Republican views on immigration helpful or hurtful?

As Republicans get prepared to take control of the House in January, and also have increased power in the Senate, some GOP consultants are issuing a warning – don’t ignore their biggest failure – California. Even though last month Republicans swept the country in obtaining governorships, and congressional offices, two Democrats won statewide elections in California, with voters there returning Sen. Barbara Boxer to Congress and electing Jerry Brown governor despite early predictions that Republicans would win both seats. Those two won because of the 2/3 of the hispanic votes. That is about 1/4 of the state’s electorate.

Unless Republicans in Washington heed the warning and tone down the way they debate immigration policy, this year’s GOP successes could be short-lived, strategists say.

“I really think that California serves as a very important case study in what happens when Republicans alienate Latinos with aggressive rhetoric,” said Adam Mendelsohn, a Republican strategist and former deputy chief of staff for California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. “We lost every statewide election because we lost Latino voters. We are now getting larger and larger Latino populations outside the West in states like Iowa and North Carolina and Louisiana. And Republicans have to be aware of the cost of harsh rhetoric.”

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Nationwide, we have 19 million eligible Hispanic voters, making up more than 9% of the electorate. Some of the immigration rhetoric, that Mendelson is warning about, is how the DREAM Act failed. The bill was blocked in the Senate, would have allowed illegal immigrants brought to the United States as children to earn legal status if they attended college or served in the U.S. military.

Rep. Lamar Smith, R-Texas, said it put the interests of illegal immigrants over law abiding citizens. The DREAM Act debate follows an election season that featured divisive battles over immigration in races throughout the nation. But many Republicans drew discord over their remarks when it came to immigration. Nevada Republican Senate candidate Sharron Angle, said about her opponent, Harry Reid, that he was the best friend an illegal immigrant ever had.

And a Republican Senator from Louisiana, David Vitter drew fire from Hispanic groups for an ad that featured Hispanic actors walking through a hole in a border fence, being greeted by a welcome sign and getting into a limousine to ride to their new U.S. home. Vitter won re-election, splitting the Hispanic vote about 50-50 with Melancon and winning 86 percent of the White vote.

Nationwide, hispanics favored Democrats, over REpublicans by 60%, but Republicans in Washington said they have made gains with Hispanic voters. The number of Hispanics voting for Republicans for the House increased from 30 percent in 2006 to 38 percent this year. And those hispanics who did vote for Democrats dropped from 69% to 60%. A spokesman for the RNC said the party is proud to have elected Hispanic Republicans to high-profile seats, including Gov.-elect Brian Sandoval in Nevada, Gov.-elect Susana Martinez in New Mexico and Sen.-elect Marco Rubio in Florida.

Also, eight Hispanic Republicans were elected to Congress, and seven were elected to statewide offices, RNC spokesman Doug Heye said.

“We are no longer the White male Southern party,” Heye said. “We’ve begun to chip away at that.”

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According to Heye, the RNC has worked overtime, trying to reach out to hispanic voters.

Before the election, there were only 20 Hispanic Democrats in the U.S. House and three Hispanic Republicans. After the election, there are 17 Democrats and seven Republicans, according to the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials. In the individual state senates, Hispanic Democrats increased their numbers from 56 to 60. However, Hispanic Republicans increased in the lower houses of state legislatures, totaling 27 before the election and 33 after.

Much of the gains and losses among both sides is blamed on the Arizona immigration law, (SB 1070), and the thinking among latino voters was if you were for the law, you lost their votes. Yet in the case of California, efforts to crack down on illegal immigration in the 1990s, led by former Republican Gov. Pete Wilson, turned Hispanic voters against Republicans, creating bitterness that shows no signs of abating.

One such example was Proposition 187, a 1994 statewide ballot initiative to bar illegal immigrants from receiving publicly funded health care and public education.

Voters approved the measure, but it was struck down as unconstitutional by a federal court.

“Republicans sometimes think that in order to attract Latino voters, you can’t have a strong immigration policy that is strict on border security,” GOP strategist Mendelsohn said. “But that’s not true. Latinos overwhelmingly support strong immigration policies. But if they are couched in anti-immigrant rhetoric, then Republicans lose credibility with Latino voters.”

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What could possibly lead to Republicans losing hispanic support would be if they bring up the issue of limiting immigration and ending birthright citizenship.