Soros Adviser, Obama Donors,
Amnesty Activists Form Group to Target House GOP Members
by Matthew Boyle 28 Oct 2013, 1:59
PM PDT
On Friday, a top political adviser
to left-wing billionaire George Soros met with leftist organizations to form a
new group called the Latino Victory Project, the Washington Post's Matea Gold
reports. The group is connected to Hollywood
actress Eva Longoria, a longtime supporter of President Barack Obama's
political campaigns.
Gold notes that the Soros adviser
and a network of about 30 other left-wing “donors, fundraisers and union
leaders” met on Friday to develop “a strategy to make the [immigration] issue
central in next year’s midterm elections if Congress does not pass a bill,
identifying 10 House Republicans who would be vulnerable to pressure from
Latino constituents.”
“The meeting was attended by
officials from several labor unions, including the National Education
Association and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal
Employees, as well as representatives of deep-pocketed backers of liberal
causes, including a political adviser to billionaire George Soros,” Gold added.
The 10 Republicans they are
targeting are Reps. Jeff Denham (R-CA), Buck McKeon (R-CA), Gary Miller (R-CA),
David Valadao (R-CA), Daniel Webster (R-FL), Mike Coffman (R-CO), Scott Tipton
(R-CA), Joe Heck (R-NV), Steve Pearce (R-NM), and Randy Weber (R-TX). These
representatives are largely split on immigration efforts.
Pearce, for instance, does not
support the Senate’s “Gang of Eight” bill or anything like it. “You can’t get
control of the borders if you tell people you can come here illegally and you
can work until you work your way to the front of the line,” Pearce said in an
interview with the New York Times’ Ashley Parker in August. “The whole world
would want to do it that way. Who would want to wait and do it properly?”
Weber, who represents the district
of former Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX), spoke at an anti-amnesty rally on Capitol Hill
in June alongside Reps. Louie Gohmert (R-TX) and Steve King (R-TX). “The
president has the authority to secure our border,” Weber said at the event. “He
should do it today. In fact he should have done it yesterday.”
Denham, on the other hand,
supports amnesty, at one point issuing verbal support for the Senate bill but
backtracking after immense pressure from conservatives and constituents over the
course of August. Since the congressional recess, Denham has come out to
publicly endorse House Democrats’ amnesty plan, which was introduced by House
Minority Leader Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) earlier this month. Denham has also
publicly claimed that House Speaker John Boehner promised that in the next
“month or so” there would be a vote on immigration legislation in the House of
Representatives.
Boehner spokesman Michael Steel
has not confirmed or denied these claims.
The group of left-wing donors that
Soros’ top political aide attended was borne out of a fundraising committee
called the Futuro Fund, which raised more than $30 million for Obama’s
re-election campaing. “Led by actress Eva Longoria, Puerto Rico lawyer Andres
Lopez and San Antonio businessman Henry R. Muñoz III, the fund represented the
most robust demonstration yet of the Latino community’s ability to amass cash
for U.S. political campaigns,” Gold wrote.
Cristobal Alex, a former program
officer at the Ford Foundation, left his position there to lead the Latino
Victory Project as the new group’s president. “What we want to do with the
Latino Victory Project is build political power in the Latino community, so
that the faces of Latinos are reflected not just in every level of government but
in the policies that drive the country forward,” Alex said.
Moving forward, the Post noted,
the group will agree to spend anywhere from $1 million to $2 million per target
district. “The effort will begin in coming weeks with a campaign aimed at
persuading the lawmakers to back an immigration measure this year,” Gold wrote.
“If that fails, the group plans to run a barrage of radio and TV ads against
them next year.”
The AFL-CIO’s immigration campaign
manager, Tom Snyder, said each of these GOP lawmakers has a target on their
backs. “There was agreement in the room that if we don’t see action in the
House, we know who we’re going after,” Snyder said. “There’s a realization that
we have to get back to basics. We’re at the point where if you don’t act, we’re
going to have to make you pay at the ballot box.”
Amalia Perea Mahoney, a
Chicago-area art gallery owner who the Los Angeles Times reported raked in
between $200,000 and $500,000 for Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign, said the
group is “all very united” in its purpose. “I think it’s a pivotal moment,” she
said. Mahoney is also an Obama appointee to an federal arts board.
Soros has spent $100 million since
1997 backing what his Open Society Foundation calls “immigrant rights” groups
and projects. Some of those projects, like Soros’ National Immigration
Forum-backed Evangelical Immigration Table (EIT), were meant to create the
illusion of grassroots support for amnesty where there was none. Recent polling
data released by NumbersUSA, conducted by Pulse Opinion Research, shows that
Evangelical Republican likely voters disagree with the push for amnesty despite
the Soros group’s claims there is grassroots support among Evangelicals for the
policy.
Recently, Rep. Raul Labrador
(R-ID), a supporter of immigration reform, withdrew from the House's version of
the Senate's "Gang of Eight" and announced his public opposition to
negotiating with Obama and the Senate on immigration, saying such negotiations
would be "crazy" for House GOP leadership to enter into. Labrador said House GOP leadership would not be smart to
deal with these people because they are trying to "destroy" the Republican
Party.
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