Immigration Article of the Day: “Get on the Omnibus: Immigration Reform and the Electoral Motivations of State Legislators” by JOSHUA ZINGHER

“Get on the Omnibus: Immigration Reform and the Electoral Motivations of State Legislators” by JOSHUA ZINGHER, State University of New York at Binghamton.

ABSTRACT: In this paper I argue that the Republican Party is using immigration reform as a means of dividing the Democratic Party both in the legislature and the electorate. Over the last several years a number of Republican controlled state legislatures have passed highly restrictive omnibus immigration reform bills. Omnibus immigration legislation such as SB 1070 in Arizona has been widely popular among the majority of the voters but highly unpopular among Latinos. Why has the Republican Party being willing to seemingly alienate Latinos, the United State’s largest ethnic minority group? My answer to this question is that the issue of immigration has effect of dividing the Democratic Party both in the legislature and the electorate. The ability of the immigration to divide the Democratic Party, but not the Republican Party, lies in the combination of the disparity in opinion between Latinos and whites on immigration reform and the predominately Democratic partisanship of non-Cuban Latinos. Across states, the divide in the Democratic Party on immigration is reflected by the fact that Democratic legislators are highly divided on the final passage votes on omnibus immigration reform. Moreover, using a series of fixed effects logit models I find that the divide among Democratic state legislators on omnibus immigration reform votes is a product of the demographic composition of the legislator’s district. My analysis reveals that the issue of immigration frequently divides the Democratic Party, which makes immigration an appealing legislative issue for the Republican Party when they control the agenda.

KJ