Washington, DC – The National Council of La Raza (NCLR), the largest national Latino civil rights and advocacy organization in the U.S., today call on leaders of both political parties to work with the growing Latino electorate to bring about lasting immigration reform and progress on other key issues of concern to the Hispanic community.

“Yesterday’s results show that demonizing immigrants was not the path to victory many candidates thought it would be,” said Janet Murguía, NCLR President and CEO. “The election results indicate a wholesale repudiation of the notion that the American electorate is motivated by anti-immigrant rhetoric, policies, or campaign tactics,” she said, noting that most candidates who ran on an explicitly anti-immigrant platform were defeated. (See, for example, www.immigration2006.org.)

Pointing to the results of a poll jointly released yesterday by NCLR and the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials, Murguía stated, “These tactics did play a significant role in motivating one community – Latinos. Our community was highly engaged in this election, and I’m especially proud to say that this is particularly true of young Latino voters.” Murguía also noted that, of the young Latino voters polled, nearly half said that they or someone close to them had participated in the immigration rallies last spring.

“The congressional Republicans’ strategy to scapegoat our community failed overall, and will prove even costlier in the long run by creating a backlash among Latino voters,” she said, noting a shift of 11 percentage points in Latino support for Democrats compared to the midterm elections in 2002.

“But this issue cuts across party lines,” Murguía continued. “A year ago, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger was perceived by many to be all but dead among Latino voters, in part after making several anti-immigrant pronouncements. But he worked hard to shift his posture by, among other things, endorsing comprehensive immigration reform at the 2006 NCLR Annual Conference in July. According to exit polls, he earned at least 39% of the Hispanic vote on his way to reelection yesterday.”

“These results suggest that the 110th Congress should get back to the hard work of legislating on immigration reform and a host of other issues that matter to Hispanic Americans, including education, the economy, health care, and jobs,” said Murguía. “For most of these issues, the way to achieve results is through a bipartisan approach. We intend to work with members of both parties and the White House to produce positive results for our community, and our country,” she concluded.

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