The Lesser of Two Evils

Just when we think going further to the right would drive conservative Republicans over a cliff, they go ahead and take another giant step into an abyss.

Oops, adios!

At least that's the way they are seen by many U.S. Latinos — including Democrats, independents and, yes, even some Latino Republicans, who often are embarrassed when their party leaders use illegal (and sometimes even legal) immigrants to promote xenophobia and hatred, which affects all Latinos.

In the news media, people always are asking what Republicans can do to regain the huge chunk of the Hispanic vote they have lost over the past few years. And of course, there are many ways in which they could do this — if only they were interested! But let's face it; they're not!

Even when they know they are going to lose a fight, they keep introducing hideous measures that are meant to appeal to the extreme right wing of their party, and they do it without the least bit of concern for the way they keep alienating Hispanic voters.

Take the Republican amendment, finally rejected in the Senate last week, that would have required U.S. census forms to ask people whether they are American citizens.

In legislation to authorize funding for the 2010 census, Republican Sens. David Vitter of Louisiana and Bob Bennett of Utah introduced an amendment that would have scared millions of illegal immigrants from responding to the census, excluded even legal immigrants, and reshaped the American political landscape in one swift legislative coup d'etat.

Vitter and Bennett wanted to count only American citizens — not even legal residents were to be considered — and they wanted to use only those citizen population numbers to determine how congressional seats would be reapportioned among the states.

Its impact would have been revolutionary! When House seats were reallocated based on the 2010 census, there would have been a dramatic shift in power from states with many noncitizen immigrants to states with few immigrants.

According to an independent study by demographers at Queens College, California, New York, Florida, Illinois, Arizona, Nevada, Texas and states like them could have lost a significant number of House seats, which would have been reapportioned to other states, including Vitter's Louisiana and Bennett's Utah. And the same thing could have happened when redistricting was done within each state. There would have been a significant shifting of power from the inner cities, where immigrants tend to live, to suburban and rural areas, where anti-immigrant Republicans have better chances of being elected. Immigrant communities would have been dramatically disempowered.

Republicans knew the Constitution requires the census to count all U.S. residents regardless of citizenship status; they knew this wacky and unconstitutional amendment had zero chance of passing in a Democratic-controlled Senate; they knew that the measure would alarm and anger many Latinos, particularly because it aimed to exclude even legal residents.

Initially, the intention of the Vitter-Bennett amendment was to use U.S. citizenship as the sole basis for both allocating congressional seats and determining how some $450 billion of federal aid would be distributed among the states. But once they realized how terribly unconstitutional their proposal was, they dropped their attempt to redistribute federal funds and stuck only to the reapportionment measure — as if that made it constitutionally acceptable. It did not!

Under the revised Vitter-Bennett amendment, the census would have had to come up with two population counts — one for citizens and one for noncitizens — and our country would have been even more polarized than it already is.

Yet when the Vitter-Bennett amendment was left out of a broader Commerce Department budget bill last week, the vote broke straight down party lines. Fifty-eight Democrats and two independents voted to proceed with the bill without the amendment, and 39 Republicans were opposed to the bill. Curiously, Sen. John McCain, once known as a champion of immigration reform, was the only senator who did not vote.

And so here the Republicans go again — handing the Latino vote to the Democrats on a silver platter.

Unfortunately, this makes many Democrats assume that there is nothing they need to do for Latinos because Hispanic votes will go to them by default. Republicans are the reason President Barack Obama can afford to break his promise to reform immigration laws during his first year in office and the reason Democrats can afford to continue taking Latinos for granted.

Last week, this column criticized Democrats in Congress and the White House for failing to move forward with comprehensive immigration reform this year and for leaving a very short period of time for passing such reform early next year. When I explained that the Democrats can get away with such betrayal and arrogance because Republicans are an even worse alternative, some readers claimed to be confused.

"Are you a Democrat?" one of them asked in an e-mail. Nowadays, it seems that people need to fit you into a mold. If you are not a Democrat, you must be a Republican. If you are not a liberal, you must be a conservative. And if you fall into any of those categories, then — like a programmed robot — you always must follow the party line.

Well, I'm happy to report that I'm none of the above. I always have belonged to the group of Americans who are truly free to follow their consciences and who now are the fastest-growing segment of U.S. voters — independents.

Yet to be totally frank, right now I believe the Democratic Party is the lesser of two evils. I dislike the way the Democrats take advantage of Latinos almost as much as I hate the way Republicans discriminate against us.

To find out more about Miguel Perez and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.

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