House Dems Heading To Alabama To Shed Light On Immigration Law

By Andrea Salazar

House Democrats will be visiting Alabama Nov. 21 to bring attention to the effects the state’s immigration law has had on the Latino community.

Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-Ill.), a stark opponent of the Alabama law, considered the strictest immigration law in the country, is leading the effort. Acknowledging that he does not expect any immigration measure to make it to the House or Senate floors before the next election, the congressman said the Alabama visit is to raise awareness.

“The more light you shed on the abusive anti-immigrant law of Alabama, the more likelihood there is that you’re going to defeat it,” Gutierrez said at a news conference Thursday. “We’re going there to say that we came to listen and in listening also to ask you what it is you would like us to do as we return to the Congress of the United States.”

HB56, the Alabama immigration law, requires schools to find out students’ immigration status and calls on police to check a person’s status during stops or arrests if there’s “reasonable suspicion” that the person is in the country unlawfully.

Rep. Terri Sewell (D-Ala.) is welcoming her colleagues to Alabama and calling on her state to play the role it did during the civil rights movement.

“So many of the injustices that this nation has faced have been addressed on the ground in Alabama, and once again I believe that we in Alabama will lead the way with making sure we get a federal immigration policy and not a piecemeal state by state effort,” Sewell said.

Gutierrez emphasized that all visiting representatives would be spending their own money to pay for the trip. To that effect, Rep. Charlie Gonzalez (D-Texas) said they were making the trip because immigration is an issue that affects everyone.

“If the law does not protect you today, it will not protect me tomorrow,” Gonzalez said. “We all have an interest in this.”

Pointing out that the author of the Arizona immigration law, Russell Pearce, was recalled in a special election this past month, Rep. Raul Grijalva (D-Ariz.), warned politicians to take immigration seriously.

“That recall better be a harbinger for a lot of politicians that it’s time you took this issue of immigration in a serious way,” Grijalva said. “Look at comprehensive reform in a federal level and quit using people in their communities - Alabama, Arizona and others - as a whipping boy for a political advantage.”

Reps. Joe Baca (D-Calif.), Yvette D. Clarke (D-N.Y.), Al Green (D-Texas), Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.), Grace Napolitano (D-Calif.) and Silvestre Reyes (D-Texas) will join Gutierrez, Grijalva, Gonzalez and Sewell in Alabama on Monday where they will hold a field hearing and attend the launch of a campaign to repeal the Arizona immigration law.

Senator Schumer happy with 2008 election results

Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY) gave a press conference on behalf of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee concerning the current state of three Senate races.

Schumer pointed out that the Senate race between Al Franken and Norm Coleman in Minnesota is the closest race in that state’s history, with 206 votes currently separating the two candidates. He also pointed out that the state law requires a recount when races are this close, and said that both candidates should let the officials do their jobs. An “impartial recount must go forward,” said Schumer, criticizing the attacks and intimidation tactics that the right wing was using. He referred to a story that claimed 32 votes had been locked in a car overnight was “completely fabricated by the right-wing.”

In Alaska, the absentee and questionable ballots that are being counted have put Democratic candidate Mark Begich ahead of Ted Stevens (R-Alaska). Although Schumer said he would not make any predictions, he was “cautiously optimistic” that Begich would win.

In Georgia, Senator Saxby Chambliss (R-Ala.) defeated Democratic candidate Jim Martin but got less than 50% of the popular vote. Under the state law in Georgia, this will require a runoff election between the two candidates. Schumer said he was pleased with the outcome and was hopeful Martin would win in the runoff, and concluded “We’ve added enough Democrats to the Senate to bring change to the American people.”

New study says income inequality for families is growing

The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP) and Economic Policy Institute (EPI) held a conference call to discuss their joint study that examines family income inequality on state and national levels. Elizabeth McNichol, senior fellow at CBPP, said that the gap between the richest families and the middle and poorest families is widening. She said the long standing trend in the growing inequality gap has accelerated since the late 1990s. The study is based on inflation-adjusted Census data, and McNichol said incomes fell for poor families, stagnated for middle income families, and climbed by nine percent for the nation’s richest families.

The conference call focused on the findings for Alabama, which McNichol said had the second largest divide between the richest and poorest families, the first being New York. She said the “nation’s current economic problems highlight the need to address the problem of growing inequality” and that it is “fundamentally unfair when all those who contribute to economic growth do not receive a share of that growth.”

Kimble Forrister, state coordinator at Alabama Arise, said that federal policy in the last few years created “hyper growth” for the richest families, and that Alabama’s state policies and tax systems didn’t help the situation. He said two proposals he would point to for relieving the gap would be changing the tax system by lowering the tax on groceries and expanding deductions, and also supporting a pilot program which offers a “promising path to workforce training for workers making under 40,000 dollars.”