Russell Pearce helped re-elect President Barack Obama.
That's right. The recalled Arizona Senate president, among the president's harshest critics, contributed to Obama's return to the White House. Soak up the irony.
Here's the analysis. Pearce's legacy, SB 1070 with its get-tough-on-illegal-immigration provisions, sparked a rush among lawmakers nationally to introduce similar legislation. Georgia passed a bill tougher than Arizona's.
While hard-right conservatives cheered, Latino activists were energized. They mounted voter-registration drives, then got these new voters to the polls. The Latino portion of the national electorate rose to 10 percent, and three of every four voted for Obama. In the key battleground states, Latino voters supplied Obama's margin of victory.
Obama gave them reason to vote for him with his Dream Act executive order. But the energy was generated by Republicans' attitudes toward immigration reform in general and specifically by SB 1070 and its many imitators.
The hit taken by Arizona's tourism industry was not the only unintended consequence of this ill-conceived law. Pearce may not have been chanting "four more years," but his obsession with immigration contributed to Obama's second term.
NOTE: WHAT IS NOT MENTIONED, RUSSELL PEARCE 'CAVED IN' DURING THE SELECTION PROCESS OF THE SO CALLED 'INDEPENDENT REDISTRICTING COMMISSION. PEARCE USED THE 2 VETOES TOO FAST, SO LIBERAL COLLEEN MATHIS WAS CHOSEN AS THE INDEPENDENT, THUS GIVING THE DEMS THE POWER TO CHANGE ALL THE LEGISLATIVIVE & CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICTS! AND WE NOW SEE THE RESULTS OF THAT MESS!
No comments:
Post a Comment