Tea Party Patriots, originally formed as a 501(c)(4) non-profit corporation in 2009, has a history of questionable electoral activity. Nevertheless, as one of the largest of the movement’s national factions, it is taking advantage of the so-called IRS scandal to re-ignite the anger of Tea Partiers, encourage their (false) sense of victimhood, and increase their ranks.
On May Day 2013 thousands of people turned out onto the streets in hundreds of cities to march for comprehensive immigration reform. With the process partially underway, IREHR takes a look at five different things human rights supporters should be keeping an eye on as the debate moves forward.
In contrast to the seeming “consensus” view that immigration reform is a fait accompli, anti-immigrant forces still think they can kill the bill. Unlike the 2005-2007 battles over comprehensive immigration reform, however, there isn’t a unified opposition lead by a close-knit network of anti-immigrant groups. This time, the situation is much more fluid and complicated.
Defeating immigration reform next on the Tea Party agenda.
On April 17, the Senate failed to overcome the 60-vote threshold necessary to end a filibuster on bipartisan legislation to expand gun background checks to gun shows and internet sales. The bill garnered a 54-vote majority versus 46 opposed, but fell short of the 60 needed to overcome the minority’s filibuster.
The legislation, written by Sen. Pat Toomey (R-PA) and Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV), was the centerpiece of gun safety efforts in the wake of the Newtown, Connecticut murders. Failed amendments to the bill including an effort to ban military-style assault weapons and high-capacity magazines, and several GOP-sponsored efforts that weaken existing gun laws.
It took a concerted effort by the gun lobby and their Tea Party allies to block universal background check legislation, which currently has the support of roughly 90% of the American public according to recent opinion polls.
Efforts by gun lobby groups including the National Rifle Association, Gun Owners of America, and the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms were fierce. Their efforts were supplemented by national and local Tea Party groups who rallied outside the local offices of several Senators and flooded Senate phone lines with calls and faxes.
Birthright citizenship—a cornerstone of the 14th Amendment that grants citizenship to everyone born on American soil—is again being challenged in Congress. On January 3, Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) introduced H.R.140, the “Birthright Citizenship Act of 2013.”
In Michigan, so-called right to work legislation has been signed. As everyone knows, such legislation has nothing to do with finding and keeping a job, and everything to do with driving down the political power and membership density of unions. Just four short years ago, this measure would have been considered inconceivable in Michigan. Earlier this year, many union officials scoffed at its prospect. Now it has become law.
What has so sharply changed the balance of forces? Simply put: the Tea Party movement has radicalized a large swath of white people and made them immune to any calls for the common good.
The membership base of the oldest and arguably most influential nativist group in the country, the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), continues to shrink, according to recently released data obtained by IREHR.
The legislative log jam in Congress has been brutal. Since the administration of President George W. Bush, the anti-immigrant establishment has stymied every attempt to enact comprehensive immigration reform. During the same period, nativists have conducted a drive in the states to re-write legislation and make Latino immigrant’s life exceedingly difficult. In the words of the state legislation’s principal author, Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, its goal was “attrition through enforcement.” Translated it meant that if you made life miserable for immigrants they would “self-deport.” The archetype of this state legislation was to be Arizona’s SB 1070, written to avoid the constitutional pitfalls that had sunk California’s Proposition 187 and Hazelton, Pennsylvania’s local ordinance before it.
In yet another sign of the converging Tea Party and nativist interests we detailed in Beyond FAIR: The Decline of the Established Anti-Immigrant Organizations and the Rise of Tea Party Nativism, Tea Party Nation leader Judson Phillips caught up with NumbersUSA head Roy Beck for an interview at the 2012 CPAC Convention. Phillips used the interview to re-introduce NumbersUSA to his Tea Party Nation supporters. The two were familiar with one another from when Beck appeared at the 2010 Tea Party Nation Convention in Nashville.
While all eyes were focused on the Republican Party primary in South Carolina, and commentators were proclaiming the Tea Party movement finished because it had not yet picked a single presidential candidate to act as its standard-bearer, five hundred Tea Partiers gathered in Myrtle Beach on January 15 and 16, as if to prove its naysayers wrong. They came from 23 local Tea Party and "constitutionalist" organizations. The speakers' list was a who's who and what is what among the Tea Partiers and Republican politicians. And anti-immigrant fever ran high.
The Institute for Research & Education on Human Rights (IREHR) is a national organization with an international outlook examining racist, anti-Semitic, white nationalist, and far-right social movements, analyzing their intersection with civil society and social policy, educating the public, and assisting in the protection and extension of human rights through organization and informed mobilization.
