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Latinos in the 113th Congress

January 29, 2013 0 Comments

The 113th Congress includes a record number of thirty-eight Latinos elected officials. These notable numbers have both policy and political implications for the future of Latino politics in the United States. First though, some demographic facts about the 113th.

Demographic Profile

The House Representatives includes thirty-five Latino members, another three are members of the United States Senate. All three Latino senators share two traits, they are all Cuban American men: Robert Menendez, D-New Jersey, Marco Rubio, R-Florida, and Ted Cruz, R-Texas. By contrast, only eight House members are Latinas. Democrats make up the majority of the Latino delegation, with twenty-seven in the House and one in the Senate. Republican Latinos number eight in the House and two in the Senate.

They hail from ten states and two territories, but California and Texas dominate the Latino congressional delegation (with thirteen and seven members from the respective states), which is not a surprise given the proportion of Latinos in those states as well as the large clusters of majority-minority regions with high concentrations of established Latino political talent.

Policy

In terms of policy representation, it is fair for the Latino electorate to expect co-ethnics in office to champion a specific policy agenda. Most Latino elected officials represent large Latino constituencies; it is their job to support and advance voter preferences after all.

In the 2012 election over 70% of Latino voters supported Democratic House, Senate and Presidential candidates. Results from the impreMedia/Latino Decisions Election Eve Poll –the only study of the 2012 Latino electorate — demonstrate that Latino voters have a clear policy affinity with the Democratic party. The majority of Latinos side with Democrats on core, party-defining issues including: health care, where over 60% prefer to see Obamacare remain intact; deficit policy solutions, where 77% prefer an approach that includes higher taxes on the wealthy, andimmigration, where the President’s deferred action policy was met with strong enthusiasm from the Latino electorate and the Republican candidate’s self-deportation alternative was roundly rejected.

There remains a smaller but steadfast Republican and conservative policy-leaning share of the Latino electorate, just as there is a smaller GOP Latino delegation. Because Latino voter preferences are so clear, Latinos in Congress can confidently coalesce around these issues to amplify their collective impact on legislation.

Politics

Latino members of Congress occupy an interesting political position in this era of growing Latino political empowerment. Both parties have publicly articulated a desire and plan to strategically build their Latino share in the electorate as a means to their long-term viability. In this light, Latino members of Congress represent more than their specific districts on floor votes and constituent services. Rather, Latino members provide a bridge to an electorate that both parties are keen to improve.

For example, Senator Ted Cruz has taken on the role of communicating the value of Latino electorate to a clearly non-Latino targeted audience, going to far as to say the GOP’s future is doomed without increased Latino voter support. Most Latinos did not vote for Senator Cruz, but that is beside the point. His ethnicity affords him a certain credibility and standing to speak on outreach issues that is taken seriously in and outside of his party. Latino Democrats in the 113th are in more high-profile partisan roles than prior Congresses, which suggests the party understands the importance of developing Latino political talent within their ranks given the decisive impact Latino voters had in President Obama’s re-election. Both teams learned that taking Latino voters seriously is not just a novelty of the 2012 Obama win, it is the future of winning.

This article was first published in Latinovations.

Sylvia Manzano is a Senior Analyst at Latino Decisions, a research and consulting firm specializing in Latino politics and policy. She holds a Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Arizona. Her research and analytical expertise focus on political demography, state politics, representation and immigration policy. She was a core designer and analyst on the 2012 impreMedia/Latino Decisions Latino National Election Eve Poll. She has been interviewed by numerous media outlets including NBC Latino, The New York Times, La Opinion, Fox News Latino, The Los Angeles Times and National Public Radio.

[Photo by Francisco Diez]

Politics

Reforming Govt Policies To Drive Innovation

October 4, 2011 0 Comments

By David Goldstein

The anti-clean-energy echo chamber has been publicizing the bankruptcy of Solyndra, a manufacturer of solar energy panels, arguing that the President’s clean energy job creation program is ineffective. But most of this criticism is just political posturing and not really trying to learn from these failures, which importantly have not prevented solar energy from growing dramatically while reducing costs.

One direct source of the problem is that China has succeeded in reducing the cost of manufacturing first-generation solar panels to such an extent that many companies around the world cannot compete. Notwithstanding this success, most American solar companies remain ahead of their overseas competition, as I illustrate below.

The issue of American industry remaining competitive with China is, of course, not unique to clean energy: many American producers are challenged to keep up with Chinese competition. But with solar, the Chinese government has been particularly effective in developing an industrial policy that provides Chinese manufacturers with a number of advantages in the global solar industry, including access to lower cost capital, subsidized electricity rates, free access to land, cheaper labor, domestic manufacturing requirements, and a much shortened permitting process for factories.

America, in contrast, has generally avoided industrial policy. Opponents of industrial policy argue that the market can pick winners better than government can, and I believe that this principle is generally correct, but I also think that innovation needs government support. The lesson from China is not to tremble and retreat in the face of its challenges. We are a great country of innovators and we need to support that.

While we at NRDC would not support the Chinese approach to industrial policy, nor would its approach work in America, there are certain smart policy approaches we can use that leverage America’s strengths in private sector innovation, investment, and job growth. We would do well to focus on the success stories in our domestic solar industry, which include American companies like: First Solar, which are producing next- generation solar panels cheaper than their Chinese competitors; SolarCity, which is using an innovative business model to bring hundreds of megawatts of solar to military bases; and Amonix, which is developing innovative high concentration solar photovoltaic (HCPV) technologies. These are only a few of many examples of success in the made-in-America solar industry.

Such vigorous competitive forces are good for the consumer. They bring prices of solar—and other clean energy and energy efficiency investments—down over time while product quality improves.

However, when developing policies to support emerging industries, the details are critical. So some closer examination of the issue of government support for clean energy can be helpful. One existing challenge with energy incentives for maturing technologies occurs when they don’t reward production, but rather focus on cost.

Cost-based incentives are employed by lots of governments around the world, probably because they are so simple to administer. This can make some sense for very early stage energy technology companies, which pose a real risk of not performing and thus are much more likely to receive financing when incentives are tied to cost instead of production. But solar energy has been in existence for decades, and no longer falls into this category: the challenge for solar is to ramp up production and cut costs through greater deployment. As technologies mature, we should promote best-in-class products, and incentivize improved performance.

An example of how not to do it is the 1978 federal tax incentives for both efficiency and renewable energy, which were found to have cost billions of dollars but had minimal effect in improving efficiency beyond what was already occurring. This failure is not surprising: if the incentive encourages people to spend money on solar (or efficiency), they may spend more but they may not produce more power (or savings). Incidentally, the last sentence is a paraphrase of the remarks that Congressman Phil Crane, one of the most conservative Republican members of the House, made to me when he decided to co-sponsor a bill on which NRDC had worked that provided performance-based incentives for solar and efficiency.

But unfortunately, when Congress adopted solar incentives in 2005, they chose (over the recommendations of the industry as well as NRDC) to create cost-based incentives. These could well have been a major contributor to the imperfect results of the incentives. So if there is political blame, those responsible are both Republicans and Democrats.

When I say that the results are imperfect, this is because on one hand, some big companies did not succeed, but on the other, since 2005, total solar capacity has grown over 45% every single year. Last year the amount of solar installed in America doubled from the previous year, and growth hasn’t slowed even in a tough economy. Meanwhile, the cost for solar power continues to fall at an incredible pace. According to the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, the price of solar installation dropped 17% from 2009 to 2010, and another 11% in the first half of 2011. Perhaps this generally favorable outcome is due to the fact that some large states structured additional non-federal incentives into their solar programs and effectively overrode the cost basis of the incentives for installations in their states.

The failure of a few solar companies has to be placed in the context of the explosive overall growth of this sector of the clean energy industry. The right response to these few failures and to general fiscal concerns is not retreat from innovation and healthy competition with China; the right response is to make sure we’re using the right policies for the right stages of technology development and generally have a much greater emphasis on performance-based policies.

NRDC believes that government support for emerging technologies in clean energy plays a critical role in advancing innovation and bringing the costs of these innovations down (that ultimately benefit consumers), and that the long-term effects repay the Treasury hundreds of dollars for each dollar spent on incentives. But the structure of incentives must be compatible with market forces: incentives for commercialized technologies—including most of the solar market—must be based on performance, not cost. And it is important to track what works, and recreate or expand successes while avoiding a repeat of failures.

[Photo By Håkan Dahlström]

Economy, Politics, Technology

development, environment, government reform, green, green energy, green jobs, policy, reforms, renewable energy, solar, solyndra, technology

Common Sense Missing From Obama Admin Immigration Reviews

September 26, 2011 0 Comments

By Matias Ramos, otherwords.org

Now that the electronic shackle is off, it’s really nice not having to listen to the eerie computer-voice commands regularly broadcast from its plastic speaker. [Matias Ramos, right, shows the ankle monitoring device he had to wear for ten days. Photo by Michael Vanacore.]

For 10 miserable days, I had to wear a thick rubber and plastic cuff around my ankle for 24/7 GPS monitoring. Every few hours, it would bark out strange comments and commands until I pressed a button to make it stop. Some were clear: “Call your officer.” “Recharge the battery.” But it also would sometimes declare “Leaving your master inclusion zone.”

What does that even mean? Beats me. But then, the fact that I had been shackled by an employee of a private company with a lucrative Department of Homeland Security contract made no sense either.

On the other hand, now I get what it really means to experience abusive government intrusion into your life. And I know firsthand that the Obama administration isn’t yet upholding its pledge to exercise some common sense when it comes to deciding whether a specific deportation case is a priority.

Under a new policy instituted in August, immigration agents and judges are supposed to use more discretion when deciding whether to deport someone. They’re supposed to weigh such factors as how long the person has lived in the United States, as well as whether he or she has obtained or is pursuing a college degree, or has dependents who are citizens. This new directive was supposed to free the government to focus on deporting people deemed to be criminals or national security threats.

As a college-educated, 25-year-old undocumented immigrant with an active deportation case and no criminal record, I welcomed this change — until I learned the hard way that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) field offices are actually becoming even more ruthless than before.

On September 13, less than a month after President Barack Obama announced this new initiative, and a dozen years after I arrived in the United States, I was placed on a supervision-intensive program run by a private company called BI Inc.

Under this program, a BI goon shackled me with a GPS-enabled monitoring device on my ankle that I’d have to wear at all times, even in the shower. Another called me a week later, telling me I should buy a plane ticket in two weeks. BI agents were free to make unannounced visits to my home, and my girlfriend and I had no right to refuse them entry. Nor was I allowed to leave the Washington, DC area.

Thanks to a petition drive by friends, colleagues, and supporters, ICE eventually relented and had the shackle removed. But thousands of other undocumented immigrants aren’t so lucky.

The experience was shocking and upsetting. But as a veteran immigrant rights activist living in our nation’s capital, I was no stranger to the facts about the massive and inhumane deportation system that has defined the Obama years when it comes to immigration policy. More than a million people have been shipped out over the last three years, putting the Obama administration on track to potentially deport more people in one term than Bush administration did in two.

I am an undocumented American. I came to this country with my parents at the age of 13, and after a dozen years of legal limbo, my attachment to this country is undeniable. I learned English as a teenager reading Catcher in the Rye, watching World Wrestling Entertainment, and enjoying Top 40 hits. But to the government contractor that suddenly became charged with my case, I was apparently just fodder for a profiteering scheme.

When Obama addressed Latino voters at the National Council of La Raza in July, he said he needed a “dance partner” to fix the nation’s immigration failures and that he couldn’t act alone. The new policy, announced in a letter from DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano to Sen. Dick Durbin, seemed to be playing a more danceable tune.

After my ordeal, I have some advice for Obama. One thing he could do to show that he wants the nation’s largest minority group to embrace him is to cancel the Bush-era contracts with unethical and profiteering companies like BI. Then he should tell immigration authorities to actually follow his new, common-sense approach.

Matias Ramos, the Institute for Policy Studies’ Carol Jean and Edward F. Newman fellow, is a formerly undocumented student and a co-founder of the United We Dream Network. More than 6,000 people have signed a petition calling on ICE to close his case. www.ips-dc.org

Immigration

deportation, dhs, ice, immigrants, immigration, obama, policy, politics

New Immigration Policy Prioritizes Criminals Over DREAMers

August 25, 2011 4 Comments

On Friday, a working group from the Department of Homeland Security and the Justice Department began its review of approximately 300,000 deportation cases currently in our system to distinguish between those who pose a threat to our national security and those who have committed immigration violations, also known as civil offenses.

“This is a great first step,” said Hector E. Sanchez, Executive Director of the Labor Council for Latin American Advancement. “We really need to see action on a common-sense approach to immigration and not just promises.”

The Obama administration’s announcement of its new immigration policy has received support from several Latino leaders for offering a sensible plan to temporary relief to deserving students, veterans and elderly currently undergoing the deportation process.

The new process and review of cases will relieve the backlogged immigration courts and clear some of their dockets to give more attention to serious criminals. Deportation cases would be canceled on a case by case basis, however immigrants eligible for work permits would need to apply through a separate process said a senior Homeland Security official.

Immigrants whose cases are canceled will remain in a legal limbo and change in their status can only be granted by Congress. They will not be exposed to deportation, nor will they have a positive immigration status.

The policy serves to focus resources where they are needed most, on high priority cases including cases in which immigrants have criminal records. It will prevent low priority cases from clogging our immigration court dockets, and while an important change, is a reminder that action is needed in Congress.

References:

[Photo By Nevele Otseog]

Immigration

2012, deportations, detention camps, dream act, dreamers, homeland security, immigration reform, obama, policy, reform

Obama’s Latina Staffer Defends Secure Communities

August 17, 2011 4 Comments

By Cecilia Muñoz, White House Director of Intergovernmental Affairs

As too often happens in the debate over immigration, anger and heated rhetoric from all sides dominate while the facts tend to get lost along the way. So it’s important to set the record straight. Fixing the broken immigration system so that it meets America’s economic and security needs has been and continues to be a priority for President Obama. The President has laid out a clear, detailed blueprint for reform, but the only way to do what’s necessary is for Congress to act and pass bipartisan legislation the President can sign into law. Failing to act simply perpetuates a broken system. Unfortunately, as the President has said, he needs a dance partner across the aisle to move legislation forward, and so far the floor is empty.

While the President continues to work every day to fix what’s broken about our immigration system, he has also been clear that the executive branch has a responsibility to enforce the law, and to do it in a way which is both vigorous and smart. So while legislation is pending, this Administration has focused on improving our immigration system by making enforcement smarter and more effective. The fact is, Congressional funding for immigration enforcement and deportations has been on the rise for the past decade. For the first time ever, those resources are being used in a strategic and targeted way to ensure we’re maximizing public safety.

Under the President’s direction, the Department of Homeland Security for the first time ever has prioritized the removal of people who have been convicted of crimes in the United States. The Secure Communities Program, which relies on a federal information sharing program that utilizes FBI fingerprint checks conducted by law enforcement officials as they fight crime in their communities, is central to this strategy. It is the primary reason that the deportation statistics show a dramatic increase in the number of criminals deported from the United States. The results of this strategy are striking:

There was a greater than 70% increase in the deportation of those with criminal records from FY2008 to FY2010, and a decrease of those without criminal records.
Today more than half of all removals are people with criminal records.
And among those removed who had no criminal records, more than two thirds were either apprehended as they crossed the border, were recent arrivals, or were repeat violators of immigration law, meaning that they had previously been deported.

Those statistics matter. While we have more work to do, the statistics demonstrate that the strategy DHS put in place is working. At the same time, the Administration has also been open and receptive to feedback from communities across the country. On June 17, DHS announced important changes to the Secure Communities Program, including creating an ongoing review of the program so that DHS can assess its effectiveness, and taking care to protect witnesses or victims of crimes. Nothing can make up for the lack of comprehensive reform, but the facts show this has been a good strategy we can be proud of.

The Secure Communities Program is a powerful tool to keep the government’s immigration enforcement resources focused where they belong – on those who fit within DHS’s highest enforcement priorities, such as those who have committed crimes in the United States.

Cecilia Muñoz is White House Director of Intergovernmental Affairs

[Photo By 826 PARANORMAL]

Immigration

2012, deportations, government, immigration reform, obama, policy, reform, secure communities

Wait, Not All Immigrants Are From Mexico?

July 29, 2011 1 Comment

By Michael B. Maine

The latest discussion on immigration has largely focused on the illegal immigration of people crossing over into the United States from Mexico. After taking a backseat into issues regarding our financial crisis, healthcare reform, and political tactics, the passing of immigration law SB1070 in Arizona has rekindled the discussion on immigration and our need to find an effective and just solution. Supporters of the law believe that the law will discourage illegal immigrants from entering the state. Critics believe that the new law will encourage discriminatory actions and encourage racial profiling. I will not focus on the new law enacted in Arizona, but rather take a broader perspective of how immigration affects the United States in a global economy.

Immigration is absolutely critical to the survival of the U.S. economy. The majority of our workplace is comprised of two important groups: immigrants and baby boomers. An article published in the Washington Post states that although immigrants account for 12.5 percent of the population, they make up 15 percent of the workplace. This overrepresentation occurs because immigrants and their children account for 58 percent of the U.S. population growth since 1980. With infertility a concern and the baby boomers reaching retirement age, we stand to have a void in the workplace that we simply cannot fill with native-born Americans. Not only will there be more jobs than people to fill them, but as baby boomers exit the workforce, they will take with them years of experience, knowledge, business relationships and expertise that cannot be easily archived.

This situation poses some very serious questions: How are we to continue progressing at the same level we have experienced over the past sixty years? How do we define progress? How do we pass down the information that cannot be stored outside the minds of our experts? With other countries making tremendous economic gains (I’m looking at India and China), how do we remain a leader, or even a competitor, in an ever increasingly global and competitive marketplace? These questions and several others will require complicated answers, and we need those answers now. How we answer them will help define the course for our future.

The United States has historically been a highly desirable place for foreign students to study abroad and we have attracted many of the top intellectuals from all over the planet. Over the past few years we have lost considerable ground to the United Kingdom, Spain, Sweden, Singapore, and China, who have all implemented strategies to make them more attractive to prospective students and professionals. As other destinations become more alluring we stand to lose the rate of innovation that has fueled our development. Madeleine Albright, Peter Jennings, Ted Koppel and Albert Einstein are just a few of the notable immigrants who helped shape the United States.

This country was “founded” on immigration. Today, the immigration of Mexican people is the focal point of the media. Although Mexicans do make up the largest number of illegal immigrants in the United States, they also make up the largest number of legal immigrants. According to the 2009 Annual Flow Report, published by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security the total amount of legal permanent resident flow into the United States was 1,130,818. Of this number, Mexican immigrants accounted for only 14.6 percent, or 164,000 people. This number is down from 189,989 or 17.2% in 2008. A large number of immigrants are migrating from China, the Philippines, India, Dominican Republic, Cuba, Vietnam Columbia, and South Korea.

The top destinations within the U.S. were California, New York, Florida, Texas and New Jersey respectively. Sure Texas and California share a border with Mexico, but who was the last person you knew who walked from Mexico to New York? Immigration is a big deal that needs an appropriate solution, but illegal immigration from Mexico is only part of what should be a larger debate.

Michael B. Maine is a socially conscious business strategist who lives in San Antonio, TX. For more of his work visit his website, his blog or follow him on Twitter @michaelbmaine.

[Photo By Grand Canyon NPS]

Economy, Immigration

business, demographics, economy, growth, immigrants, immigration, policy, school