Static versus dynamic scoring on illegal immigration
We’ve read many statements like this one of George Will over the last months:
Republicans very much want to pass an immigration bill as proof their party can govern. For that reason, there is no reason to expect Senate Democrats to compromise by passing something like the House bill. Nothing very different from it has any chance of being accepted by the House. So, safely assuming that the House-Senate conference fails to produce a compromise acceptable to both houses, when Congress returns to Washington after the Labor Day recess, the House may again pass essentially what it passed in December, just to enable Republicans to campaign on the basis of a clear and recent stance against exactly what Santorum’s ad stands against.
The cost of this, paid in the coin of lost support among Latinos, the nation’s largest and fastest-growing minority, may be reckoned later, for years. Remember this: Out West, feelings of all sorts about immigration policy are particularly intense, and if John Kerry had won a total of 127,014 more votes in New Mexico, Nevada and Colorado, states with burgeoning Latino populations, he would have carried those states and won the election. But for now, the minds of Republican candidates are concentrated on a shorter time horizon — the next 4 1/2 months.
Will’s logic may be correct. Illegal immigration might be a one-way-street issue. If you take the Krauthammer position (border control now, other issues humanely adjudicated next year), maybe the GOP loses Latino votes and Democrats win over the long term. But is it really that simple?
We’ve argued the point of view previously that the illegal immigration issue should be scored dynamically, not statically. There are perhaps significant numbers of votes to be gained from Democrats by taking a “border control first” position. Maybe that is an incorrect assumption; maybe it is not. But why do we never hear this argument mentioned by pundits who frame the issue as short-term GOP gain versus long-term GOP loss?
UPDATE
A pretty distinguished group says, “Trust, but verify” first.
June 19th, 2006 at 8:38 am
What I don’t understand is why “open borders” Republicans believe that supporting increased Hispanic immigration — by opposing tougher border control and immigration reform — will redound to the electoral benefit of Republicans, not Democrats.
First, simply opposing the “get tough” faction within the Republican Party — and thereby blocking meaningful immigration reform — will hardly persuade Hispanic voters who otherwise vote for Democrats to start voting for Republicans. The only thing that would make these voters start supporting Republican candidates is (1) changing these voters’ political orientation from liberalism to conservatism or (2) changing the Republican Party’s political orientation from conservatism to liberalism.
Clearly, the “open borders” Republicans who are so anxious to capture a larger percentage of the Hispanic vote do not favor option #1. Instead, they favor option #2 — and thus wish to see the Republican Party become more “moderate,” i.e., liberal. So these Republicans who are so concerned with the long-term electoral vitality of the party will sacrifice the very purpose of the party — to promote individual freedom, limited government, patriotism, and personal responsibility — in order to persuade more Hispanic voters to support Republican candidates.
But what about the notion that Hispanic will vote Republican because they tend to be more “pro life”? Frankly, this is absurd. Obviously, if this were true, Hispanics already would be voting Republican, but they’re not. Moreover, the issue that truly matters — the one that fundamentally divides the two major parties — is whether to support or oppose the welfare state. A majority of Hispanics support the welfare state. Hence, they vote Democratic. Moreover, the patriotic appeal of the Republican Party — another fundamental distinction between the two parties — also has very little weight with many Hispanic voters who often are relatively new to this country and maintain strong ties to their “homeland.”
If liberalism is what Hispanic voters want — and the available evidence shows that, on balance, that is precisely what they want — then why would they vote for moderate Republicans when liberal Democrats are the real deal? Only by persuading Hispanics (and blacks) that they do NOT want liberalism will the Republican Party be successful in capturing a larger percentage of their vote.
In the long-run, however, it seems unlikely that any program of “voter education” will occur fast enough to make up for the electoral imbalance that massive immigration will create. For every 10 new Hispanic voters, more than half will vote Democratic for years to come. This means Republicans will steadily lose ground. Hence, both as a matter of national integrity/security, and as a matter of political expediency, Republicans must support meaningful immigration reform.
True, a stronger position on immigration is likely to attract certain voters (nationalistic and working-class whites and perhaps some blacks) to move from the Democratic Party to the Republican Party, but I doubt these will be enough to offset the millions of new Hispanic citizens who will enter politics over the next decade or so. These new Hispanic voters present the clear prospect that the Democratic Party will regain its position as the “majority” party in this country.
So, while I agree that the Republican Party faces a very real “demographic” problem, the only solution that is compatible with what the Republican Party stands for is to secure the borders and place reasonable limits on Hispanic immigration. Any other approach will result in either the Republican Party losing its identity or the Democratic Party beoming the majority party for the foreseeable future.