{"id":14391,"date":"2025-01-21T17:39:02","date_gmt":"2025-01-21T17:39:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/latinosreadytovote.org\/?p=14391"},"modified":"2025-01-21T17:39:05","modified_gmt":"2025-01-21T17:39:05","slug":"why-ruben-gallegos-laken-riley-vote-is-a-warning-for-democrats","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/latinosreadytovote.org\/?p=14391","title":{"rendered":"Why Ruben Gallego\u2019s Laken Riley vote is a warning for Democrats"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The Arizona senator said he\u2019s breaking with a party that\u2019s \u201clargely out of touch with where your average Latino is.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

By\u00a0Daniella Diaz<\/a><\/em>, POLITICO<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Sen. Ruben Gallego poses for a portrait in his temporary office on Capitol Hill on Jan. 17. | Francis Chung\/POLITICO<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Ruben Gallego didn\u2019t run to be the next John McCain or Kyrsten Sinema \u2014 a new party-crossing maverick senator from Arizona.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But that\u2019s exactly how he\u2019s starting out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Just days into his Senate career, the Democrat threw his support<\/a> behind the Laken Riley Act \u2014 lending crucial momentum to the GOP-authored immigration bill that would force the incarceration of many undocumented immigrants accused of crimes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In an interview, Gallego said it could be just the first of many votes he takes with Republicans on immigration and border issues \u2014 the reason he believes Democrats lost so broadly in 2024.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019m bringing the perspective of working class Latinos from Arizona,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd that perspective, I think, has been missing.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Handing President Donald Trump an early win on his signature issue is not where many Democrats expected the 45-year-old son of Mexican and Colombian immigrants to end up just two years ago, when he launched a challenge to Sinema. At the time, he lambasted the Democrat-turned-independent\u2019s cross-aisle alliances that served to rein in his party\u2019s legislative ambitions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gallego\u2019s decision to back the GOP immigration bill, which passed the Senate Monday<\/a> and could get to Trump\u2019s desk later this week, raises the possibility that Minority Leader Chuck Schumer might have a fresh headache on his hands as he tries to maintain a united front against the unified Republican government.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Already House Republicans have sent another targeted immigration bill to the Senate, this one dealing with accused domestic abusers, hoping to exploit the split in the Democratic ranks. More piecemeal bills are expected to be on the way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gallego said he has zero intention of playing the role of problem child in the same way that Sinema or Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia did in previous Congresses. He said he gave Schumer a heads-up on his decision to support the bill, saying he intends to be \u201cvery transparent about where we\u2019re going to be and why.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Laken Riley Act has been savaged on the left as a misguided and overbroad measure, with one prominent activist group\u00a0calling its supporters<\/a>\u00a0\u201ccomplicit in perpetuating Trump\u2019s plans for mass cruelty and eroding trust in our nation as a place of refuge and opportunity.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Only 11 of the 47 senators in the Democratic caucus joined Gallego in voting for final passage Monday. Many of the opponents represent states where immigration issues play much differently. (Arizona\u2019s senior Democratic senator, Mark Kelly, supported it.) And they largely kept mum about the role he played in advancing it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI just don\u2019t comment on other people\u2019s votes,\u201d said Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), a Laken Riley Act opponent who helped craft last year\u2019s ill-fated bipartisan border bill.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI won\u2019t speak for my colleagues,\u201d added Sen. Ben Ray Luj\u00e1n (D-N.M.), one of six other Latinos in the Senate. \u201cI don\u2019t represent Arizona. I represent New Mexico. I voted against it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yet Gallego is unabashed about his desire to bring his colleagues along on these issues.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThere has been this misunderstanding about where Latinos are when it comes to border and border security,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019m here to bring some more real truth about what people are thinking \u2026 and so people here and senators here aren\u2019t necessarily reliant on these immigration groups that are, I think, a lot of times, largely out of touch with where your average Latino is.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gallego brings credibility to that fight. He eked out a two-point Senate victory in Arizona over Republican Kari Lake as Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris lost to Trump by six. But his tough-on-the-border campaign rhetoric represented a shift from how he got started in politics, as part of a group campaigning against an Arizona state law<\/a> empowering police to check individuals\u2019 immigration status.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He credits his win to understanding how Latino voters in his state \u2014 and broadly across the country \u2014 feel about border security and immigration. Now with Democrats doing some major soul-searching on what went wrong in 2024, he is explicitly arguing that his tough approach could help them find their way out of the political wilderness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI think that [the Trump campaign was] just closer to where people were,\u201d he said. \u201cOur campaign, I think the reason why we did as well as we did is because we nailed it exactly where we wanted.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That\u2019s music to the ears of Republicans. Sen. Katie Britt (R-Ala.), the Laken Riley Act\u2019s lead sponsor, said she was \u201cthrilled\u201d to have Gallego on board with the bill she led through the Senate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThat takes courage, and it also means you\u2019re listening to the American people,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou\u2019re talking to a member who voted on a lot of bipartisan bills,\u201d added Sen.\u00a0Thom Tillis\u00a0(R-N.C.), who joined Democrats on recent bipartisan infrastructure and gun measures. \u201cAnd now it\u2019s time for people like Gallego to stand up and see if they\u2019re committed to bipartisanship, and that\u2019s a good first step.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gallego wasn\u2019t the first Democratic senator to back the Laken Riley Act, named after a Georgia nursing student murdered by an undocumented immigrant last year \u2014 that was Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.). But he was the first Latino to do so, and he is now speaking out not only about where his party should go but about where it has been.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe position that some Democrats have taken in the past … is that there shouldn\u2019t be limits on people crossing the border, that there shouldn\u2019t be deportations, that there shouldn\u2019t be restrictions for people that are causing problems, like the monster that killed Laken Riley,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

His constituents feel differently: \u201cThey want more Border Patrol, they want more border investments and enforcement \u2026 and they also want immigration reform,\u201d Gallego said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gallego isn\u2019t ruling out working with Republicans on other issues on a case-by-case basis. But he also said doesn\u2019t intend to follow in the footsteps of Sinema, who cultivated close ties with Republican colleagues and worked in tandem with Manchin to reduce and delay Democrats\u2019 big spending plans under former President Joe Biden.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And don\u2019t expect him to go taking Mar-a-Lago meetings with Trump, as Fetterman did last week.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019m not that kind of politician,\u201d Gallego said. \u201cLook, my relationship with the Trump administration is going to be around policy.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Arizona senator said he’s breaking with a party that’s “largely out of touch with where your average Latino is.” By Daniella Diaz, POLITICO Ruben Gallego didn’t run to be the next John McCain or Kyrsten Sinema […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":14393,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[62,77],"tags":[84,80,81],"class_list":{"0":"post-14391","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-slider","8":"category-slider-16","9":"tag-arizona","10":"tag-immigration","11":"tag-latino-vote"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/latinosreadytovote.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14391","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/latinosreadytovote.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/latinosreadytovote.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinosreadytovote.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinosreadytovote.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=14391"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/latinosreadytovote.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14391\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14394,"href":"https:\/\/latinosreadytovote.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14391\/revisions\/14394"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinosreadytovote.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/14393"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/latinosreadytovote.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14391"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinosreadytovote.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14391"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinosreadytovote.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14391"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}