Eleven of the 15 districts held by Republicans are a quarter or more Hispanic. | REUTERS Calif. GOP focused on immigration

MODESTO, Calif. — Republicans in Washington are taking a piecemeal approach to immigration reform — a strategy that could give the party’s most polarizing figures a months-long platform to pop off about illegal immigrants.

California Republicans have a much different line: Shut up and get it done.


The divide boils down to simple math for California Republicans, who know they can’t win elections here for long without the support of Hispanic voters.

Eleven of the 15 districts held by Republicans are a quarter or more Hispanic — and some of them are prime targets for Democrats who need 17 seats to take back the House in 2014.

But Republican leaders in Washington also face a much different picture nationwide: More than 100 House GOP districts have close to no Hispanic voters.

( PHOTOS: 10 wild immigration quotes)

So, while some Republicans in Washington might argue there’s no need to tackle immigration reform with a pathway to citizenship, California Republicans believe they must — or face extinction.

Already the California Republican Party is on the rocks: Democrats hold every statewide office and an unbreakable supermajority in both chambers of the state Legislature. It’s a situation top players in the state party say is the direct result of missing the demographic tidal wave before it hit — a lesson the national party should remember as they debate immigration reform.

“Republicans in California ignored demographic changes,” state Republican Party Chairman Jim Brulte said in an interview. “As a result, we’re a significant minority.”

Republicans on a national level should take notice, because players in the California GOP argue that they’re merely experiencing what states like Colorado, Nevada and Texas will experience in a few years: a drastically weakened party that’s routinely rejected by booming minority populations.

“Ultimately, it could doom the party 15, 20 years out,” said Rob Stutzman, a former top hand to former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger who is now one of the top Republican political advisers in the state, speaking of the perils of not completing immigration reform. “As decimated as the Republican Party has been in California, the opportunity here is to figure this out.”

The pressures are everywhere but are most acute in the arid and hot Central Valley, where agribusiness is the dominant economic driver, and Hispanic voters are prominent. The need for immigration reform is not only cultural, it’s economic: The year-round, labor intensive farming of things like lettuce, almonds and stone fruit has led to the need for more workers.

Fifteen months away from the next congressional election, Democrats have already stuck a tracker on GOP Rep. Jeff Denham, who represents a 35 percent Hispanic district and heavy agricultural communities like Ripon and the City of Modesto. As Denham held a town hall on a commuter train from San Jose to Stockton on Thursday, a young man who said he was there on behalf of his grandfather asked Denham if he supports the Senate’s immigration bill. His answer was no, but later he said he thinks it’s a major step in the right direction.

In Rep. Kevin McCarthy’s Bakersfield, 1,000 protestors — mostly union workers — held a rally to try to pressure him to support a pathway to citizenship.

Many Republicans believe their only route to survival to find a way to connect with Latinos and Asians, who have doubled their turnout in general elections in the past dozen years. In 2012, 72 percent of Latinos voted for President Barack Obama, while 77 percent of Asians helped reelect the president.

Making matters worse is internal GOP polling showing 65 percent of California voters have a negative view of the party.

That’s left the shared short-term view out here among most Republicans pretty bleak: We’re screwed.

“Republicans in California have now become experts at getting 25 percent of the Hispanic vote,” Brulte deadpanned.

The immigration reform debate isn’t over, of course, and a perceived legislative victory could help ingratiate Republicans with these minority groups. And few voters make a decision on a single issue. But in order to claw back to becoming a major party here, Republicans agree they need to get the debate behind them.

“All our polling shows immigration is the fourth- or fifth-most-important issue to Hispanic voters,” said Teresa Hernandez, who heads an immigration task force for the active Orange County Lincoln Club. “It’s one of those gateway issues: we want to speak to the Hispanic community on things that we agree on: education reform and jobs. But we need to get immigration off the table.”

All of this stands in stark contrast to the overwhelming Republican narrative in D.C. The skepticism about comprehensive reform that’s so pervasive across the Republican Conference is not prevalent here. At least two House Republicans — Rep. David Valadao and Denham — say they like the Senate bill and are open to a new pathway to citizenship.

From donors to statewide lawmakers to grass-roots groups, all are seeking a shift.

The New Majority, a coalition of rich California Republicans who donate thousands upon thousands of dollars for membership in the club, has made immigration reform a priority.

“Our members would say for the party to get out of its rut, it needs to deal with issues like this one,” said Tom Ross, a Sacramento-based consultant who serves as the group’s political director.

In some ways, many wealthy California Republicans have discounted the state’s GOP congressional delegation: Its members are — too insular, they say, and not willing enough to change. Some of that group’s money has gone to Grow Elect, whose sole goal is building a bullpen across the state of minority elected officials. Grow Elect is headed by Ruben Barrales, former President George W. Bush’s director of intergovernmental affairs. He is urging a complete rethinking of the party’s message: “I cringe when I hear certain members speak,” he said.

Lesson One: Shut up about border security.

“Republicans whose focus is on border security and enforcement — that’s fine, if that’s what their focus is, but please, talk about how important immigration is and to do it right,” he told POLITICO in an interview. “And we want to encourage it and bring the best and the brightest from around the world; immigrati on is helping make America stronger, and California one of the best places in the world to live. Start out with the positive, by communicating to people and letting them know that you care about them and the things that they care about.”

Barrales said that by the end of 2013, Hispanics will outnumber whites in California. Things don’t need to be fine-tuned, they need to be blown up, he said.

“We’re becoming a more diverse state, and the Republican Party, and the conservative principles … we’ve gotta be able to communicate that and put together platforms that appeal to very diverse voters throughout the state, or else we won’t be able to win elections,” Barrales said. “What’s the value of espousing principles that can’t garner a majority of the votes or can’t win elections?”

Some Republicans are beginning to get the message. Andy Vidak, who barely lost a congressional race to Democratic Jerry Costa in 2010, recently beat Democrat Leticia Perez in a state Senate special election in the heavily Hispanic, heavily Democratic Central Valley.

He endorsed a pathway to citizenship and ditched his party’s aggressive chatter about immigration — and he won in a district where 50 percent of the residents are Democrats.

“I shudder when I hear that kind of stuff,” Vidak told POLITICO, speaking of his party’s anti-immigrant rhetoric. “I live it.”

Vidak said he couldn’t have won his race if he took the tone of most national Republicans.

“I didn’t do it for votes,” he said. “When I go to a Menudo cook-off at the Kern County Fairgrounds, I didn’t go because they are Hispanics. I go because there are 10,000 people there.”

Some Congressional Republicans are coming back home with a finely tuned immigration message.

Valadao, who represents a district nearly identical to Vidak’s with nearly 70 percent Hispanic residents, said he often has people approach him, saying they’re disappointed with what they hear from the GOP.

“When you hear some of the comments made by some of the members, it’s obvious that it has nothing to do with solving the problem,” Valadao said in an interview. “It does nothing to move the conversation forward, it distracts from the goal and it is disappointing. That’s the comment I get the most from people in my community.”

Denham, who has been involved with California politics for more than a dozen years, is eager to talk about his desire for immigration reform. Standing next to a train station in San Jose, he said he wants the House to address “all aspects” of immigration reform “and have a full debate in front of the American people.”

“I want to make sure House Republican leadership brings up every single one of these subject items, and I have an opportunity to offer amendments that affect my community,” he said in an interview, as the train pulled away from San Jose.

Not everyone is singing from the same song sheet. GOP Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, who represents a rich conservative district in Orange County, has said if Speaker John Boehner put a bill on the floor without the majority of the House Republican Conference, he should lose his gavel.

Jon Fleischman, a prominent GOP blogger who is close with many elected Republicans here, said lawmakers will be tugged in every direction. In many districts, a heavy Latino population is counterbalanced by staunch conservatives, who want nothing to do with reform.

As 1,000 people screamed in 100-degree weather for a pathway to citizenship outside McCarthy’s Bakersfield office last week, they didn’t breathe a word about the fact that Mitt Romney won the district by 25 percent.

“The path for a winning scenario escapes me,” said Fleischman, who runs the popular Flash Report. “It’s a lose-lose scenario for Republicans at this point. It’s not clear to me how to win on this issue for our party right now. I can’t figure out what the win is. Because I see the problems, I see the challenge before me, so I don’t know what these individual members of Congress are going to do. I hope it works out.”