Nashville vote indicates immigration issues have cooled
By Tom Baxter
Southern Political Report
January 27, 2009 — Coming as it did in the week when a Kennedy dropped out of a race and an African-American became president, the political impact of Nashville’s vote last Friday on an English-only measure was muted. But the defeat of an amendment that would have required the Music City to conduct most of its business in English could be an indication of how immigration issues are playing across the country. With an unusually heavy turnout for a special election of 19 percent, Nashville voters rejected the proposal by about 10 percentage points. Considering that the entire Nashville establishment from Mayor Karl Dean to religious, educational and business leaders opposed it with a well-bankrolled campaign which argued the measure would hurt business, that may not have been such an overwhelming margin. But it was enough to prompt the author and longtime proponent of the measure, Metro Councilman Eric Crafton, to throw in the towel, saying – with some irony, presumably – “Like Roberto Duran said after his fight, ‘No mas.’” Crafton fought to get the measure on the ballot after a similar bill passed the Metro City Council and was vetoed by former Mayor Bill Purcell. Nashville has a number of legal immigrants, which makes it hard to use this vote as a precise measure of concern over illegal immigration. It is safe to say that the temperature level for a lot of related immigration issues has gone down dramatically over a couple of years. The issue didn’t turn out to be the hurdle some thought it would be for John McCain in his quest for the GOP nomination, and since the two candidates were in broad agreement, immigration policy didn’t get discussed much during the general election campaign. But by far the most press reason why immigration has moved off the hot burner is that the economic crisis has given Americans something bigger to worry about. There still will be immigration issue for legislators to sort through, however. With Congress about to pass legislation that drops a required five-year waiting period and allows states to use State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) funds to insure children of legal immigrants, states will have to sort out, as Louisiana is doing, what they want to do about it. In Arkansas, legislators could be considering several measures, including a bill that institutes heavy sanctions on illegal immigration and another that makes it possible for children of illegal immigrants to attend college on in-state tuition. Georgia passed illegal immigration legislation in 2006, but the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported this week that the tough restrictions on hiring of illegal immigrants are largely being ignored. If worsening economic conditions create competition for the low-wage jobs illegal immigrants do, the issue could get hotter, but for the moments its the jobs that illegal immigrants never could have hoped for that are the biggest worry. |
