Bush Aims at Latino, State Vote

There were two big things on Texas Gov. George W. Bush’s to-do list during a short visit Wednesday to California.

No. 1: Chip away at rival Vice President Al Gore’s support among Latinos.

No. 2: Polish the GOP’s reputation in a state where past elections and recent scandal have left only one Republican holding statewide office.

As it turned out, the likely Republican presidential nominee worked on both at once, proposing to drastically reduce the time it takes the Immigration and Naturalization Service to process immigration applications.

“The current INS is too bureaucratic. It’s too stuck in the past,” Bush told the national convention of the National Council of La Raza, one of the country’s major Latino advocacy groups. “It’s time to reform the INS.”

In taking on the INS, Bush is addressing an issue of great concern to many Latinos, since Mexico and Latin America provide by far the greatest number of immigrants--legal and illegal--to the U.S.

By focusing on issues of interest to Latinos, Bush contrasts sharply to Republicans like former Gov. Pete Wilson, whose support of anti-immigration measures, such as Proposition 187, severely damaged the GOP’s credibility among Latinos, the state’s fastest-growing electoral bloc.

That, in turn, helps the party’s standing not only among Latinos, but also more moderate voters turned off by the sharp rhetoric of the anti-immigration movement.

Bush “needs to be seen to be making an effort to court the Latino vote. He needs to be seen to not be giving up on California,” said Bruce Cain, head of the UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies. “It’s the right thing to do.”

Bush also said he would spend $500 million over five years to reduce to six months the waiting times to process immigration forms such as work visas, green cards and legal residency status. Currently, it takes the INS from three years to five years to process such applications, according to Bush campaign figures.

Officials for Gore, who addressed La Raza on Monday, said the administration had already speeded up citizenship applications and is working to streamline immigration applications as well.

Moreover, the Bush proposal is similar to a bill by Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), now pending before the Judiciary Committee, that calls for spending $127.3 million to launch efforts at reducing the backlog of INS cases. Gore officials also predicted that Bush’s efforts to attract Latinos are bound to fail, charging that he had ignored Latinos during his term as Texas governor.

They pointed to the dismal state of health statistics among the state’s immigrants, as well as the status of the colonias, mostly Latino border communities that are the poorest in the nation.

Bush defended his record on both fronts, noting a new state program to insure children of the working poor, as well as a bill designed to bring sewer and water service to the colonias.

“This is typical of the Gore campaign,” Bush said at a news conference. “They spend a lot of time and energy trying to diminish a very strong record.”

The Gore camp’s charges notwithstanding, Bush has enjoyed strong support from Latinos in Texas. But Bush acknowledged the difficulty of attracting the Latino vote in California.

“We Republicans have got a lot of work to do here in the state of California,” Bush said. “I like to fight that stereotype that somehow we don’t have the corazon [heart] necessary to hear the voices of people from all political parties and all walks of life.”

A recent study by the Tomas Rivera Policy Institute, for instance, found that in Los Angeles County alone, more than two-thirds of Latinos are registered as Democrats, compared to 17% as Republicans.

Although acknowledging they would probably not win the Latino vote, Bush campaign officials pointed to recent polls that showed Bush is doing better than past GOP presidential candidates.

Former Sen. Bob Dole, for instance, won 21% of the vote from Latinos nationwide in 1996. A poll last week showed Bush with about 32%--though that number is still less than the 37% of Latinos who voted for Reagan in 1984.

Bush’s proposal was the second part of a package aimed at improving the INS. Last week, at the national conference of the League of United Latin American Citizens, another well-known Latino advocacy group, he announced plans to split the INS into two agencies. One agency would focus on enforcement and one on immigration.