Hispander Reality Check: Did the passage of anti-illegal Prop. 187 really tilt California to the Democrats for decades by waking the "sleeping giant" of the Latino vote? That's what the courageous Republicans engineering the proposed semi-amnesty Hispander are worried about. I've always believed they were right to worry, in part because I once read that veteran Reagan adviser Stuart Spencer was worried. But Debra Saunders and Dale Franks dispute this bit of CW: They note that the allegedly energized Latino vote failed to save Democratic Governor Gray Davis after he signed a bill allowing illegals to get drivers' licenses, and failed to prevent a Republican governor from being elected on a pledge (since fulfilled) to repeal it. ... They might have added: a) According to the NYT
, Hispanics are 34.7 % of California's population but those registered to vote are only 6.8% of the population.** b) The Republicans apparently lost 8% of this 6.8% sliver between 1996 and 2000--a non-trivial but also non-gigantic loss of half a percentage point; c) Welfare changes in 1996--conditioning benefits on citizenship--also may have encouraged many previously non-citizen Latinos to become citizens and voters; d) If, as David Brooks argues <$>, Latinos are such natural Republicans (they're religious, family oriented, and "Mexican-Americans spend 93 percent more on children's music") then are they really going to abandon their ingrained ideological orientation in a fit of identity politics because Congress refuses to legalize their undocumented ethnic compatriots? ... I still think there's something to the CW--and Dick Morris certainly does--but it's worth questioning how much. ... Update: Steve Smith says the real post-187 GOP problem is Asians. If you add the Asian and Latino share of the California electorate from November, 2004, you're talking over 20%, according to the LAT (which I now do not trust even on something routine like this!). ...
http://www.slate.com/id/2138935/