May 9, 2014 10:11 AM

Stanford: Texas, Florida headed in opposite directions on Hispanics

We are pleased to announce Jason Stanford will be doing regular Friday columns for QR's R&D Department. We will soon be announcing a regular conservative columnist.

It’s the kind of headline we used to see in Texas: The Florida Senate just passed the DREAM Act. Texas used to teach Republicans how to court Hispanic voters, but things have gotten so far out of control here that Texas is now making Florida look normal by comparison.

This is not the way Karl Rove drew up the game plan at all. While Pete Wilson was using an anti-immigrant ballot initiative to get re-elected California governor in 1994, George W. Bush was sprinkling Spanish into his pitch to Hispanic voters that Republican policies on education and juvenile justice were right for them. As president, he spent years pushing immigration reform, and when in 2004 he got 44% of the Hispanic vote.

For a while, Rick Perry followed that script. He signed a Texas version of the DREAM Act, appointed minorities to big-time offices, and made sure anti-immigrant bills got lost in forgotten legislative subcommittees. When it came to the Hispanic vote, Texas Republicans seemed like they had it figured out.

The rest of Jason Stanford's can be found in today's R&D Department

By Jason Stanford