In the fight for immigration reform, two of the political incentives for House Republicans to vote for a bill involve constituent breakdown: how “purple” their district is politically, and how Latino it is demographically.
That’s what the scatterplot below shows, for many (not all) of the House Republicans who have the most important roles in passing—or killing—immigration reform.
The more heavily Latino a district is, the HIGHER it is on the chart.
The more PURPLE a district is (measured by the 2012 presidential vote), the farther to the LEFT it is on the chart.
That means the top left of the chart shows some of the most Latino, most tossup districts occupied by House GOPers. Not coincidentally, those are district represented by immigration reform supporters like Mario Diaz-Balart (R-FL), Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL), and David Valadao (R-CA).
At the opposite end of the spectrum are Representatives like Jason Chaffetz (R-UT), whose district is neither very Latino nor very tossup. Also not surprisingly, he’s been going around saying things like how he “couldn’t care less” that the Senate has passed an immigration bill that House Republicans are under pressure to take up.
What are the political imperatives for your closest House Republican? View the chart below. And please let us know if there’s an important GOP district that we’ve missed!
