Republican Response to a Democratic Response

Don't cha just love it when one party responds to another party's response to the former party's positions? You know it's going to be nit-picky. But when the Republicans do it, it's just more fun because they all tend to miss one thing: the point.

Back on May 8th, the chairman of the Arizona Latino Republican Association responded to Democrat Steve Gallardo's "My Turn" article by pointing out that his opinion is void of facts (don't you just L-O-V-E it? What ELSE would they say?). Mr. Esparza then points out several examples of where Gallardo got it wrong.

His first point is that "Republican Party is leading the charge" in immigration reform in the Congress. Sure, they're leading the charge because Republicans won't send up a bill written by Democrat. The same thing happens here in Arizona.

He second point is "the president is urging Congress to adopt immigration reform." Sure, and he's urging Americans to use less fuel, too. We all know what the result of the encouragement has been!

His third point is both of Arizona's Senators have submitted bills to deal with the immigration problem. Deals with them "in a comprehensive manner" he says. What he doesn't say is Kyl's bill would force all illegal immigrants to go home first. I'm sure that's what a lot of Latinos want: ship them home first.

His fourth point regards "No Child Left Behind" and school choice. Isn't it convenient that the group that published the poll results cited by Mr. Esparza happens to be one promoting school choice? Now, if he had used some other organization's research, say the US Department of Education's National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) Mr. Esparza would see that "Despite a new federal educational testing law championed by the Bush administration, scores among fourth and eighth graders failed to show any improvements in reading, and showed only slow gains in math nationally during the past two years." Or how about something local, like ASU's Report "High-Stakes Testing and Student Achievement: Problems for the No Child Left Behind Act." (PDF) which "finds that pressure created by high-stakes testing has had almost no important influence on student academic performance."

His last point addresses the number of Latinos in the Bush Administration versus previous administrations. This type of stuff is always subjective, but it seems to me that Clinton named more than the five names Esparza mentions:

An Administration That Looks like One America. The President appointed the most diverse Cabinet and Administration in history. Secretary of Energy Bill Richardson and Small Business Administrator Aida Alvarez are members of the President's Cabinet. Federico Pena and Henry Cisneros previously served in the President's Cabinet.

Judicial Appointments. Seven percent of all judicial appointments are Hispanics including the Honorable Jose Cabranes, Judge, Second Circuit U.S. Circuit Court and the Honorable Hilda Tagle, Judge, Southern District of Texas, U.S. District Court.

Senior Level Administration Appointments. President Clinton has appointed more Hispanics to senior level positions than any President in American history. Eight percent of Presidential appointments, including boards and commissions, are held by Latinos. These Presidential appointees include Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC) President George Munoz; Norma Cantu, Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights at the Department of Education; Saul Ramirez, Jr., Department of Housing and Urban Development Deputy Secretary; Eduardo Gonzalez, Director of the United States Marshals Service; Eluid Levi Martinez, Commissioner of Bureau of Reclamation at the Department of Interior; Ida L. Castro, Director of the Women's Bureau of the U.S. Department of Labor and Chair- designee for the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission; Patricia T. Montoya, Commissioner- designee for Children, Youth & Families at the Department of Health and Human Services; and John U. Sepulveda, Deputy Director-designee at the Office of Personnel Management. White House appointees include: Assistant to the President and Deputy Chief of Staff Maria Echaveste; Assistant to the President and Director of Intergovernmental Affairs Mickey Ibarra; and Deputy Assistant to the President and Deputy Director for Legislative Affairs Janet Murguia.

So who wins? I'm not sure. But it seems to me that what is more important is the policies these Latinos want to implement than the fact they are Latinos.

So, is Gallardo's rhetoric "senseless?" Are his points without facts? They're only unreasonable when you leave out the information from Republican-leaning think tanks with a clear mission to support the Republican and conservative agenda. But Mr. Gallardo does no such thing. He's pretty much spot on the mark.