"House Republican leadership’s outreach to the Hispanic community ran smack into a tea party wall on Wednesday. Outside the Capitol, a tea-party-fueled rally on immigration put the spotlight on the dilemma facing Speaker John A. Boehner. The Ohio Republican met with the Congressional Hispanic Caucus on Wednesday and hopes to cure his party’s huge demographic challenge with Hispanics by passing an immigration overhaul this year. But the tea party energy on display outside the Capitol, which catapulted him into power in 2010, has turned on the speaker. The contrast was on full display at an ill-timed news conference held by GOP Conference Chairwoman Cathy McMorris Rodgers of Washington outside the Capitol in the House Triangle, competing with the larger, daylong anti-immigration-bill news conference and rally on the East Front. McMorris Rodgers had gathered faith-based leaders of the Latino community on Capitol Hill to, she said, talk about “our shared goals for America” with a half-dozen of her colleagues as part of a larger outreach effort. At one point, Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart, R-Fla., addressed Hispanic media outlets in Spanish — only to get heckled. “If they all learned English …” someone shouted from the sidelines, then trailed off, as a woman arrived wielding a sign that read, “Do not reward criminals, no amnesty for illegal aliens!!!” [...] The rally against the Senate’s immigration bill and any House bill that would provide a pathway to citizenship before securing the border — organized by Republican Rep. Steve King of Iowa — rallied the base of tea party Republicans and libertarians already in town for a protest on the West Front against the IRS. The two gatherings featured an overlap of speakers in terms of members of Congress, political activists and public figures such as radio hosts Glenn Beck and Laura Ingraham. King – along with Republican Reps. Louie Gohmert of Texas, Michele Bachmann of Minnesota, Rob Bishop of Utah and Jack Kingston of Georgia, among others, took to the microphones to denounce anything smacking of “amnesty.” Gohmert said Wednesday morning that some Republicans, such as those in leadership, are “pandering” to Latinos. “Maybe we won’t get the Latino vote initially,” he said in an interview with a Latino news outlet, “but once they examine who really cares … which party … wants you to learn English and be the president of the company and [not] relegated to digging a ditch the rest of your life … that’s us.” At the immigration rally, participants cheered on a reporter who identified himself as affiliated with the conservative outlet Breitbart News, but they booed and heckled a CNN Radio scribe who queried Heritage Foundation fellow Robert Rector about the Congressional Budget Office’s findings that the Senate’s immigration bill would yield big deficit reductions. [...] At McMorris Rodgers’ news conference, however, it was difficult to imagine how the GOP will manage to avoid splintering over the issue. As her group wrapped up and dispersed, [Gulf Meadows Church pastor, Becky] Keenan turned and faced a man who shouted, “Oh, I lack compassion, right? You shit on the Constitution all day long!” “I think a lot of what they are saying is fear-based, really,” Keenan reflected to a reporter, “and there’s a lot of misinformation and ignorance and I understand that that fuels some of these opinions.” “This image of the Latino coming in and taking away just is just inaccurate. It’s a bit unfair, too, really. … We’re not asking for a free ride. We want border security.”"
Posted on: Thu, 20 Jun 2013 17:50:38 +0000
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