Conservative Watch

Major donor pushing GOP toward center

The California Republican Party once again faces an identity crisis heading into its annual spring convention, and this time a major donor is calling on the party to become more inclusive. Businessman Lawrence K. Dodge delayed writing a check to help the party pay off $3 million in debt and wrote a scathing analysis of the party in a private letter, raising concerns similar to those cited by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger when he said Republicans were "dying at the box office" last year. The internal strife comes as state records show the party continues to suffer a decline in registration and carry a debt incurred to help Schwarzenegger win re-election in 2006. In the letter to party Chairman Ron Nehring, Dodge wrote: "Two-thirds of the voters of this state refuse to be members of our party as it is. We do not need to alienate them further, either by the positions we take or by eating our own in public." Records show Republican registration in the state has dropped from 35.6 percent to 33.3 percent since 2004 as more voters seek independent status unaffiliated with any party. Democrats suffered only a 0.2 percent decline over the same period. Trackback [89] Posted on 2/22/08; 8:55:34 AM to the Conservative Watch Department Send email to Yellow Dog- Discuss

States' new laws help GOP raise voter challenges

Ohio and Florida, which provided the decisive electoral votes for President Bush's two razor-thin national election triumphs, have enacted laws that election experts say will help Republicans impede voting by Democratic-leaning minorities in 2008. Backers of the new laws say they're aimed at curbing vote fraud. But the statutes also could facilitate a controversial Republican tactic known as "vote caging," which the GOP tried in Ohio and Florida in 2004 before public disclosures foiled the efforts, said Joseph Rich, a former Justice Department voting rights chief in the Bush administration who's now with the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights. Caging, used in the past to target poor minorities in heavily Democratic precincts, entails sending mass mailings to certain voters and then using the undelivered letters to compile lists of voters for eligibility challenges. As the high-stakes ground war escalates heading into next year's elections, Republicans have led the charge for an array of revisions to state voting rights laws, especially in key battleground states. Republican political appointees in the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division have endorsed some of these measures. Over the past three years, the Republican-controlled state legislatures in Indiana, Georgia, Missouri, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin have passed laws requiring every voter to produce a photo identification card -- measures that civil rights groups contend were aimed at suppressing minority voting. The Supreme Court agreed Tuesday to consider a constitutional challenge to Indiana's ID law on grounds that it unfairly affects poor and elderly voters. Gubernatorial vetoes or court rulings have nullified legislation in the other four states. A federal judge in Georgia, however, recently upheld a new photo ID law that imposes fewer obstacles to obtaining one. In Ohio, which swung the 2004 election to Bush, new Democratic Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner said in a phone interview that an election law passed last year and signed by former Republican Gov. Bob Taft effectively "institutionalized" vote caging. More evidence that the GOP will just change the rules if they find they cannot win an election Trackback [0] Posted on 9/28/07; 8:28:00 AM to the Conservative Watch Department Send email to Yellow Dog- Discuss

Towns Rethink Laws Against Illegal Immigrants

RIVERSIDE, N.J., Sept. 25 — A little more than a year ago, the Township Committee in this faded factory town became the first municipality in New Jersey to enact legislation penalizing anyone who employed or rented to an illegal immigrant. Within months, hundreds, if not thousands, of recent immigrants from Brazil and other Latin American countries had fled. The noise, crowding and traffic that had accompanied their arrival over the past decade abated. The law had worked. Perhaps, some said, too well. With the departure of so many people, the local economy suffered. Hair salons, restaurants and corner shops that catered to the immigrants saw business plummet; several closed. Once-boarded-up storefronts downtown were boarded up again. Meanwhile, the town was hit with two lawsuits challenging the law. Legal bills began to pile up, straining the town’s already tight budget. Suddenly, many people — including some who originally favored the law — started having second thoughts. So last week, the town rescinded the ordinance, joining a small but growing list of municipalities nationwide that have begun rethinking such laws as their legal and economic consequences have become clearer. Perhaps the Bakersfield City Council should consider this before they pass another divisive law in our city. Trackback [0] Posted on 9/26/07; 10:02:00 AM to the Conservative Watch Department Send email to Yellow Dog- Discuss

When moderates feel lost in the GOP

A Missouri state senator abruptly declares himself a Democrat, angrily citing the influence of social conservatives. RAYMORE, MO. -- Talk about a nasty divorce. In an announcement last month that left Missouri politicos agape, state Sen. Chris Koster, a rising Republican star and chairman of the Senate's GOP caucus, abruptly declared himself a Democrat. Not only did Koster join the marginalized minority party in Missouri, but he did so with a thundering speech that lambasted his former colleagues as ignoring the needs of their constituents and slavishly following the dictates of "religious extremists." The former prosecutor denounced several Republican positions he had once supported, such as steep cuts in Medicaid coverage and subsidized family-planning programs. But Koster reserved his harshest criticism for GOP efforts to overturn a voter-approved constitutional amendment that protects embryonic stem-cell research in Missouri. But the move sounded like deja vu just across the state line in Kansas. Three prominent Kansas Republicans moved into the Democratic column in late 2005 and 2006, voicing similar concerns about the influence of social conservatives. One of those defectors was elected attorney general. Another -- who once chaired the Kansas Republican Party -- now serves as lieutenant governor. Trackback [63] Posted on 9/5/07; 3:46:34 PM to the Conservative Watch Department Send email to Yellow Dog- Discuss

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