In the battle for Hispanic voters, Dems say they win because they got more Hispanic lawmakers.
The Democratic National Committee issued a press release on Monday touting a slew of legislative “victories” that the party claimed for itself at the state level, including a new law in Arizona that will require abortion clinics to meet the same basic standards as ambulatory surgical centers, a new law in Nevada that will add a new $7,000-per-year tax credit for businesses in the state that hire more than one person, and a new law in New York that will require cities that pass marriage equality to give same-sex couples an important boost in state funding.
As for the legislative “defeats” that the party claimed, it’s clear that these are the party’s losing campaigns.
It’s worth mentioning, too, several of the state law wins that the DNC highlighted: A new law in Nebraska that makes it easier for police to take DNA profiles from people they suspect are responsible for a crime, a new law in Indiana that will allow the state to withhold welfare benefits to undocumented immigrants who are not in the country legally, and a new law in Tennessee which will require the state to make public the findings of human sex trafficking investigations.
But perhaps most interesting to me is the fact that the party’s press release singled out the passage of a new law in New York that would require cities that pass marriage equality to give same-sex couples an important boost in state funding.
It’s not that the New York marriage bill wasn’t important; it’s that the fact that the party’s press release singled it out, along with the above-mentioned victories, makes it clear that the party’s success at the state level isn’t its result of a political strategy based on winning over Hispanic voters.
The problem with the press release is that it tries to present the marriage bill as a new success and a winnable electoral one. But it’s clear that the political strategy for advancing same-sex marriage was never the reason for the party’s success at the state level.
As we’ve argued in the past, the key to the success of the marriage bill
