Voters may get to decide whether to protect abortion rights and raise the minimum wage and may also be asked whether to give the state immigration enforcement powers.
The largest Latino group in the country endorsed President Joe Biden in Arizona on Tuesday and said the group will also work to turn out voters to influence potential ballot measures on abortion, minimum wage and immigration. These measures, the group says, are as important in driving Latino voters to the polls.
Janet Murguía, president of UnidosUS and its political arm, UnidosUS Action Fund, threw the group’s support behind Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris and endorsed Rep. Ruben Gallego in his U.S. Senate race and Raquel Terán and Kirsten Engel in their House races. All are Democrats.
Proposed measures in the highly competitive state include asking voters to legalize abortion and to increase the minimum wage. The Legislature also was scheduled to vote Tuesday on whether to put on the ballot a Republican-backed immigration measure with several proposals, including one to create a state law similar to a Texas law that allows police to arrest people in the country illegally and judges to deport them.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
“Of course the national presidential election is crucial to us, but we see opportunity to leverage the turnout for representation in Congress … and beyond that it’s those key issues that are going to impact our community, minimum wage … and then the ongoing battle that we’re in for women’s reproductive health rights.”
Arizona Republicans won a state Supreme Court decision to enforce an 1864 near-total abortion ban and had fought efforts to repeal it.
The battle is reminiscent of the atmosphere that reigned more than a decade ago because of the anti-immigrant measure SB 1070, which allowed police in the state to question people about whether they were legally in the country for any reason.
At the same time, Joe Arpaio, then the sheriff of Maricopa County, was using racial profiling as part of an anti-immigrant campaign that included dressing detained migrants in pink underwear and holding them in tent camps in the hot weather.
“If approved, it opens the door to discrimination, including racial profiling for immigrant and Latino Arizonans in places where our community should feel safe, like schools, churches and hospitals.”
Although Biden won a majority of Hispanic voters, Donald Trump made inroads, and polls suggest he could make a better showing this election.
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