May, 09 2011, 04:52pm EDT
What the Demise of Florida's Anti-Immigration Bill Says About the Politics of Immigration
Marco Rubio Take Note: There’s a Price to Pay for Anti-Immigrant Policies
WASHINGTON
The news that Florida's state legislature will not advance Arizona-style anti-immigration legislation this year is a welcome development that should puncture several growing myths about the politics of immigration.
For one, the developments in Florida should give pause to Republican strategists seeking to use immigration as a wedge issue and advance the notion that pushing Arizona copycat laws is a smart political strategy for the GOP. State senate president Mike Haridopolous, running for the Republican nomination to U.S. Senate, made a deal with the Tea Party to do what he could to pass an anti-immigration bill in the Sunshine State. After Spanish-language radio advertisements highlighted the role key Hispanic legislators were playing in providing cover to Haridopolous as he rammed through the legislation, Sen. Anitere Flores and House Majority Leader Carlos Lopez-Cantera came under intense scrutiny. They denounced the legislation, and it finally died.
The zeal of a narrow fringe group of Republican hard-liners proved to be no match for the power of the Hispanic vote in Florida and the state's business community, which was extremely worried about the law's impact on Florida agriculture, tourism, and reputation on the world stage.
The developments in Florida also tested the idea--so popular among anti-immigration restrictionists like Rep. Lamar Smith--that the GOP can court Latino voters with a few tweaks in their overall brand. The theory goes, there is no need to change the Republican Party position on immigration reform, just change the "tone" of the debate, and run a few more Latino candidates. As a report from America's Voice makes clear, adding more Latino Republicans to the GOP ticket is not enough to win Latino voters--the Party really does have to move away from a mass deportation strategy to embrace comprehensive immigration reform. Florida provided a legislative case study of this theory, as the Florida Republican caucus entrusted the anti-immigration legislation to Cuban-American State Senator Anitere Flores, who faced outrage from Hispanic constituents after Spanish-language radio advertisements highlighted her role in the legislative process, as well as descriptions of how the bill would be detrimental to the Hispanic community. Flores smartly distanced herself from the bill and ended up playing a key role in killing it.
According to Frank Sharry, Executive Director of America's Voice, "The recent debate in Florida is a watershed for immigration politics. By pandering to their right wing base with this legislation, Florida's Republican Party mobilized opposition from Florida' Hispanic community, leading to the welcome demise of the bill. The debate and its implications also offer a cautionary tale to Florida Senator Marco Rubio, whose own political future remains tied to how well he can reconcile some of his hard right support and anti-immigration policy positions with his background as one of the most prominent Hispanic elected officials in the nation."
Indeed, according to conservative columnist Ruben Navarrette, "Marco Rubio is the Republican Party's Superman. And, the immigration issue, if not handled correctly, is his kryptonite." In 2010 election eve polling from Latino Decisions, Senator Rubio (R-FL) won 62% of the Latino vote (78% of the Cuban vote and 40% of the non-Cuban vote). Some of the support for Rubio was understandable - Florida has a more Republican-leaning Latino electorate than any other state, Florida Cubans were motivated to turnout for their native son, and 2010 was an especially good year for Republican candidates among all demographic groups. However, Rubio's opponents also failed to make his anti-immigration stance a liability, despite the fact that the Florida Latino electorate is staunchly pro-immigrant.
Said Sharry, "The implications of the 2011 Florida battle over state legislation for 2012 are huge. If Marco Rubio is put on the national ticket and he maintains his hard line anti-immigrant policies, such as opposing comprehensive immigration reform and the DREAM Act, he won't get a pass. He will be called out in the same way that Sen. Anitere Flores and House Majority Leader Carlos Lopez-Cantera were called out. Given the fact that immigration is now the number one issue for Hispanic voters, this will force a choice: he either leads his party to a new, more positive position on immigration or he loses significant support from the very voters he is supposed to attract."
America's Voice -- Harnessing the power of American voices and American values to win common sense immigration reform. The mission of America's Voice is to realize the promise of workable and humane comprehensive immigration reform. Our goal is to build the public support and create the political momentum for reforms that will transform a dysfunctional immigration system that does not work into a regulatory system that does.
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Opponents of Missouri's GOP-rigged congressional map on Tuesday submitted more than twice the required number of signatures supporting a referendum on the redistricting scheme backed by US President Donald Trump, a move that followed a federal judge's refusal to block the initiative.
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The submission—which filled 691 boxes—will be reviewed by state election officials tasked with certifying the validity of the roughly 110,000 signatures required for qualification on the November 2026 ballot. If the signatures are approved, the state would be temporarily prohibited from adopting the new map until after the referendum vote.
Hoskins initially rejected People Not Politicians' referendum petition because Missouri Gov. Mike Kehoe, a Republican, had not yet signed the redrawn map into law. Hoskins said he would reject any signatures collected before Kehoe approved the map in September. At that time, People Not Politicians had collected around 92,000 signatures.
“The citizens of Missouri have spoken loudly and clearly: They deserve fair maps, not partisan manipulation,” People Not Politicians executive director Richard von Glahn said in a statement. “We are submitting a record number of signatures to shut down any doubt that Missouri voters want a say.”
The submission followed a Monday ruling by US District Judge Zachary Bluestone—a Trump appointee—rejecting Republican Missouri Attorney General Catherine Hanaway's bid to block the referendum on grounds that the court had no jurisdiction over a lawsuit filed by Hoskins and the GOP-controlled state Legislature arguing that state referendums on congressional maps are unconstitutional.
Supporters of Missouri's referendum are seeking to block redistricting legislation passed in September as part of Trump's push for Republican-controlled state legislatures to rig congressional maps in a bid to preserve GOP control of Congress by eliminating Democratic-leaning districts.
Texas was the first state to do Trump’s bidding by approving a new congressional map that could help Republicans gain five additional House seats. Last week, the US Supreme Court's right-wing majority gave Texas Republicans a green light to use the rigged map in next year's election.
Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom responded to Texas' move by spearheading a successful ballot initiative to redraw the Golden State's congressional map in favor his party. Under pressure from Trump, Republican lawmakers in Indiana, Missouri, and North Carolina launched their own gerrymandering efforts.
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Responding to Tuesday's signature submission, Missouri state Rep. Ray Reed (D-83) said on social media that "today, the people of Missouri did something powerful. Organizers across our state: young folks, retirees, faith leaders, neighbors talking to neighbors, came together to defend the idea that in a democracy, voters should choose their leaders, not the other way around."
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As student debt exacerbates the financial struggles of millions of Americans, the Trump administration has taken a major step toward killing the Biden administration's student loan forgiveness program.
On Tuesday, the Department of Education announced that it had reached a settlement with the state of Missouri to end the Saving on a Valuable Education (SAVE) program, which allowed more than 7 million mostly low-income Americans to reduce their federal student loan payments.
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In March 2024, a coalition of 11 states led by Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach sued in federal court to stop the SAVE plan. The next month a similar lawsuit was filed by another coalition of seven states led by Missouri's former attorney general, Andrew Bailey.
In February, the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in favor of the states, blocking 8 million borrowers from accessing lower payments under the program. Now President Donald Trump's administration which aggressively opposes student loan forgiveness, has agreed to settle the lawsuit, effectively killing SAVE.
“For four years, the Biden administration sought to unlawfully shift student loan debt onto American taxpayers, many of whom either never took out a loan to finance their postsecondary education or never even went to college themselves, simply for a political win to prop up a failing administration,” said Undersecretary of Education Nicholas Kent. "The Trump administration is righting this wrong and bringing an end to this deceptive scheme. The law is clear: if you take out a loan, you must pay it back."
The settlement also includes a provision requiring that, for the next 10 years, the Department of Education notify the state of Missouri at least 30 days in advance before instituting broad-based student debt relief.
As the Debt Collective, a membership-based debtors' union, explained in a post on social media: "30 days is enough notice that Missouri will find standing to sue for relief before it even happens. So not only is Trump gutting the SAVE plan, they're essentially putting a moratorium on cancellation for the next 10 years with this agreement."
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SAVE was already slated to end in 2028 following July's passage of Republicans' One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which replaced it with a pair of less generous income-based repayment plans that require many debtors to pay hundreds more per month. The deadline to switch to one of the new plans will now move up, though the administration has not yet clarified when borrowers will have to switch.
The Debt Collective predicted that the end of SAVE "means many more debtors will likely be forced to default on their loans," which the group added "is bad for millions of families and our economy."
According to an analysis of federal student loan data from the American Enterprise Institute, a libertarian think tank, more than 12 million borrowers in the US are already in default or otherwise behind on their student loan payments.
Since their introduction, former President Joe Biden's student loan forgiveness policies have been chipped away at bit by bit through litigation. In 2023, the conservative US Supreme Court struck down the administration's plans to forgive up to $20,000 in student loan debt for millions of Americans, ruling that the plan exceeded the administration's executive authority. A year later, it halted SAVE as well while it considered the merits of the Missouri lawsuit.
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