Immigration Law in Arizona Reveals G.O.P. Divisions

Republican lawmakers and candidates are increasingly divided over illegal immigration — torn between the need to attract Latino support, especially at the ballot box, and rallying party members who support tougher action.


Arizona’s new measure, which requires that the police check the documents of anyone they stop or detain whom they suspect of being in the country illegally, has forced politicians far and wide to take a stance. But unlike in Washington, where a general consensus exists among establishment Republicans, the fault lines in the states — where the issue is even more visceral and immediate — are not predictable.

Conservative Republican governors like Jim Gibbons of Nevada, Robert F. McDonnell of Virginia and Rick Perry of Texas have criticized the Arizona law. But some more moderate Republicans, like Tom Campbell, who is running in the party’s Senate primary in California, have supported it.

The decision on whether to support or oppose the law can have almost immediate political consequences. The latest evidence may be Meg Whitman’s declining fortunes.

For months, Ms. Whitman, the former chief executive of eBay, enjoyed a substantial lead over her principal rival for the Republican nomination for governor of California, Steve Poizner. But in recent weeks, she has seen her advantage slip significantly, in no small part because Mr. Poizner has hammered her on her opposition to the Arizona law.

Finding herself increasingly on the defensive on the issue, Ms Whitman even proclaims in a new advertisement: “I’m 100 percent against amnesty for illegal immigrants. Period.”

Nonetheless, a poll released Wednesday by the Public Policy Institute of California showed her advantage falling 23 percentage points since March, down to 38 versus 29 percent for Mr. Poizner.

In states with hotly contested elections, several Republican candidates are finding their positions mobile, reflecting the delicacy of the issue and a growing body of polls that suggest many voters support the Arizona law.

In Florida, for instance, Attorney General Bill McCollum, who is running for governor, now says he approves of the law, though he called it “far out” two weeks ago; Marco Rubio, the state’s Republican Senate nominee, has also shifted his stance.

State Republicans now find themselves in a balancing act, trying to seize a moment of Congressional stalemate to demonstrate leadership while not repelling voters on either side of the debate, a challenge that is particularly daunting for those in a primary fight.

“I think we need to be very careful about immigration,” said Karl Rove, the former adviser to President George W. Bush. “I applaud Arizona for taking action, but I think the rhetoric on all sides ought to be lowered.”

Mr. Rove and other strategists who worked for Mr. Bush were proponents of an immigration overhaul that included a path to legal status.

At the same time, state legislatures are racing to create their own laws, making it more likely than ever that the nation will end up with a patchwork of state legislation instead of a comprehensive national approach in the next year or two.

In the first three months of this year, legislators in 45 states introduced 1,180 bills and resolutions relating to immigration; 107 laws have passed, compared with 222 in all of 2009, according to the National Conference of State Legislators.

“The kindling has been lit in the states,” said Matthew Dowd, a political consultant from Texas who was the chief strategist for the 2004 Bush-Cheney campaign.

”With immigration, the choices you have to make are hard, and most people in Washington don’t really like to make hard choices,” he added. “Hard choices are much more often made in the states.”

Democrats have their own problems with the issue. Some more left-leaning factions of the party prefer an amnesty approach to an overhaul.

But the divisions appear more acute among Republicans, some of whom fear that the party will become identified with punitive immigration laws at a time when Hispanics are a growing part of the electorate — particularly in emergent battleground states like Colorado and Nevada.

“I am a grandson of an Irish immigrant,” Mr. McDonnell of Virginia said in an e-mail message. “The Hispanic population in this country contributes to our culture, economic prosperity and quality of life.”

Republicans who are not facing primary challenges are far more likely to take a more moderate view of immigration, and many, particularly in border states, are aware that business groups that depend on illegal immigrants for labor support a comprehensive immigration overhaul.

“If I am running in a primary without opposition, I have the luxury of not having to worry about what I say on this issue,” said Dan Schnur, director of the Jesse M. Unruh Institute of Politicsat the University of Southern California.

The dynamics of immigration politics vary vastly by state, even among those with heavy immigrant populations, and can reflect local concerns. In Texas, for instance, Latinos have a lot of political influence and have elected candidates for many years. The population there is often closely aligned with the political leadership of some cities and even with state government.

In Arizona, Gov. Jan Brewer, who faces a Republican primary challenge, was under extreme pressure from her own party for advocating a tax increase, something now seen as largely mitigated by her signing of the immigration bill.

But it is also true that a spate of new polls show support, although tempered, for the state’s tough new immigration law, which is clearly weighing on the minds of candidates.

In a recent New York Times/CBS poll, 57 percent of the 1,079 adults queried said the federal government should determine the laws on illegal immigration, and 51 percent said the Arizona law was “about right” in its approach to the problem.

In a poll released by the Pew Research Center this month, 59 percent of 994 respondents said they approved of the Arizona law, while 32 percent disapproved. An Associated Press/Univision poll found that 42 percent of those asked favored the Arizona law and 24 percent opposed it.

“It is really how you ask the question,” said Sarah Taylor, who was Mr. Bush’s political affairs director. “And it is tied up in people’s feelings about their own family’s immigration experience, and then you have elements of race.”

While the federal government ponders, numerous states have already moved to emulate Arizona’s law, while others have moved forward with other measures, from laws that prohibit driver’s licenses for illegal immigrants to those that improve classes for immigrant children in public schools.

The issue is likely to be a problem for both parties throughout this election year.

“People like Perry and McDonnell and others realize this is a very divisive issue for our party,” said Linda Chavez, the Republican chairwoman of the Center for Equal Opportunity, a conservative research organization, referring to the governors of Texas and Virginia. “The fact is, you can’t secure the borders if you don’t fix immigration, because the two go hand in hand.”

By JENNIFER STEINHAUER

Paul’s Views on Civil Rights Cause a Stir

Updated: On Tuesday night, Rand Paul stood as the victorious symbol of the Tea Party after capturing the Republican nomination for senator in Kentucky by defeating an opponent who had the backing of Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Senate minority leader.


But throughout the primary campaign, Democrats – and some Republicans – had said that Mr. Paul would prove to be a much stronger candidate in the limited field of a primary than in a general election. Democrats had made no secret that they would prefer to run against Mr. Paul than his opponent, Trey Grayson, the secretary of state, a more moderate and politically experienced choice.

And since Tuesday, the reason for Democrats’ optimism — and for the apprehension of Republicans like Mr. McConnell – has become clear as Mr. Paul has struggled to account for his views on issues like segregation, and to explain why a candidate of the Tea Party would hold his victory night celebration at a posh country club in Bowling Green.

In an interview with Rachel Maddow on MSNBC, Mr. Paul appeared uncertain about whether he would have supported forcing private businesses to desegregate in the 1960s, suggesting that might run afoul of his libertarian philosophy. His views emerged as Ms. Maddow asked Mr. Paul if he thought a private business had the right to refuse service to a patron who was black.

(Mr. Paul’s campaign issued a statement late Thursday morning following the Maddow interview, in which he said he supported the Civil Rights Act. It appears below.)

“I’m not in favor of any discrimination of any form,” he said. “ I would never belong to any club that excluded anybody for race. We still do have private clubs in America that can discriminate based on race.”

But things got murky from there in the interview: “Well, what it gets into is, is that then if you decide that restaurants are publicly owned and not privately owned, then do you say that you should have the right to bring your gun into a restaurant, even though the owner of the restaurant says, well, no, we don’t want to have guns in here? The bar says we don’t want to have guns in here, because people might drink and start fighting and shoot each other. Does the owner of the restaurant own his restaurant? Or does the government own his restaurant?”

Democrats were quick to pounce, suggesting that the interview showed that Mr. Paul in fact thought that private businesses had the right to refuse service to patrons based on race.

Update: Mr. Paul’s campaign issued a statement this morning in response to the uproar over his remarks. In it, he said that he supported the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the landmark anti-discrimination law. :

“I believe we should work to end all racism in American society and staunchly defend the inherent rights of every person,” he said. “I have clearly stated in prior interviews that I abhor racial discrimination and would have worked to end segregation. Even though this matter was settled when I was 2, and no serious people are seeking to revisit it except to score cheap political points, I unequivocally state that I will not support any efforts to repeal the Civil Rights Act of 1964.”

Mr. Paul disputed the claim by opponents that he would support repealing the Civil Rights Act.

“These attacks prove one thing for certain: the liberal establishment is desperate to keep leaders like me out of office, and we are sure to hear more wild, dishonest smears during this campaign,” he said.

And in an interview on “Good Morning America” on ABC, Mr. Paul argued that his decision to hold his election night celebration at a fancy country club was not in any way at variance with the grass-roots movement he has now come to epitomize. And in the process of explaining his decision, Mr. Paul invoked Tiger Woods, the golfer.

“I think at one time, people used to think of golf and golf clubs and golf courses as being exclusive,” Mr. Paul said, adding, “Tiger Woods has helped to broaden that, in the sense that he’s brought golf to a lot of the cities and to city youth.”

These interviews have come at a propitious time for Democrats, who greeted Mr. Paul’s victory by noting past interviews in which he hinted at views that appear out of the mainstream, like his favoring abolishing the Department of Education and the income tax, and raising the retirement age.

By ADAM NAGOURNEY

What May Says About November

What May Says About November


Tuesday night's election results are certainly no crystal ball. But they do tell us a few important things about the upcoming midterm elections.

Things Change Rapidly

We learned a lesson Tuesday night that we should not soon forget. In an election climate this volatile, things change rapidly. Just weeks ago, Arlen Specter seemed almost guaranteed to win the Democratic nomination. Republicans thought they had a great shot at winning John Murtha's old congressional seat. Democrats thought they had little chance of winning a Senate seat in Kentucky and no chance of losing a Senate seat in Connecticut.

But yes, things do change.

Instead, in Tuesday night's elections, Joe Sestak defeated Arlen Specter by a healthy margin. The Democrats held onto John Murtha's district by an even healthier margin. Rand Paul, a candidate too far to the right even for the Republican leadership, won the Republican nomination in Kentucky, giving Democrats their best possible chance to win a Senate seat there.

(And somewhere in Connecticut, Richard Blumenthal's campaign staff continued to think that lying about serving in Vietnam doesn't warrant a real apology.)

There are sure to be more changes between now and November, many that we can't foresee. But we do know some of what's to come. We know that the political climate will almost certainly continue to improve for the Democratic Party.

Later this week, the Senate is expected to pass an unexpectedly strong Wall Street reform bill. Two weeks from now, we are likely to find out that, for the third month in a row, the U.S. economy experienced six-figure job growth. Already, national public opinion polls are showing dramatic improvement in voter optimism about the economy and the direction the country is headed. If Democrats can have this good of a night in May, they are almost sure to beat expectations in November.

The Tea Party Isn't Done Ruining the GOP.

Rand Paul's victory won't be the only primary win for the tea party. Over the coming months, tea party candidates are going to win plenty more Republican nominations. In districts that are conservative enough, that will still ensure a Republican victory in the general election. But in a lot of districts, nominating candidates who subscribe to the full gamut of tea party craziness--from birtherism to repealing voting rights to abolishing the Department of Education and Federal Reserve--will help Democrats retain seats that could have otherwise gone to the GOP.

And it's not just primaries the Republicans should be worried about. We can expect a lot of third party challenges from the right once primary season has ended. The more the Tea Party tries to purify the GOP, the more divorced it will become from rest of the country.

Despite the conventional wisdom, that is simply not a recipe for a successful wave election.

Campaigns Matter.

A lot of analysis of Congressional elections tends to look at only the national picture. We determine how well the Democrats will do based on movements in the generic congressional ballot. We make assumptions about the outcomes in November, not based on the dynamics in each individual race, but based on snapshots of the general mood.

But as we saw tonight, this kind of analysis ignores a critical component of elections: the campaigns themselves.

Well-executed campaigns and strong candidates do influence the outcome of elections. And there is little denying that over the last few election cycles, the Democratic Party has become exceedingly good at running congressional campaigns. On Tuesday night the DCCC won its eleventh special election in a row. The Democrats enter the November midterms with better strategists, better tacticians, a bigger war chest, and a wisdom that comes from consistently winning tough races in tough districts.

The public's frustration with the pace of economic recovery and their lack of trust for Washington institutions will not be the only dynamic at play in November. Republicans have weak candidates, wayward campaigns, and a national party with an abysmal track record. Losing the Pennsylvania special election was a huge missed opportunity for the GOP. The Republican Party cannot lose races like that and still expect to retake the majority. And if they can't win an easy pickup when they are exclusively focused on it, it's hard to imagine them pulling off victories deep in Democratic territory while handling more than fifty races at a time.

Tuesday night doesn't tell us what will happen in November. But it does tell us what won't happen. The Republicans aren't going to walk away with this thing. Not without a fight. And toe-to-toe, the Democrats have proven, again and again, that they are the better fighters.

Dylan LoeweSpeechwriter, Author


Follow Dylan Loewe on Twitter: www.twitter.com/dylanloewe

NAACP backs Obama's Supreme Court nominee Kagan

WASHINGTON — The NAACP gave its backing Saturday to Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan, expressing confidence in President Barack Obama's pick after early hesitation that she might not be a forceful defender of civil rights.


The nation's oldest and largest civil rights group voted unanimously at a board meeting in Florida to endorse Kagan, in line to succeed retiring Justice John Paul Stevens. It was an early endorsement by a major interest group for Kagan, who is solicitor general, the government's top lawyer at the Supreme Court.

The NAACP's president, Benjamin Jealous, told The Associated Press that the group initially was concerned because Kagan, who never served as a judge, had little direct evidence or a record that she would actively promote civil rights. Many were worried that she might have an overly expansive view of executive power at the expense of individual liberties, and the group also had hoped to see a black woman appointed to the high court.

The National Action Network and its board of directors also endorsed her nomination. Rev. Al Sharpton, president of the organization, said Kagan "is worthy of the support of the civil rights community." Sharpton said she has shown balance and fairness throughout her career."

Kagan, 50, has received some support from conservative groups because of her efforts to reach across ideological divides, including the recruiting of conservative professors while she was Harvard Law School dean.

Jealous said the group ultimately was swayed by Kagan's work as a solicitor general as well as her tenure as White House aide during the Clinton administration, where she sought to strengthen hate crimes legislation and civil rights enforcement. He also noted that Kagan, who clerked for Thurgood Marshall, the first black justice, was effective in boosting enrollment of black and Hispanic students when she was at Harvard.

"We don't think any Supreme Court nominee walks on water," Jealous said. "It was not an issue of whether we could live with her on one thing or another, but the question was whether we believed she would be an asset to the court."

"We looked at her record, we spoke to people who worked with her as well as the civil rights community as a whole. The discussions painted a portrait of someone committed to civil rights and civil justice," he said.
 
Copyright © 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

Scientists worry current could carry oil to Keys

With BP finally gaining some control over the amount of oil spewing into the Gulf of Mexico, scientists are increasingly worried that huge plumes of crude already spilled could get caught in a current that would carry the mess all the way to the Florida Keys and beyond, damaging coral reefs and killing wildlife.

Scientists said the oil will move into the so-called loop current soon if it hasn't already, though they could not say exactly when or how much there would be. Once it is in the loop, it could take 10 days or longer to reach the Keys.

"It's only a question of when," said Peter Ortner, a University of Miami oceanographer.

In the month since an offshore drilling platform exploded, killing 11 workers, BP has struggled to stop the leak, trying in vain to activate emergency valves and lowering a 100-ton box that got clogged with icy crystals. Over the weekend, the oil company finally succeeded in using a stopper-and-tube combination to siphon some of the gushing oil into a tanker, but millions of gallons are already in the Gulf.

The loop current is a ribbon of warm water that begins in the Gulf of Mexico and wraps around Florida. Some scientists project the current will draw the crude through the Keys and then up Florida's Atlantic Coast, where the oil might avoid the beaches of Miami and Fort Lauderdale but could wash up around Palm Beach.

Many scientists expect the oil to get no farther north than Cape Canaveral, midway up the coast, before it is carried out to sea and becomes more and more diluted.

By JEFFREY COLLINS and MATT SEDENSKY, Associated Press Writers 

Incumbency loses its edge

One major theme to watch for as primary returns start rolling in for Tuesday's key Senate races: Is incumbency all it's cracked up to be?
In most election cycles, holding a seat in Congress is a huge tactical advantage, since sitting lawmakers are usually able to draw on the campaign war chests that national party organizations and congressional campaign groups build up — in addition, of course, to all the time that elected officials spend fundraising on their own.

That advantage shrivels, though, when the electorate seems to be in throw-the-rascals-out mode, as seems to be the case so far in 2010. Rather than coasting into a lavishly funded media push in the homestretch of their primary races, two veteran senators — Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania and Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas — are fighting for their political lives. In Kentucky, the battle for the seat opened by Republican Jim Bunning's retirement is between a candidate endorsed by the state's GOP hierarchy, led by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, and the self-described tea party candidate, Rand Paul. Tuesday's ballot may well signal the depth of popular anger at Washington — and might serve as a bellwether for which party ultimately gains control of Congress in November.

Pennsylvania
When Arlen Specter switched parties a year ago, he made no secret of his main motive: political survival. Facing a nasty GOP primary against onetime opponent Pat Toomey, Specter wasn't sure he could win. In any other case, such candor might help a candidate, but not this year. Even though Specter often siphoned off some Democratic support in his previous Republican campaigns, the longtime senator has struggled to convince members of the Democratic base that's he really one of them. In recent weeks, Joe Sestak, a Democratic congressman from the Philadelphia suburbs, has closed the gap with Specter, earning endorsements from groups like the abortion-rights group NARAL and MoveOn.org. And Sestak has been savvy not merely in questioning Specter's party loyalty, but also in joining the chorus of other primary challengers denouncing incumbent politicians and campaigning for a "new generation" in Washington. To counter that argument, Specter has been highlighting his "experience" in his own campaign messages. That's not just a dig at Sestak's limited time in Congress, but also a reminder of Specter's long resume in the Senate. Unfortunately for Specter, that may not be much of a selling point for voters Tuesday.

Holly Bailey is a senior political writer for Yahoo! News.