The Caucus: Who They Are and How They Vote

 Consider for a moment Rep. Mac Thornberry, a Republican from the Texas 13th District. The population of his district was counted as 30% rural, 27% blue collar and 17% Hispanic by the Almanac of American Politics 2006 edition. These numbers would make his district's demography close to the average for all seats held by members of the House Immigration Reform Caucus. Thornberry votes conservatively: for drilling in the Alaska wilderness, against so-called partial-birth abortion and he would ban same-sex marriage. He voted Yes on Sensenbrenner's punitive H.R. 4437 "Illegal Immigration Control Act" in 2005. Yet Thornberry is most manifestly not a member of the HIRC, at least not yet.

In fact, a first look at the blue collar, rural and Hispanic character of the HIRC districts shows that they have little in common on several key demographic counts. Those districts grouped around San Diego County, for example, are largely middle class and suburban, with the Hispanic population ranging between 15 and 30% percent of the total. In Alabama and Mississippi, on the other hand, a much greater percentage of the population is both rural—ranging from 22% to 62%—and blue collar.21 The Hispanic population in these two states, while it may be growing, ranges between one and three percent—certainly not great enough to pose a supposed "threat" to white English-speaking majority dominance. An analysis of districts held by HIRC shows that the average percentage of Hispanic residents in Caucus members' districts is 7.4%, while the middle of the median is actually smaller at 4%, and more districts are at 2% than at any other number. The districts were on average 30% rural and slightly more than 25% blue collar.

At a congressional district level, this survey points away from citing either the percentage of those of Hispanic residents or the percentage of blue collar and rural voters as a root cause for anti-immigrant voting patterns. This conforms to what we know from previous analyses of votes for California's Proposition 187 in 1994 and Arizona's Proposition 200 in 2004. In both of those instances, an individual's economic circumstance—whether or not they were "worse off" than in previous elections —showed little causal effect on how they voted.22 Nevertheless, questions about voting patterns need further investigation by social scientists, particularly at the precinct or zip code level. And a book-length study similar to V.O. Key Jr.'s 1948 study of Jim Crow voters, Southern Politics in State and Nation, would prove invaluable.

Of the Caucus' 110 members, 102 are Republicans. Only eight are Democrats, and they are anomalous enough to call for mentioning by name and state: Bud Cramer from Alabama; Gene Taylor from Mississippi; Heath Shuler and Mike McIntyre from North Carolina; Bart Gordon and Lincoln Davis from Tennessee. Nancy Boyda from Kansas joined the HIRC after defeating an incumbent Republican, Jim Ryun, who was also a member of the Caucus. Democrat Jason Altmire from Pennsylvania was elected in 2006 and joined during the past calendar year. Fourteen HIRC representatives are women. The entire Caucus is white.