Honoring Senator Voinovich

For the past nine months, Reform Immigration for America and other national immigration reform campaigns targeted Ohio Senator Voinovich as critical to have on board for immigration reform legislation.

Much time was spent on “power plans”, consultants were hired, rallies were held, all of the Senators offices in Ohio were visited, a record-breaking number of calls went to his office, meetings were took place with high, middle and low-level staff, and office drop-ins were carried out by coalitions of labor, faith and grassroots organizations. We even went to his house in Cleveland and left personal notes on his doorstep.

The entire month of August, our office sent daily faxes to all five of his Ohio offices. These faxes demanded a meeting with the good Senator (even though it was made clear to us that this meeting would never happen). His staff was always gracious and polite but perhaps annoyed with our persistent tactics.

Then the idea came…why don’t we create a space to honor the Senator?

After all, Senator Voinovich has been a friend of immigration reform in the past and he has been on the forefront of several Latino initiatives as a public servant in Ohio. I believe there is good reason to thank the Senator for all he has done for the Latino community in Ohio.

I didn’t think the Senator would attend but on Monday September 27, 2010 a small group of statewide Latinos and immigration reform organizers gathered to recognize Senator Voinovich and have a conversation with him.

Here are some thoughts he shared in regards to the DREAM Act and immigration reform:

- It was clear that he “gets it” in regards to the need for immigration reform.

- As a member of the Homeland Security and Appropriations Committees, he felt the border is more secure now than it has ever been. Yet we are allowing the demagoguery framing of the issue by a few “crazies” out there. While he did not say who these crazies were it became clear (to me) he was referring to the Tea Party. He continued, “these crazies were saying the same kind of things when my parents came to America”

- He said it is more cost effective to do something with those “illegal immigrants” that are here then to focus only on border security. He would gladly provide us statistical information on why this makes sense.

- He prefers DREAM to be brought up in a comprehensive bill.

- It did not make sense to him why Harry Reid would put the DREAM Act on the DOD bill. He asked Reid not to do this and felt Reid was making this a political issue thus giving fuel to the “crazies” to further mobilize against DREAM and immigration reform.

- He felt that President Obama has not pushed on this issue as he had with the health care bill, “if the President wanted to get this done, he would take the political risk to do it”. He felt that President Bush did take the political risk when he brought up immigration reform during the Bush administration.

- He never felt that Senator Schumer was serious with his CIR bill earlier this year. He kept giving deadline after deadline and never followed through.

So where does this leave us with the Senator Voinovich? When I spoke at the event I told the Senator that we still need him for the following possibilities that will happen in lame duck:

1) DREAM coming up again in the DOD bill
2) Senator Durbin’s DREAM stand-alone bill
3) AgJOBS bill
4) Senator Menendez's CIR bill (to be introduced this week)

It was a victory for Ohio immigration reform organizers to finally have a face-to-face meeting with the Senator and we did manage to engage the Senator in conversation on DREAM and immigration reform.

Perhaps the bigger question came from Nick Torres and the national DREAMer networks:

“What will it take for you, Senator Voinovich, to be a yes vote?"

Here we go. In your own words, Senator, ”We’re not winding down, we’re winding up.”