Brian Howey: Will GOP become the Whigs of the 21st Century?

INDIANAPOLIS, IN - "If the Republicans aren't careful, they are going to become the Whigs of the 21st Century," I said.  I'm seated at a South Bend Chocolate Company table with U.S. Rep. Mike Pence.  The topic is immigration. What is striking about my audacious comment is that Pence can only chuckle a bit and wince.

 It isn't a notion he contests. He tells me about the various town hall events he and U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison attended to try to forge a national compromise in 2006. They advocated illegal immigrants returning to their countries of origin, then reporting to "Ellis Island Centers" where they could be processed, given U.S. work permits, sign pledges to learn English and attain citizenship, and pay a fine for breaking U.S. laws. "Only by meeting the demand for labor through a temporary worker program, coupled with enhanced border security measures, can we ensure national and economic security," Pence and Hutchison wrote. He says his constituents want the problem solved.

When the Pence-Hutchison compromise collapsed, the feds just gave up and the states began to act. Arizona and Oklahoma passed their own immigration laws. The issue has arrived in the Indiana General Assembly. State Sen. Mike Delph, R-Carmel, reached out to Latino voters when he ran for secretary of state in 2002. He had interned for former Nicaraguan President Violeta Chamorro and studied in Mexico City. But he's been in the crosshairs of the Hoosier Latino community for his legislation that would require businesses to do background checks to ensure they are hiring properly documented workers. For this, he was recently labeled "El Diablo" – the devil – by El Indy Latino newspaper.

Delph agrees immigration policy is a federal issue. "The federal government has abdicated its constitutional responsibilities to defend our borders and enforce customs law," he says. "As a result there are the social and economic costs that have been shifted down to the state and local governments that those taxpayers bear every day."

The senator notes that some Hoosiers are upset by the language differences. I reminded him that's been the experience since waves of Germans came in the 1880s, Italians and Poles a century ago. "It's a little bit different because when the Germans came, they had these points of assimilation. People would go to New York City or San Antonio, Houston, Los Angeles or Miami and then maybe the next generation would move elsewhere. Now you've got the entry point at Frankfort, and Greenfield, Indiana. There's this huge culture clash. It happens in rural America."

Delph acknowledges his initial draft "was pretty harsh" but says he's made four concessions: moving from a two-strike provision to three strikes for guilty businesses; asking them to use the E-Verify system; pushing the implementation date to October 2009; and that the law should apply to new hires only.

A member of Delph's church, who is married to an undocumented man that works in the church nursery, shared her personal story with him.  Every day when the phone rings, she fears her husband will be caught and deported. 

"Your daughter loves him," the woman said. "What are you going to tell your daughter?"

Delph responded, "What kind of life is that? Is that freedom? Is that fair to you? Fair to your kids? There are real human rights abuses going on here. There are people exploiting labor for profit."

The senator points to a recent case in Hendricks County where 20 people were found stuffed in a van "like cattle." He charges that El Indy Latino is profiting from such people. He understands the opposition from the Latino community, but asks, "If you've got a better solution, I'm all ears. The community as a whole cannot be accomplices to law breaking because they create racial tensions and suspicions over legal citizens."

Because of the federal impotence, the risk is that America – the great melting pot nation – finds itself with a patchwork of laws.

The other thing at play here is that while Gov. Mitch Daniels and President George W. Bush have good relationships with the Latino community, a wing of the Republican Party – mostly represented in Congress and the legislature by middle-aged white males - has displayed a streak for intolerance, whether it be on the gay marriage issue or now immigration. In 2006, U.S. Rep. John Hostettler, joined by fellow Hoosiers Mike Sodrel and Chris Chocola, had show hearings that railed against the notion of "amnesty." All lost that November.

Pew Research released a report recently that shows the American population will increase from 296 million in 2005 to 438 million in 2050.  "Of the 117 million people added … 67 million will be the immigrants themselves and 50 million will be their U.S.-born children or grandchildren. And 29 percent of the U.S. population in 2050 will be Latino, compared to the current 15 percent. Factor in African-Americans, Asians, and others nationalities, Caucasian Americans are predicted to become a minority population.

Now here's where my 21st Century Whig comment comes into play. The Pew Hispanic Center notes that 57 percent of registered Latino voters now call themselves Democrats, while just 23 percent call themselves Republicans. There is now a 34-percent gap in partisan affiliation among Latinos and it's growing. That's going to be a Grand Old Problem.

Howey is publisher of Howey Politics Indiana at www.howeypolitics.com

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