In a
speech to the National Council of La Raza National Conference, Howard Dean warned us of what is coming in 2006:
The Republican leadership targets minorities to advance their own party agenda, but in elections they look for ways to divide us. It was African-Americans in 2002, gays in 2004, and it's going be immigrants in 2006, you wait and see.
Here is my beloved reasonably blue state of Washington, what may be the first shot has been fired in the form of a voter initative filed for the 2006 election -- and the issue may rear its ugly head into the 2006 Senate race. More below.....
Yesterday's
Seattle Post-Intelligencer reports on Initiative 343, which, among other things seeks to deny public benefits to undocumented immigrants. Hmmm......denying people emergency room care by statute sounds like a wonderful idea. Yeah, sure.
Howard Dean's point is made with a comment in the Seattle PI article:
Initiative 343 is part of a national effort to make immigrants a scapegoat by those uncomfortable with diversity, said Eric Ward, a field director of the Center for New Communities in Chicago, a faith-based organization that seeks social and economic justice.
For those who don't know -- WA has a large and growing Mexican/Mexican-American population. Obviously, this includes some who are undocumented. We can figure out who these cabrons are targeting. Eric Ward, quoted above, illustrates:
Ward said such efforts to curb illegal immigration use "racially coded words. When people hear 'immigrants,' they're not thinking of Canadians coming down from the north."
Unsurprisingly, the right wing whiners here are playing this as a measure to prevent illegal voting. The local right-wing blog Sound Politics has an entry titled Leftist Pinheads: Protecting Citizen Voting Rights is an "attack on immigrants". The comments can be quite illuminating; I'll spare you quoting them here but feel free to read for yourself. It seems that our own little Flat Earth Society believes that maybe it was illegal immigrants that supplied all the votes that put Christine Gregoire in the Governor's mansion.
You can read for yourself information about the person who filed the initiative:
I-343 was filed by Martin Ringhofer of Soap Lake in Grant County. Ringhofer had led an unsuccessful recall effort against Secretary of State Sam Reed earlier this year. He had accused Reed of malfeasance and a violation of the oath of office for his role in certifying Christine Gregoire as governor in December.
GET OVER IT YOU CRY BABIES, ROSSI LOST!
OK, I had to say that -- now back to the subject of the diary. :-)
Whether a rash of anti-immigrant measures arise in 2006 remains to be seen; sadly there is reason to believe they can be passed. I-343 is apparently modeled after Arizona's Proposition 200, which was labeled Protect Arizona Now, which received 56% of the vote in 2004.
Sadly, we have history here in WA as well. In 1998, 58% of WA voters supported Initiative 200, a margin of more than 310,000 votes. Much like California's Proposition 209, I-200 eliminated affirmative action in our state. Most repulsively, Republicans claimed it was modeled on the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Using the race-baiting quotas banner that the GOP loves so much, I-200 received a majority of the votes in every county in the state except King County (Seattle's county). The previously cited Seattle PI article notes that King County Councilmam Larry Gossett, who is African American, believes history could repeat itself:
I-343 has "a great potential to pass in Washington state," he said.
The person who co-authored I-200 was right wing radio host John Carlson. Carlson was also the 2000 GOP candidate for Governor who had his head handed to him by Gary Locke. (how embarrassing would that be!?) Of course, the Log Cabin folks seem to like John Carlson -- somehow that figures.
This is what brings to the 2006 WA Senate race. As Kos readers probably know, Safeco Insurance CEO Mike McGavick has made known his intentions seek the GOP nomination to challenge Senator Maria Cantwell next year.
And who shall be advising McGavick in his Senate bid? One John Carlson, among others, notes the Seattle PI:
A day after announcing that he will resign as Safeco's chairman and chief executive officer, McGavick, 47, held a news conference to confirm that he is running for the Senate, told of his political and family roots in this state, and later named four Republicans who will lead his exploratory committee.
They are former Sen. Slade Gorton, McGavick's ex-boss and political mentor; former U.S. Rep. Jennifer Dunn; Western Wireless Chairman and Chief Executive John Stanton; and conservative talk-radio host John Carlson, the 2000 GOP candidate for governor.
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Fascinatingly, McGavick has made somewhat of a name for himself in some circles as diversity advocate, even having won a diversity award from the University of Washington. Yet, he chooses as his guide I-200 Co-Author/Campaign Chair, John Carlson. Interesting.
At a Macy's Diversity Scholarship luncheon at their downtown Seattle store last month, McGavick was the main speaker -- and he did give a lovely speech. (I was there) Apparently it was all just blowing smoke, kind of like I'm a uniter, not a divider....we all know how that turned out. It seems to me that commitment to diversity requires one to not climb in bed with race-baiters; McGavick apparently disagrees.
So is this coming to your state too? Will it be a major factor in the 2006 elections? To what extent? It won't take much for it to be front and center here in WA; I-343 needs just under 225,000 signatures by the end of 2005 to make the 2006 ballot.
As they said on the old SNL Coffee Talk skit, DISCUSS!