Former RNC Chairman Ed Gillespie is warning GOPers not to let their party become perceived as an anti-immigrant party or it could lose its standing as the majority party.
In a piece in the Wall Street Journal, Gillespie writes:
In coming weeks, Republicans in Congress must choose either a comprehensive immigration reform package including a guest-worker program or a narrowly focused border-security bill. The former would improve homeland security, help our economy and build greater Republican majorities. The latter, conversely, would ignore fundamental problems, hurt our economy and risk the party’s majority status.
Lawbreakers should not be rewarded with citizenship, but respect for the rule of law need not conflict with two other pillars of conservative philosophy: freedom and economic growth. A rational immigration policy that allows workers to enter and exit this country for temporary employment will make us more secure. Law enforcement will face fewer problems with undocumented workers and will be better able to focus on the true threats to our nation from criminals and terrorists.
The Journal notes that Gillespie’s law firm ” Quinn Gillespie & Associates, represents clients who support a temporary guest worker program.” But that’s probably less of a factor than the fact that Gillepie is again on the same page as President George Bush on an issue. So he issues this hard-nosed warning to his party:
The Republican Party cannot become an anti-immigration party. Our majority already rests too heavily on white voters, given that current demographic voting percentages will not allow us to hold our majority in the future. Between 2000 and 2004, President Bush increased his support in the Hispanic community by nine percentage points. Had he not, John Kerry would be president today.
Hispanic voting percentages are increasingly decisive in swing states like New Mexico, Nevada, Florida, Colorado and Arkansas. Mishandling the immigration debate today could result in the Republican Party struggling in these states and others in the same way it now does in California. People who come legally to this country with nothing and labor in the most menial ways to get a new start should feel at home in our party. As a rule, they are hardworking, law-abiding, freedom-loving and patriotic Americans.
If the Republicans support a Guest Worker program, he writes “we will also be a party that enjoys the support of a majority of voters for generations.”
Will it happen…or will some GOP politicos see this as being a suggestion to pass up a tempting plate of nice, red meat that could define the GOP on a hot-button issue and become a “wedge issue” to use against the Democrats in 2006 to garner anti-immigrant votes from the party’s straying base?
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.