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| Latin America |
| Mexico Reform Plan Eyes Voters, Campaigns in U.S. |
| 2003-10-22 |
| EFL Rooters from Worldwire This whole concept baffles me. It looks like Fox is calling for his own regime change through this initiative. MEXICO CITY - President Vicente Fox is crafting a bill that would allow absentee voting by Mexico’s 10 million citizens living abroad, a move that could push Mexican election campaigns across the border into the United States. Under current rules, Mexicans can only vote inside the country, a requirement that effectively disenfranchises hundreds of thousands of expatriates, many of them undocumented workers in the United States. It forces those who want to vote to pay for trips home and, for illegals, to undertake potentially dangerous efforts to sneak across the border. Fox’s bill could change that, granting a long-sought political right to a migrant community that sends about $1 billion home to Mexico every month. U.S. cities like Los Angeles and Chicago with large Mexican populations could see Mexican politicians flying in for stump speeches and putting up political billboards in Spanish. But with the measure needing approval from Congress, Mexico’s parties are likely to do some old-fashioned politicking before deciding whether or not to back it. With the status quo, money flows into Mexico without the contamination of ideas. Mexican workers in the US (green card or other) send huge amounts of cash to their families and just worry about the next day’s work and whether the family can afford to get Grandma hip replacement surgery in San Antonio. Now Vincente is going to enfranchise a large number of voters that have contaminated by capitalist ideas and might want life in Mexico to be more like it is in the US. Sounds like a bad plan to me. |
| Posted by:Super Hose |
| #4 Going to be interesting to see how this squares with CA driver's licenses and motor-votor... |
| Posted by: Pappy 2003-10-22 11:37:49 PM |
| #3 Mexican candidates have been campaigning for years in the U.S. for donations and support. The U.S. Latino/Chicano community is obviously one of the wealthiest and most influential communities in all of Latin America and they exert a lot of pull on the politics in their home countries. Fox has been a disappointment. He was a pro-American, pro-business conservative and chumy with Bush. But obviously he's a politician and not above pandering to anti-Yanqui sentiment and pushing hard for every (wrong-headed) immigrant initiatives. The WOT has meant that we've had little time to think about things in our own hemisphere. Much as they carp about Yanqui imperialist interference in their politics, there is nothing that they hate more than being ignored. |
| Posted by: Tokyo Taro 2003-10-22 10:13:31 PM |
| #2 You stole my thunder, Frank. By voting, the illegals in the US are stating that they are Mexican citizens. I'm sure that the Donks will still try to get them on the voting rolls in the US. |
| Posted by: Alaska Paul 2003-10-22 9:27:03 PM |
| #1 I like it! it announces their loyalties and delegitimizes the efforts to grant illegals the benefits of jumping the turnstiles over those applying legally. Those making the efforts to immigrate legally are what has made the country strong. Those sneaking in have little respect or "pride of ownership" when they get in via amnesties. Fox is doing us a favor, and the Donks a huge catastrophe when the mixed-loyalty argument comes up |
| Posted by: Frank G 2003-10-22 9:09:50 PM |