. Charlie Rangel, but a few of his colleagues on the Assembly are hosting a fundraiser for him. Seems pretty minor to me, though.

NY-29: Republicans are citing a case from the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals in their attempt to force Gov. David Paterson to hold a special election to fill Eric Massa’s seat. The 6th Cir. ruled (PDF) that Art. I, § 2, ¶ 4 of the Constitution required then-Gov. Bob Taft of Ohio to hold a special election to fill Jim Traficant’s seat after he was expelled from Congress. However, there’s an old New York State Court of Appeals case, People v. Voorhis, 119 N.E. 106 (1918), which held otherwise – and if this goes before the federal courts in NY, the Second Circuit may very well rule differently from the Sixth.

Calendar: Be sure to bookmark SSP’s handy list of key primary & special elections in the very merry month of May.

KY-Sen: Obnoxious theocrat James Dobson is endorsing establishment dude Trey Grayson over weirdo Rand Paul. It feels like it’s gotten late early around here, with Grayson badly trailing in the last few polls, so you gotta wonder whether this or anything else can make much of a difference.

NV-Sen: According to Reid Wilson, the Tea Party Express (the political action wing, such as it is, of the teabaggers) says they’ll spend $100 to $150K on behalf of wingnut favorite Sharron Angle. Angle’s trailed pretty badly in most polling, though.

OH-Sen: With Ohio’s primary around the corner, the Hotline is reporting that the DSCC will apparently step into the race on Lee Fisher’s behalf. The not-terribly-well-funded Fisher is facing off against the almost-penniless Jennifer Brunner, but apparently Bob Menendez doesn’t want to take any chances.

WI-Sen: One-time beer baron Dick Leinenkugel officially decided to join the now-crowded GOP field hoping to take on Sen. Russ Feingold. Leinenkugel’s chief problem appears to be the fact that he just resigned as the governor’s Commerce Secretary… and the governor of Wisconsin is Jim Doyle, a Democrat. The Kugel’s new opponents were, needless to say, quick to point this out.

AZ-Gov: A couple of tidbits from a PPP poll that is slated to be released later today:

• Brewer has seen a significant improvement in her job approval numbers with Republicans. When we looked at the state in September she was under water even with voters of her own party, as 37% of them expressed disapproval of her job performance while only 28% felt she was doing a good job. Now 54% of Republicans approve of her and only 27% disapprove, so she’s seen a good deal of improvement on that front, which should be particularly helpful for her prospects of winning nomination for a full term against a crowded field of primary opponents.

• At the same time Democratic candidate Terry Goddard leads Brewer 71-25 with Hispanics. That may seem ho hum, but consider this: Barack Obama only won Hispanic voters in the state by a 56-41 margin. So Goddard’s outperforming him by more than 30 points there. And on our September poll Goddard was up just 53-33 with Hispanics so it’s a 26 point improvement on the margin even relative to that.

FL-22: Combustible Republican Allen West is flashing an internal poll (from Wilson Research Strategies) which allegedly has him up 44-42 over incumbent Dem Ron Klein.

IN-09: Todd Young, seeking the GOP nod against ultra-retread Mike Sodrel, has a new ad up on TV, trying to paint himself as the “true conservative” choice. To CQ’s credit, they asked how much is being spent on the ad. To the Young campaign’s discredit, they declined to say.

MI-01: The Republican field in this race is getting’ mighty crowded here, too. GOP state Sen. Jason Allen, who is term-limited, is the latest to seek the Republican nod to replace Bart Stupak.

Fundraising: CQ has a handy chart of pre-primary fundraising filings in the three states which have primaries next week: Indiana, North Carolina, and Ohio.

Immigration: The Hill surveys the races out West where Arizona’s new immigration law may bolster Latino turnout – and help Dems. Jon Ralston notes that Brian Sandoval, the GOP’s would-be savior in the NV-Gov race, has come out in favor of the law. This could all get very ugly – well, even uglier than it already is.

By: Inoljt, http://mypolitikal.com/

Switzerland’s landslide vote to ban Muslim minarets surprised many pundits and commentators, more familiar with the nation’s image as a bastion of tolerance and European enlightenment.

These results, in fact, are not so surprising. They derive from the peculiar structure of Swiss democracy, which effectively creates a voter base less diverse than the general public. These voters are generally predisposed to support such initiatives as the minaret vote.

I am specifically talking about Swiss citizenship. Becoming a Swiss citizen implies that one has become part of the Swiss people, and the Swiss have a very strict definitions of what this means. Since – of course – only citizens may vote, this strictness directly impacts the Swiss electorate.

While Switzerland may have an image as a tolerant place, its naturalization policy is one of the least tolerant in the Western world.

More below.

Achieving citizenship can be nearly impossible. Some communities routinely reject applicants connected in any manner to Africa or the Balkans, even if have they lived in Switzerland their whole lives. Many applicants must appear before a local citizenship committee, which asks deep-probing questions such as whether the applicant “can imagine marrying a Swiss boy,” or if said applicant likes Swiss music.

As a result, 21.9% of the Swiss population is foreign – one of the highest rates in the world. An aspiring immigrant may move to Switzerland, but neither he, nor his children, nor even his grandchildren will be guaranteed citizenship. Nearly 90% of Swiss Muslims face this situation, foreigners in a land some have lived their entire lives in.

Because Swiss immigrants are denied citizenship, they naturally cannot vote: only the Swiss people can. It is no wonder then, that Switzerland’s selectively chosen electorate regularly passes initiatives like the minaret law. Or that the anti-immigrant Swiss People’s Party won the most seats in the 2007 federal elections.

This is not to say that the Swiss people are particularly intolerant or bigoted. It is a naturally human tendency to be suspicious of outsiders. Nativist sentiments exist throughout the world, whether in English disdain for Eastern Europeans, Japanese dislike of white gaijins, Muslim discrimination against black Africans, or Russian pogroms against Jews.

The problem is that, by restricting citizenship (and therefore the ballot) to only certain groups, Switzerland’s peculiar system encourages this inherently human flaw. Switzerland is not the only country with xenophobic sentiment; many Americans, for example despise Spanish-speaking Latinos. But in the United States, these Latinos (or their children) can vote; in Switzerland 90% of Muslims can’t vote, because they are denied citizenship. That is why the Swiss People’s Party can run an ad like this:

The Swiss People’s Party won that referendum. Republicans, on the other hand, wish to appeal to the Latino electorate; very few would dare do such a thing.

If Switzerland is to prevent more minaret initiatives from passing, it should make naturalization easier – at the very least, for example, it could grant citizenship to third-generation citizens. In doing so, Switzerland can follow America’s lead, a country whose naturalization policy is among the most progressive in the world. America is also the world’s superpower. That is not a coincidence.

To help get these clowns out of Congress, chip in to help their eventual Democratic challengers.

And in other news, the sun came up this morning.

When I (James) went on MSNBC two weeks ago to talk about immigration reform, I didn’t think that I had anything that outlandish to say. Contessa Brewer, the daytime host, asked Republican strategist Ben Porrit and me if we thought we were going to get immigration reform passed and I said frankly that we won’t, because there is a segment of the Republican party that is racist and will stand in the way of real reform. Simple enough, right?

Well, after my turn at the 1:25 mark, when I said that within the Republican Party there is a segment of that group that is very anti-immigration, and essentially racist, Contessa and Ben reacted as though I had insulted one of their mothers (or both). When I finished, I immediately called Max Bernstein, who co-chairs dotPAC with me, to ask if I had said something really out of line because I got cut off and everyone had their mouths agape with shock that I could say such a thing. He certainly didn’t think so, and with good reason.

Yes, total shock at the idea that there is a racist segment of the Republican Party. The distribution of the Barack the Magic Negro song by a candidate for the RNC Chairmanship and former leader of the Tennessee Republican Party? The SoCal mayor who made and sent a postcard of the White House lawn with watermelons sprouted all over it? Macaca? The 24 hour news cycle makes for unbelievably short memories, clearly.

Those examples aside, there is a segment of the GOP that brings that attitude to the immigration debate, and it’s made up of House members, not the aforementioned marginal figures in the Party. To start, here’s Dana Rohrabacher, the Congressman from the pristine beach communities in Southern Los Angeles and Northern Orange County on Real Time with Bill Maher:

“ROHRABACHER: It’s bad for the American people to have so many people coming in from overseas, bidding down the wages of our average person, taking – and at the same time, a lot of employers aren’t giving the same kind of benefits. So we end up with less tax revenue. We end up with our education system under – collapsing under this pressure. Our health care system collapsing under the pressure.

MAHER: You’re blaming all that on the Mexicans?

ROHRABACHER: Yes, I am. Yes, I am.”

Next up, we have Houston congressman John Culberson. Culberson is known for being on the cutting edge of his use of technology and social networking, but when it comes to the viewpoint behind the tweeting and Qik-videoing, he falls somewhere between the age of internment camps and the McCarthy era. Observe:

“A concern that I continue to see is that a lot of those scientists from communist China, my impression is, and correct me if I am wrong, come here and learn as much as they can, and then leave. And I’m not really all that much into helping the communists figure out how to better target their intercontinental ballistic missiles at the United States. They basically steal our technology for military applications. And they are red China, let’s not forget.”

We can’t forget this one either:

“A large number of Islamic individuals have moved into homes in Nuevo Laredo and are being taught Spanish to assimilate with the local culture.”

The context here is how, to quote the Twittering idiot, “Al Qaeda terrorists and Chinese nationals are infiltrating our country virtually anywhere they choose from Brownsville to San Diego.” Yes John, those brown people just learn Spanish and all of a sudden no one can tell them apart, as they assimilate with the rest of the local brown culture.

Then we have James Sensenbrenner, who authored a piece of paranoid legislation that had it become law would have subjected all Hispanics in America to ritualistic profiling and relentless eligibility and citizenship tests in all aspects of their everyday lives. If you have 15 minutes and feel like losing your appetite, go read the bill.

And we can’t forget Michele Bachmann of Minnesota:

“One amendment [to a MN legislature budget] was offered that said that drivers license tests should be in English only, and that amendment failed. It’s an outrage, it’s unthinkable…”

Nevermind that this was in response to a tragic and fatal car accident where the perpetrator was an undocumented immigrant with a phony license, and having an English requirement for a drivers license would send the fake ID business through the roof. Bachmann’s unmatched abilities to match bigotry with mere poor logic were also on display last September when she plamed the entire subprime mortgage crisis on the fact that banks didn’t just stick to lending money to white folks.

So yes, Ben and Contessa. There is a segment of the Republican party that is clearly racist and will block real immigration reform by appealing to the xenophobic wing of their constituency that keeps them edging past their opponents every two years.

That’s why dotPAC is raising money for each of these bigots’ eventual Democratic challengers on ActBlue, and running ads in each of their districts on Facebook highlighting their indecency. Give a few bucks to the eventual Democratic nominees and show these bigots that they have no place in mainstream politics, let alone the halls of Congress.

Securing the votes in Congress to pass real immigration solutions into law isn’t going to be easy. The next President – no matter who wins – will need to lead his own party first to get it done.

Senator Obama would surely have an uphill climb, even with a Party Platform that favors comprehensive reform. But, given an enforcement-only Party Platform and the policy positions of most Republicans in Congress, Senator McCain may need to scale a brick wall to bring his party on board!

Nevertheless, both candidates continue to talk about reform (at least in Spanish).

Well, we’ve already heard enough rhetoric- we want a roadmap. We’re asking the Senators how they will unite their own parties to pass real immigration solutions into law.

We’re saying, Show America the Immigration Reform Roadmap during the next presidential debate on October 7th!

Resources

The Republican Platform

The Democratic Platform

I know we often make fun of lawyers in this country (“What do you call a smiling, sober, courteous person at a bar association convention? The caterer.“). On the other hand, there’s a lot to be said for the value of training in law for political leadership. The Clintons (Bill, Yale; Hillary, Yale), Barack Obama (Harvard), John Edwards (UNC), and Harry Reid (George Washington U.) all have law degrees.

Then we have our Republican mis-leadership. There’s George Bush with an Master’s in Business Administration. That’s the same degree that Duke Cunningham and Jeff Skilling have. There’s Rep. Shelley Moore Capito with a Master’s in Career Counseling. That’s the same degree as… well, actually, no one comes to mind. Bush and Capito share a mis-understanding of the law, too. Whereas Bush missed the week in high school civics class about constitutional checks and balances, after six years in Congress Rep. Capito still hasn’t figured out the basic mechanics of when a law is needed.

Case in point: Rep. Capito is crowing about her success in using an obscure legislative maneuver to outlaw something that is already illegal!

West Virginia Democrats had no problem getting it right (emphasis mine):

West Virginia?s other two congressmen?Alan Mollohan and Nick Rahall?voted against the measure. Rahall says he opposed the amendment because the program already includes ID requirements and toughening up the standard would be burdensome to many rural and elderly citizens and raise privacy concerns. Mollohan?s office said the amendment was “nothing but political chicanery.”

You know, it’s hard to counter the negative stereotypes the rest of the country has of West Virginia. Rep. Capito isn’t helping any. They noticed up in New York, too: Rep. Joe Crowley (D-Queens) said “It’s all demagoguery.” As Albor Ruiz of the New York Daily News put it:

While the fate of 12 million people, thousands of families and the future of the nation’s economy wait for Congress to do its job on immigration reform, some of its members would rather play games.

[snip]

“Loopholes in current law, like this housing assistance loophole for illegal immigrants, act as a magnet and invite people to enter our country illegally,” Capito is quoted as saying. “We should not be rewarding those who have come here illegally by awarding them taxpayer-funded services intended for law-abiding citizens.”

Wow! Is she tough! She’s cracking down and closing loopholes! No “illegal” will take advantage of taxpayers on her watch!

Not to rain on her party, but there is one small problem: What loophole is she talking about? Undocumented immigrants already are ineligible for housing vouchers. Under current law, all recipients of assistance are required to be citizens or to prove their lawful immigration status.

Capito can do all the chest-thumping she wants, but there is nothing to crack down on.

Here in West Virginia, the coverage is a mixed bag. Tom Searls article reads like a Capito press release. Yet, he did prominently mention his inability to get a quote from Rahall or Mollohan. Loopy Kercheval’s opinion piece does include quotes from Rahall and Mollohan but it distorts the issue even worse than Capito did.

Capito should be called out for immigration race-baiting and class warfare. Her arguments are full of lies and distortion. Here’s a just a few ways her actions are deceitful:

1. The HUD reform is benign at best and an assault on poor people at worst. It is already illegal for illegal residents to get section-8 benefits. As Rahall noted, her additional ID requirements create an additional burden on those who can least afford it.

If this legislative action has any effect it will be to make it harder for those who are entitled to the benefits to get them. This is an assault on poor people. Republicans like Bush and Capito believe that government cannot help people–this is an example of a self-fulfilling prophecy as they make it more difficult for the government to help those who most need help.

2. She provides no evidence whatsoever that there is a problem with Section-8 housing that needs “reform”. The one statistic she quotes in support of this bill has nothing to do with Section-8 housing.

You can be sure if she had any examples of illegal residents receiving Section 8 housing she would have mentioned them. As Mollohan said, this is “nothing but political chicanery.” It is a waste of time, money, and resources.

3. In her floor statement she repeatedly says the tax dollars paying for Section 8 housing come from hard-working Americans. That’s a misleading statement. Tax dollars are paid by not only by hard-working Americans but also by legal immigrants and illegal immigrants who reside and pay taxes in this country.

She knows this. She’s using misleading inflammatory rhetoric to score cheap political points. Rep. Joe Crowley is absolutely right, “It’s all demagoguery.”

This is yet another example of Bush-Capito style mis-leadership. There’s a reason why 75% of West Virginians feel that the country is headed on the wrong-track. Passing do-nothing legislation doesn’t help.

West Virginia need leaders who put their energy into solving the many difficult, significant problems that we face–ending the occupation of Iraq, providing universal health care, and providing social and economic justice for all of us, not just the wealthy few.

It’s time for Bush and Capito to leave office. We can do better.

Cross-posted at West Virginia Blue