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Tag: julian castro
Late civil rights icon and Rep. John Lewis

House Democrats: You Can’t Preserve The Filibuster And Protect Voting Rights

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos

The Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) is concerned about the lack of movement of any kind in the Senate on H.R. 1, the sweeping elections reform bill. They're preparing a more narrow strategy in hopes of getting quick action: sending the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act to President Joe Biden's desk by September. They believe a bill named for their colleague and hero, the late John Lewis, has a better chance with a Senate that is deadlocked 50-50 and is being held hostage by Mitch McConnell, with the help of Democrats Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema.

The urgency is real. States are starting the process of congressional redistricting, and without a law which restores the key sections of the 1965 Voting Rights Act gutted by the Supreme Court, there will be no curb on states drawing discriminatory districts. The Supreme Court struck down the VRA's pre-clearance formula in 2013, a requirement that certain states and localities with histories of racially discriminatory voting practices—including drawing of electoral maps—had to get pre-approval from the U.S. Department of Justice to make changes to the voting process.

"If you want to play into [Republican] hands, you do nothing at all and let them pass redistricting maps that absolutely don't have to be pre-cleared where they can do whatever the hell they please, and they can discriminate at will. Or, you step up your game and you do what needs to be done," said Rep. Marc Veasey, a Texas Democrat, of the effort to get this bill passed. "If you don't pass" this voting rights bill, he said, "you're basically giving them a green light to just go ahead and discriminate against Black and Hispanic voters."

"I certainly think our focus ought to be on [the Lewis bill] and voting rights," said Rep. Anthony Brown of Maryland, a member of the CBC. "You would think that that would provide a real good opportunity for a handful of Democratic senators who want to hold onto the filibuster [to say] 'Yes, we can do it on this John Lewis Voting Rights [Act].'"

You would think that, and this could be the bill that puts the necessary pressure on the filibuster holdouts in the Democratic conference in the Senate—for their own job security, if nothing else. As of March 24, 361 state bills to restrict voting have been introduced in 47 states, according to the Brennan Center for Justice, which has been keeping track. They are not slowing down, either. "That's 108 more than the 253 restrictive bills tallied as of February 19, 2021—a 43 percent increase in little more than a month. Forty-seven states is almost all of them, including the ones that have Democratic senators. Their majority in the Senate only exists because of Vice President Kamala Harris. It could be gone very easily in January 2023 if states have free rein on keeping Democratic voters out of voting booths.

The House Judiciary Committee is responding, with its Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights, and Civil Liberties holding a hearing Thursday to discuss the need to restore the VRA. "Congress cannot continue to let these challenges to the VRA go unanswered," Judiciary chairman Rep. Jerry Nadler said during the hearing. Nadler isn't a member of the subcommittee; he crashed the hearing, perhaps in order to emphasize how serious he is about moving this legislation forward. Former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Julián Castro testified Thursday.

"In my home state of Texas today there is an all-out assault on the right to vote. For generations,
Texas has been a testing ground for devious ways to restrict access to the polls," Castro said. "Since the Shelby decision in 2013, the state has cut more polling locations than any state in the nation. Texas enacted a strict voter ID law that permits firearm licenses to be used to vote, but prohibits the use of student IDs. And lawmakers have used things like voter registration deadlines, restricted voting hours, and limitations on early voting to chip away at the franchise of millions of people."

He reminded the committee that "Congress knew in each of the four times they reauthorized the VRA that we must protect the rights of voters and reaffirm the American principle of anti-discrimination." Since 2013, however, Senate Republicans have prevented restoration of the VRA, looking ahead to this moment—the 2020 census and their chance to gerrymander Democrats out of power and suppress enough Democratic voters in perpetuity to have a permanent stranglehold on government. It's why they packed the courts with Trump judges.

Castro had a message for lawmakers in his testimony, directed particularly at those in the Senate who put their so-called principles about a bipartisan Senate over the "timeless truth" of our democratic system. "[T]his timeless truth: the right to vote shouldn't depend on the color of one's skin, how much money one has, or what state one lives in."

"It's a right guaranteed to every eligible American citizen. It's the cornerstone of our democracy. And it's what the late Representative John Lewis—for whom the new Voting Rights Act is named—described in his final letter as 'the most powerful nonviolent change agent you have in a democratic society.'"

Hey Democrats! Send Home The Wonks

Hey Democrats! Send Home The Wonks

Wonks can be useful people. Having studied the deep innards of public policy, wonks are essential to constructing programs that can function as desired. They help write complicated laws. But whereas wonks may know all the parts that make a clock work, they are usually not good at selling the clock. You need marketers for that.

Politicians are the marketers. They tell ordinary people what’s great about their proposals. When they have to drag a wonk onto the stage to explain something — or have to play the wonk themselves — they’re in trouble.

Enter section 1325, part of Title 8 of the U.S. Code. You still here? Democratic presidential candidate Julian Castro is pushing the idea of getting rid of section 1325. Doing so would make it no longer a criminal offense to be an unauthorized immigrant in the U.S. It would, however, still be a civil offense. As proposals go, this is dumb on a number of levels, above all the political one.

Castro was mayor of San Antonio, America’s seventh biggest city. It surprises me that this savvy, polished, and pragmatic Texas politician would propose this kind of tinkering with the law.

Why on Earth would he, in effect, decriminalize illegal border crossings when Americans are so concerned about illegal immigration?

Preet Bharara asked that of Castro on his popular podcast. Castro elucidated: Decriminalizing illegal entry but leaving it as a civic infraction would not prevent an undocumented immigrant from being deported. (The online wonks offered similar explanations.)

The scary part is that Castro and other Democrats who endorsed his idea apparently think that the great American non-wonk majority will hear this as a moderate salve for the crisis at the border — as something that makes entering the country illegally still illegal but just a little less so. If it’s not going to make that huge a difference, why even push something that sounds like a relaxation of border controls?

Let’s move on to Medicare for All. Sure, polls show large numbers of Americans liking the idea. But when asked about whether they want a new health care system that would end the private coverage — which a true Medicare for All plan would do — large numbers say they don’t. And these are largely the same people.

Guess what. The public doesn’t do wonkery. Bernie Sanders insists that once the American people understand the savings of his plan, they won’t mind paying higher taxes and losing their coverage through work. Furthermore, many aren’t especially happy with their private coverage.

The above may be true. That doesn’t mean that the public can follow along. (Alternatively, everyone could be required to take a night class on health care economics.) And however Americans feel about their private insurance, they may not be ready to dive into the great unknown.

Wouldn’t strengthening the Affordable Care Act and adding a public option — a government-run health plan that would compete with private plans — be the easier sell? Joe Biden is championing the idea.

Other Democratic candidates promoting Medicare for All have panned Biden’s public option proposal as not radical enough. But they have very short memories.

The public option was originally part of the ACA bill and had to be yanked out because even some Democrats were afraid to support it. The Wall Street Journal opinion pages, meanwhile, have burst into flames with warnings that a public option would destroy the private health insurance industry.

Wonks adjust the wheels and gears of public policy. When they’re done, they should go home and let the politicians take over. If politicians can’t sell their idea to ordinary people, the idea is in trouble.

Julian Castro Is Right: Criminalizing Immigrants Is A Failure

Julian Castro Is Right: Criminalizing Immigrants Is A Failure

When Julian Castro advocated repealing the law making it a crime to cross the border without permission, he confirmed that in today’s political environment, there is no safe harbor for common sense. Republicans gleefully accused him of favoring “open borders,” as though he were going to eliminate all checkpoints and border agents.

Even former Rep. Beto O’Rourke, whose Texas House district adjoins Mexico, wasn’t willing to go along. When Castro challenged his fellow candidates to declare their support for repeal of Section 1325, as it is known, there was no stampede to join him. Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) was notable for saying he had already endorsed it.

In the second debate, though, something striking happened: Every candidate on the stage raised a hand in support of the idea. They know this criminal classification is what gave the Trump administration the power to separate migrant parents from children. If it were a civil offense, migrants would not be jailed, only fined and deported — removing the pretext for tearing kids away.

Castro’s critics believe criminal penalties serve as a vital deterrent to lawbreaking. To which Ur Jaddou, director of DHS Watch at America’s Voice, a pro-immigration group, replies: “Has it been working?” The answer: no. This administration, she told me, “inherited the lowest number of border apprehensions in 46 years, and all we have seen since is a massive increase.”

Toughness is a failure. A 50 percent rise in prosecutions over the past five years has not dissuaded Central Americans from coming. The number of southwest border apprehensions has tripled since Donald Trump became president.

Central Americans who flee face an arduous journey of 1,500 miles or more. They often pay criminal smugglers thousands of dollars to help. If the expense and the prospect of robbery, rape and murder on the way don’t stop these migrants, the chance of being arrested here certainly won’t.

In the absence of real solutions, attempts to scare people into staying away are ineffectual. The reality is that many people are fleeing El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras to escape violence and poverty. They would obviously prefer to come through legal channels. But our laws deny them that option.

Asked after the debate about the “open borders” charge Thursday, Castro scoffed: “We have 654 miles of fence. We have thousands and thousands of personnel at the border. We have planes, helicopters, boats. We have security cameras. All involved in border security.” Nowhere does he suggest scrapping all these.

The alternative to the awful, unworkable status quo is not erasing the border but letting more people enter legally — as immigrants, workers and refugees. But as the number of foreigners seeking admission has grown, the administration has cut the number it will accept.

Oscar Alberto Martinez, who drowned with his 23-month-old daughter in the Rio Grande, hoped to reach the United States to get a job and save enough money to buy a house. In response to public outrage, acting Immigration and Customs Enforcement director Ken Cuccinelli chose to shame the victim. He said the deaths occurred “because that father didn’t wait to go through the asylum process in the legal fashion.”

Maybe that was because the system in place at the border condemns asylum seekers to spend weeks or months in Mexico, often in squalid conditions. The father sought asylum, by the way, not because he was persecuted but because that was his only hope of coming here legally.

Admitting him would not have harmed Americans. It would have helped us, by letting him perform labor that needs performing. But the U.S. immigration system offered no feasible route.

Castro wants to solve the problem by letting more people come legally. Among his proposals is admitting 4.4 million people awaiting visas to join their families in the U.S. Spouses and minor children would get to come immediately.

This is the opposite of what the Trump administration prefers. It responded to the surge in people seeking refuge with a 60 percent cut in refugee admissions.

President Barack Obama also created a program to reduce the number of unaccompanied minors from Central America. It let a parent who is here legally could request refugee admission for children left behind, with the kids screened without having to leave their home countries. Trump abolished it — depriving families of a safe, approved avenue.

Conservatives like Cuccinelli say they are not against immigration, but they want foreigners to come legally. With the image of drowned migrants fresh in our minds, here’s something they could do: prove it.

Steve Chapman blogs at http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/chapman. Follow him on Twitter @SteveChapman13 or at https://www.facebook.com/stevechapman13. To find out more about Steve Chapman and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.

IMAGE: Former Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Julian Castro, now a candidate for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination.

A Clinton-Castro Ticket Gets Put To An Early Test In Iowa

A Clinton-Castro Ticket Gets Put To An Early Test In Iowa

By Kate Linthicum, Los Angeles Times (TNS)

OTTUMWA, Iowa — Julian Castro, a rising star in the Democratic Party, was stumping for Hillary Clinton in southeastern Iowa on Sunday when a union leader extended a hand and a question in Spanish.

“I heard Clinton might pick you for vice president,” said Jose Pulido, who represents workers at a hog slaughterhouse that has helped draw thousands of Latinos to this small city straddling the icy Des Moines River.

Castro flashed a toothy smile. “Quien sabes,” he answered, shaking his head. Who knows?

As the secretary of Housing and Urban Development and former mayor of San Antonio, Castro’s ethnic roots, up-from-the-bootstraps story and quick ascent in politics have earned him comparisons to President Barack Obama. He is frequently mentioned as a possible vice presidential pick for Clinton, should she prevail as her party’s nominee.

In something of a test of Castro’s campaigning abilities, he barnstormed Iowa in the final days leading up to the state’s Feb. 1 caucus. He visited several small cities with growing Latino populations and warned voters about the dire consequences of a Clinton loss and the possible return of the White House to Republican control.

“We absolutely can’t afford to hand over the presidency to the Republican Party,” Castro told a crowd in Fairfield, his second stop of the day. “Can you imagine what would happen if you have Speaker (Paul) Ryan, Senate Majority Leader (Mitch) McConnell and President Trump?”

“We’ve seen what they’ve done when they’ve had that kind of power,” he added, hinting at the kind of attack-dog sensibility that presidential candidates often rely on in a running mate.

In recent months, several leading Latino leaders, including former Housing Secretary Henry Cisneros, have called on Clinton to add Castro to her hypothetical ticket. The national Hispanic Chamber of Commerce issued a formal endorsement of Castro for vice president Saturday, even though it hasn’t yet endorsed a candidate for president.

Pollsters and pundits agree that any presidential ticket could benefit from a qualified Latino to help win votes from the nation’s fastest-growing demographic. And at 41, Castro would provide a generational contrast to 68-year-old Clinton.

Here in Iowa, a rapidly expanding Latino electorate mirrors the United States as a whole, where a record 27.3 million Latinos will be eligible to vote this year. The state’s Latino population grew 110 percent between 2000 and 2014, and Latinos constitute 10 percent or more of eligible voters in 11 of the 99 counties here.

The rise of Latinos in U.S. society is also reflected in Castro’s story, which he repeated often in Iowa.

Castro and his identical twin brother, Joaquin, were raised in San Antonio by their Chicana activist mother and Mexican immigrant grandmother. They graduated together from Stanford University and Harvard Law School before launching parallel political careers.

Joaquin was elected to the Texas Legislature and is now a Democratic member of Congress representing part of San Antonio.

Julian, who was born one minute earlier and jokes that he is older — and wiser — than his brother, was elected at age 26 to the San Antonio City Council, becoming its youngest-ever member. He went on to win three terms as mayor, where a key initiative was the passage of a sales tax increase to help pay for an expansion of prekindergarten, part of a wave of similar proposals among Democrats around the country in recent years.

In 2014, Obama offered Castro a position in his Cabinet. Castro’s short tenure as Housing secretary will end when Obama leaves office in a year.

Castro says he decided to endorse Clinton in part because she “has the deepest ties and the longest track record of working for the Latino community,” citing her work registering Latino voters in south Texas in the 1970s.

Clinton has said she would “look hard” at Castro for any position in her campaign or administration. Other names floated as possible Clinton vice presidential picks include Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine and New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker. Both campaigned in Iowa for Clinton over the weekend as well.

For his part, Castro has become practiced at ducking questions about the vice presidency, saying he is focused on winning her the nomination.

And a lot of work lies ahead. While Clinton won a coveted endorsement from the Des Moines Register on Saturday, polls show Sen. Bernie Sanders slightly ahead in what is shaping up as a closely fought battle in this state.

©2016 Los Angeles Times. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

Photo: Democratic U.S. presidential candidate Hillary Clinton waves with U.S. Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Julian Castro at her side during a “Latinos for Hillary” rally in San Antonio, Texas October 15, 2015. Castro endorsed Clinton’s campaign for president.   REUTERS/Darren Abate