Mother Jones online has a very interesting article on a Hispanic Republican group (Somos Republicans) that is sharply criticizing some white members and leaders of the Republican Party for their “extremist” and nativistic views, as the party becomes more controlled by far-right members. Their letter to the leadership targets the views and likely committee positions of Texan Lamar Smith, probable chair of House Judiciary Committee, and Steve King, probable chair of House subcommittee on immigration:
Steve King has used defamatory language that is extremely offensive to Hispanics, which is found in numerous congressional records. We believe Steve King’s behavior is not appropriate for a high-level elected Republican who might be in charge of a committee that handles immigration rules. Steve King and Lamar Smith have adopted extreme positions on birthright citizenship, and promise legislation that would undermine the 14th amendment of the constitution, which both swore an oath to uphold.
After noting that the Lamar-King views have chased many Latinos to the Democratic Party, they add this:
We ask that you review Mr. King’s and Mr. Smith’s congressional statements desiring to “pass a bill out of the House to end the Constitution’s birthright citizenship for U.S.-born children of illegal immigrants,” or what Steve King has made reference to “anchor babies.” We find both this rhetoric and this un-constitutional conduct reprehensible, insulting and a poor reflection upon Republicans because we don’t want our Party to be viewed as the Party of changing the United States Constitution.
They note some Hispanic Republican candidates (including Cuban Americans) that won with the help of Hispanic voters, but then note that
Hispanics also vehemently and strongly rejected those Republicans that utilized harsh anti-immigrant rhetoric and opted for a Democrat, as it occurred in the West Coast, Colorado and Nevada.
Pointing to the 2012 election they add this worry:
Most of those states with the highest number of Electoral College delegates reside in highly populated Hispanic states such as California, Texas, Florida and New York. Hispanic Republicans have proven to be reliable for an average 30% voting bloc when it comes to voting for the Republican party, however, as proven with the 2010 midterm elections, one can see that GOP candidates such as Jan Brewer, Tom Tancredo, and Sharron Angle dipped just below that 30% when you take a look at the 2010 midterm exit polls. In fact, one can see in looking at the exit poll data that 40% of the Latino vote in Arizona went towards McCain while a mere 27% of Latinos voted for Brewer.
And they accent this:
With Representative Lamar Smith who represents Texas, our party cannot afford to risk losing Texas during the 2012 Presidential elections if he were put into a position that would create a toxic anti-Hispanic environment.
It’s great the republicans are taking concern with the Latino voting populations and some republicans are speaking out against the racism, and other matters the right is presenting on behalf of the party as an entirety.
Problematic I have here though, is what about the Black voters? It’s pretty sickening when the democratic party merely takes the black voters for grated and the republican party could care less about them. In terms of U.S. society being founded upon white supremacy that was designed to keep the whites at the top and the blacks down in the man made “racial hierarchy”–the devaluation of the black votes and concern for Latino votes today illustrate how that racial hierarchy by color remains steadily in place–candidacy in the white supremacist racial ranks of U.S. society…keeping blacks at the bottom.
I realize this is partly due to numbers and differences in population sizes also. But considering the Black ancestry goes as far back as the white ancestry in the U.S., their votes should be weighted equally to account for the population differences that put the black population at a significant disadvantage. Votes should be given different values based on the group and size of the voting population–that is actual population eligible to vote and controlling for things like the level of disenfranchisement that is disproportionately assigned to black communities, which serves to put them at a greater disadvantage as a group politically…. If votes were weighted it would encourage more people to participate in politics, register more people, and perhaps both parties would make important fundamental changes their politics for the better and not take nobody for granted or ignore people, and/or try to compete “for those in the middle” by simply changing the way they communicate to the audiences….