Latino Groups to Issue Immigration Report Cards on Congress

It looks like NCLR and seven other allied groups are learning a lesson from NumbersUSA. If you monitor the votes and positions of members of Congress, grade them and make them available to your supporters, you can more easily hold politicians accountable. It's helped to make the tiny minority of anti-immigration voters represented by NumbersUSA seem a lot larger over the years. And even pro-immigration advocates (myself included) use the NumbersUSA ratings to get a quick read on the voting history of particular members of Congress. I just use the ratings in reverse. The better the NumbersUSA grade, the worse I regard the person's voting record.

NCLR is warning that it will publish its grades and politicians will have to face the music with Latino voters, Roll Call reports. The grades will be published ahead of the 2014 elections and distributed to Latino voters around the country.

Comments

[Jack]

The favored legislation of a Latino lobby group won't be a perfect inverse of NumbersUSA because judgment will be based solely on how it affects the power of leaders of a particular ethnicity (which is distinct from "the community" as a whole). No other implications are relevant. As a rule of thumb, legislation which would result in a net increase of Latino immigrants = automatic A regardless of what else is in it. If it were to result in a single less Latino, F. If it makes illegal presence easier for Latinos, A. Harder, F.