Tuesday August 28, 2012
A race against time to get Latinos registered to vote (Voxxi): For get-out-the vote efforts, it seems like it’s going to be a race against the clock. Eight states have already passed legislations restricting community-based voter registration drives and critics claim the timing is detrimental for the Latino vote in the November election.
The right economic message for Latinos (Voxxi): Perhaps the most befuddling aspect of the 2012 presidential election is the idea advanced by political prognosticators and analysts that Hispanic Americans will be voting en bloc for President Obama without a second thought. As a proud member of the Latino community in America, this prediction frustrates me just as much as it perplexes me.
Viviana Hurtado: Why There Should Not Be a ‘Latino’ Debate (Fox News Latino): Minutes after the Commission on Presidential Debates, or CPD, announced that CNN’s Candy Crowley would be the first woman in 20 years to moderate one of the 2012 debates, the Twitterverse started burning up with the question: Why wasn’t a Latino chosen to chair this staple of the election season, culminating in a letter from Univision to the CPD demanding one for Hispanic audiences.
Latinos Overwhelmingly Blame Bush for Economy (Political Wire): A new Latino Decisions/impreMedia poll finds that 65% of Latino voters want to re-elect President Obama and 26% while prefer Mitt Romney. ”Some possible reasons for the stagnation of the Republican candidate are also reflected in the survey. One is the fact that Latino voters primarily blame former President George W. Bush for the state of the economy and not necessarily to President Obama. 68% blamed Bush for the economic downturn of recent years and only 14% blamed Obama.”
Conditions Ripe for Creation of Latino Political Party (UCR Today): Political, economic and social conditions in the United States make this a propitious time to create a Latino political party, asserts Armando Navarro, a political scientist at the University of California, Riverside.
Discriminatory South Carolina Voter ID Law Challenged in Federal Court (The Nation): Starting today, a federal court in DC will hear a week-long trial to decide whether South Carolina’s new voter ID law violates the Voting Rights Act. The Department of Justice objected to the law last December under Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, finding that South Carolina had failed to prove that the measure would not disenfranchise minority voters.
South Carolina lawmakers: No racial intent behind voter ID law (McClatchy/Charlotte Observer): Lawyers for the U.S. Justice Department and civil rights groups told a packed federal courtroom Monday that Republican legislators in South Carolina pushed a voter ID bill they knew would suppress the votes of African-Americans in the state, who overwhelmingly support Democratic candidates.
AARP: Senior Hispanics concerned mostly about Social Security, Medicare (Voxxi): Hispanics over the age of 50 are not just worried about jobs when it comes to the upcoming presidential election. According to surveys conducted by AARP, Hispanics over the age of 50 want candidates to address issues related to the future of Social Security and Medicare.
GOP Convention Tries to Tap Hispanics, Blacks and Women (Hispanic Business): With the 2012 Republican National Convention just around the corner, the GOP is making a concerted effort to re-vamp its image from the rich, white guys’ party to one that is more inclusive of Hispanics, blacks and women.
For GOP Up-and-Comer Ted Cruz, the Future Is Now (Hispanic Business): Ted Cruz was 10 years old when his hero, Ronald Reagan, became president in 1981. By his teen years, the son of a Cuban political refugee had memorized the U.S. Constitution and devoured economics classes at the Free Enterprise Institute in Houston.
Ron Paul Camp Assails Romney and GOP for Alienating Latinos (Fox News Latino): Less than 12 miles away from the Republican National Convention in Tampa, Texas Rep. Ron Paul gave an impassioned farewell speech to about 8,000 raucous supporters at a farewell rally Sunday night where he declared the so-called Ron Paul Revolution was not over.
Florida Hispanics’ Diversity Requires Tailored Campaign Messages (Bloomberg): Florida’s Hispanic population is among the nation’s most diverse. There’s no majority Hispanic nationality, and as a whole they are as divided along party lines as any race or ethnicity in the Sunshine State. Hispanic populations in Western swing states like Nevada are mostly Mexican-American and Democratic.
Dirty little secret of Obama’s immigration gambit (New York Post): Want to know a secret about Obama’s new program to allow illegal young people to stay and work in the US legally? It isn’t really going to serve the population the administration it touting.
Obama is deporting more immigrants than Bush. Republicans don’t think that’s enough. (Washington Post): The GOP is toughening its stance on immigration in its 2012 party platform. But that’s partly in response to Obama’s own hawkish stance on immigration enforcement. In fact, both parties are now pushing different programs with the same goal: to increase enforcement of laws that target illegal immigration on the local level.
Unequal education: Low funding is not the only problem with high-minority schools (Voxxi): According to a report released by the Center for American Progress, African American and Latino students in high-minority schools are getting the short end of the funding deal. In fact, the report revealed more money on average is spent in schools where the majority of students are non-Hispanic whites. According to the report, across the country, “schools spent $334 more on every white student than on every non-white student.”
Study: More Hispanic children with autism remain undiagnosed (NBC Latino): UC Davis MIND Institute released this week the largest study to date comparing the development of Hispanic and non-Hispanic children and found a higher percentage of Hispanic children often have undiagnosed developmental delays, or autism. The study included 1,061 children living in California who were between 24 and 60 months of age. The results showed that 6.3 percent of Hispanic children enrolled in the study met criteria for developmental delay and autism, compared with only 2.4 percent of non-Hispanic participants.
Student Judith Villa Tops National Spanish Spelling Bee (Hispanic Business): She is Judith Villa, an 11-year-old sixth-grader at Sunland Park Elementary. Judith tied for first with an eighth-grade student from Rio Rancho Middle School in Rio Rancho, N.M. The contest took place July 21 at the National Center of Hispanic Culture in Albuquerque.
May 6, 2013 
0 Comments
Ms. de Lafuente comes to AARP with extensive experience working with state agencies in various capacities. She has worked on behalf of county governments for years on critical issues such as indigent health care, transportation, corrections and development. In 2009, Ms. de Lafuente served as the South Texas Political director for former Houston Mayor Bill White as he campaigned for U.S. Senator and Texas Governor. Later, she founded a public strategies company that focused on public affairs and grassroots political campaigns in South Texas.
