It's blank. (Editorial Note: When I first wrote this article I pointed my users to http://www.rnc.org/nmc/default.htm. The site was blank for several weeks before the article published and remained blank for at least two weeks after this article was first published. Finally, as of September it has content. This past week, George W. Bush was criticized when his new site launched and the Spanish section was empty. That was fixed. The site I listed, however, has remained empty for several weeks. Who is actually paying attention to minority issues? Did someone pay as much attention to the quality of the Spanish pages as they did the English pages? Has anyone in the Republican Party looked at this web page, their outreach to minorities, in the past month?
In order to believe the party has changed, we must be able to ignore the various pending bills in Congress and various states to make English the official language or take away the choice of bilingual education. We must forget that four years ago they were willing to amend the Constitution to be sure the children of immigrants would not automatically become citizens. Please, for their sake, forget that they have held up the nominations of several Latino judges for fear they might make it to the Supreme Court. They broke a U.S. record recently in keeping Judge Paez in the pipeline for four years. Senator Inhofe has dedicated himself to holding up all nominations while Clinton is in office, even though the Supreme Court has called the current backlog a judicial emergency. He has also dedicated himself to keeping Vieques under live bombs and to closing down bases in Puerto Rico if they disagree.
The GOP has changed. They were kind enough to remove phrasing from their party platform that attacks immigrants. In 1996 they openly supported Proposition 187 in their platform, were willing to change the constitution to prevent immigrant children from becoming citizens, and wanted to prevent any immigrant from collecting from social services while comparing their immigration sponsors to "deadbeat dads". Four years later, they love us.
This year, even though the vast majority of all delegates to the convention are non-Hispanic and white, the convention is full of brown faces and Hispanic names. With so many African-American faces shown before the camera, only 4% of the actual delegates were African-American. There were many Hispanics who gave speeches (in English and Spanish), but they only made up 3.3% of the delegates (another figure says 6%, possibly including alternates). In Pennsylvania, the state hosting the convention, there are 78 delegates and 78 alternates. One of them was Hispanic. As far as ecomonic interests, a New York Times poll discovered that at least 23% of the delegates were millionaires.
George W. Bush does have a record of supporting diversity more than the mopst conservative Republicans. But, with a Republican President and an unchanged Republican Congress, what kind of legislation and Supreme Court nominations will we see in the future. The National Hispanic Leadership Agenda (NHLA) gives Congress a list of issues every session and lets them know whether a Yes or No vote is believed to benefit Latinos. For the first session of the current Congress, GOP Senators scored a failing 2.7%, while the House Republican scored a low 4.9% of Pro-Hispanic Votes. Senator John McCain scored a zero. Henry Bonilla, who is one of two Latinos to score a zero, called the NHLA "self-appointed experts." Well, these self-appointed experts are leadership members from 32 of the nation's most prominent Latino organizations, including MALDEF, LULAC, and the NCLR. The GOP National Committee chair, Jim Nicholson, wanted to know where "the real votes of importance to Hispanics" were. The topics covered by the scorecard were Education, Budget, Civil Rights, and Family Support. It seems the Chairman doesn't agree with these priorities.
Will Bush veto English Only legislation? Will he uphold the results of the Vieques Referendum against the objections of his Congress? The Vice Presidential choice raises even more questions. Dick Cheney has been described by some as more conservative than Newt Gingrich, and similar to Jesse Helms. He's voted against funding for Head Start and child nutrition programs, as well as something as straightforward as requesting Nelson Mandela be released from prison. He also opposed collecting information about Hate Crimes. People use to joke about Dan Quayle being nominated as Vice-President to George Sr. as security. No one wanted Dan to become president. Well, Dick Cheney is the next in line if George Jr. wins. Do we want Dick Cheney as President?
I'll recognize change in the party when their Pro-Hispanic vote reaches the double digits. I'll believe George's commitment when he asks the current Congress to withdraw support for bills that attack language or immigrants from Latin America. When he stands in front an Anglo audience and talks about his commitment to immigrants, or asks the Arizona ranchers to stop hunting Mexicans, and when he stops parading around his brown nephew who doesn't speak about the actual political issues - then I'll believe George is committed. The Party itself has a long way to go, and the Party will run Congress.
Discuss in the Forum:
Is the GOP Sincere?
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