Immigration Politics: After Dream Act Setback, Weighing a Next Move

A look at the Texas politics of immigration. It ain't lookin' good.

After Dream Act Setback, Weighing a Next Move - NYTimes.com: "About 37 percent of Texas residents are of Hispanic origin, and the state has a long history of welcoming newcomers who work hard and obey the law. So the state would seem likely to support a bill to grant citizenship to thousands of foreign-born college students.

Yet the two Republican Senators from Texas, Kay Bailey Hutchison and John Cornyn, both voted to block the bill, known as the Dream Act, from coming up for a vote on Saturday.

The question now is whether the failure of the Dream Act will create a backlash among Hispanic voters against the Republicans in power. The risk for Republicans like Ms. Hutchison is that in trying to appeal to the conservative base, they will anger Hispanics, who are regarded as the sleeping giant of Texas politics." Dec. 20, 2010