{"id":7155,"date":"2006-04-17T10:16:32","date_gmt":"2006-04-17T14:16:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/?p=7155"},"modified":"2006-04-17T10:16:32","modified_gmt":"2006-04-17T14:16:32","slug":"does-chutzpah-translate-into-spanish","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/does-chutzpah-translate-into-spanish\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Does chutzpah translate into Spanish?’"},"content":{"rendered":"

Just to follow up on a post<\/a> from Saturday, the [tag]RNC[\/tag] has put together a [tag]Spanish[\/tag]-language radio [tag]ad[\/tag], for broadcast in four western cities with large Hispanic populations, which blames Democrats<\/a> for an anti-immigration provision sponsored by a Republican, approved by Republicans, and inspired by a Republican presidential administration. The RNC’s ad, to put it mildly, is wildly misleading.<\/p>\n

Let’s take a moment to consider the Republican response here. The 60-second spot — in Spanish — blames [tag]Democrats[\/tag] for legislation that passed the Republican-controlled House that would make illegal [tag]immigrants[\/tag] subject to felony charges. “Reid’s Democrat allies voted to treat millions of hardworking immigrants as [tag]felons[\/tag],” the ad says, “while President [tag]Bush[\/tag] and [tag]Republican[\/tag] leaders work for legislation that will protect our borders and honor our immigrants.”<\/p>\n

Is any of this even remotely true? Not for anyone who takes facts seriously. Rep. James [tag]Sensenbrenner[\/tag], the Republican chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, crafted the legislation that would make undocumented immigrants felons. He later said he got the idea from the Bush administration. When his measure came up for a vote in the House, Republicans voted for it; Dems voted against it. Who “voted to treat millions of hardworking immigrants as felons”? That would be congressional Republicans.<\/p>\n

But, the RNC says, I’m leaving out part of the story. Republican leaders eventually backpedaled on the provision that they had already embraced. Realizing that the felony provision was a political and legislative disaster, they wanted to vote on a similar immigration bill without<\/i> the provision that would have made undocumented immigrants felons. When that<\/i> came up for a vote, Dems voted to prevent the Republicans from flip-flopping.<\/p>\n

As far as the RNC is concerned, this is proof that Dems “voted to treat millions of hardworking immigrants as felons.” The RNC is still lying, for at least three reasons.
\n
\nOne, it was a Republican bill in the first place. It takes a special kind of stupid for the RNC to blame Dems for a Republican idea that Republicans voted for overwhelmingly.<\/p>\n

Two, Dems didn’t vote to treat immigrants as felons; they voted to keep a bad bill in tact for all the world to see. The RNC and Ken [tag]Mehlman[\/tag] may be ashamed of the Republican bill now — as they should be — but the House GOP still voted for the provision before they voted against it.<\/p>\n

And three, as Ron Brownstein explained<\/a>, there are some pesky facts that keep getting in the way of RNC talking points.<\/p>\n

After the panel approved the bill, the administration asked Sensenbrenner to change the proposed penalty from a felony to a misdemeanor. Sensenbrenner agreed and said on the House floor that he concluded the felony designation was unworkable because it would require a grand jury indictment, a jury trial and a public defender for the illegal immigrant.<\/p>\n

But Sensenbrenner’s amendment to change the crime to a misdemeanor failed when most Democrats and some conservatives voted against it. That’s the vote Hastert and Frist cited to blame Democrats for the provision that would brand illegal immigrants as felons.<\/p>\n

Hastert and Frist are right that political posturing contributed to the Democratic vote: They had little interest in helping Republicans sand off the sharpest edge in the GOP bill.<\/p>\n

But Democratic opposition rested on a deeper objection that Hastert and Frist ignore. If House Democrats supported the Sensenbrenner amendment, they would have been voting to make unlawful presence a misdemeanor. But almost all Democrats believe it should not be a crime. The House Democrats’ bill retains unlawful presence as a civil, not criminal, violation.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In other words, if the Dems voted for the reduced penalties, they still would have been supporting a measure to make undocumented immigrants in this country criminals, which they do not believe should be federal law.<\/p>\n

Any way you slice it, the RNC ad is a demonstrable lie. DNC lawyers should be on the phone with every station on which the RNC bought time, explaining that the ad is intentionally deceptive and has no place on the air.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Just to follow up on a post from Saturday, the [tag]RNC[\/tag] has put together a [tag]Spanish[\/tag]-language radio [tag]ad[\/tag], for broadcast in four western cities with large Hispanic populations, which blames Democrats for an anti-immigration provision sponsored by a Republican, approved by Republicans, and inspired by a Republican presidential administration. The RNC’s ad, to put it […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7155","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7155","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7155"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7155\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7155"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7155"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7155"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}