http://voces.huffingtonpost.com/terri-e-givens/se-acabo-la-eleccion-y-ahora-que_b_2118375.html
The election is over – now what?
Terri E. Givens
Latinos voted. Obama has won re-election, while the
Democrats have held onto the Senate and made inroads into the Republican
majority in the House. Obama won 75% of
the Latino vote – not just on the issue of immigration, but on a variety of
issues where the Republicans seemed tone deaf.
However, both Democrats and Republicans have to face the reality that
the Latino vote is now decisive for national elections, as shown in the
analysis by Gary Segura and Matt Barreto of Latino
Decisions. As I discussed in my previous blog post, politicians are more
likely to respond to the interests of groups when they vote and have an impact
on the outcome of an election. This was
clearly the case in this election, and it’s an opportunity that should not be
wasted.
When it comes to policy change, the election is just the
beginning. Of course the top issue for
all Americans is the economy. The
negotiations over the budget will be difficult, and the President and Congress
will need to hear from all of us on those issues, so it will be important to
stay mobilized. The majority that Obama was able to pull together was the
result of a lot of work on the ground.
More young people and minorities voted in this election than the
pundits, and certainly Romney’s campaign, expected. This energy needs to be maintained to help
push for policy change.
Once the issues
around the fiscal cliff are dealt with, comprehensive immigration reform and
the DREAM act should be top priorities. However, it will take more than
goodwill to move forward on these issues.
The election is just the first step in what is likely to be a long
process of finding key legislators to take on these issues, and move them
forward. Fortunately there are signs that comprehensive immigration reform is
moving higher on the agenda. GOP leaders
like John Boehner, and pundits like Sean Hannity have “evolved” on the issue,
and say that it needs to be addressed.
However, it’s not clear that all of the GOP is going to
support comprehensive immigration reform. Many have also indicated that they
may not be as open to immigration reform as some of their leaders. What is clear is that the status quo is
indefensible, as American Conservative Union President Al Cardenas has said. The GOP has many issues to deal with after
this election, and if the party is to remain relevant, they will have to look
at why they failed to attract more votes from women, young people and
minorities.
This is also an important time for voters to stay engaged at
the local and state level. If you have
concerns about the long voting lines and issues around voter suppression, these
have to be addressed in your own communities.
We all need to push for policies that will encourage and facilitate
voting. If we value our democracy, we
should value the right to vote, and make it easier for those who are eligible
to vote, not make it harder. It’s
embarrassing to try to explain to my European friends why some Americans had to
wait as long as 7 or 8 hours to vote on Election Day. Regardless of your
political orientation, the ability to vote in a timely manner should not be an
issue in 2012. We have the means to
resolve these issues, and it should not be done in a partisan manner.
I look forward to the discussions to come around
immigration, the DREAM act, and other policies that will help to fix our broken
immigration system. I encourage those of
you who care about this issue to stay engaged, I will continue to write about
developments in this blog. As President
Obama said, “we know in our hearts that for the United States of America, the
best is yet to come.”
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