Top Hispanic Legal Group To Jeff Sessions: “We Expect Better”

"This one’s pretty rough — yet another sign that the GOP’s attacks on Sonia Sotomayor are putting their standing with Latinos at serious risk."

"In what is by far the most aggressive push-back from mainstream Hispanic organizations against Republicans over Obama’s SCOTUS nominee, a well-respected Latino legal group has written a scorching letter to Senator Jeff Sessions, the leader of the GOP’s efforts on Sotomayor, that suggests he’s guilty of fanning racism.

“We expect and are entitled to better from a sitting member of the United States Senate,” reads the letter, which is from Ramona Romero, the president of the National Hispanic Bar Association and has two dozen other groups as signatories."

"The growing Hispanic population in Texas or Arizona or even America probably doesn''t matter a fig to Jefferson Beauregard Sessions, III because Alabama still has a very small proportion (less than 3%) of Hispanic voters -- and he's not known for taking the long, strategic view anyway.  From the letter: "

"Dear Senator Sessions:

We write on behalf of twenty-six (26) preeminent national Hispanic advocacy organizations to express our deep dismay at your efforts in the past week to mischaracterize as extremist the work of the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund (PRLDEF), now known as LatinoJustice PRLDEF.  As organizations committed to helping Latinos across this great nation overcome barriers of racism and poverty so that they may flourish in pursuit of the American Dream, your attacks on LatinoJustice PRLDEF send a chilling message to us all....

“We expect and are entitled to better from a sitting member of the United States Senate,” reads the letter, which is from Ramona Romero, the president of the National Hispanic Bar Association and has two dozen other groups as signatories.

The letter attacks Sessions for making an issue of Sotomayor’s work for the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund. Sessions has suggested that it’s extremist, and Senator Mitch McConnell has also raised questions about the organization.

The National Hispanic Bar Association letter calls the group a “mainstream, well-respected organization,” and hits Sessions in ways that recall his checkered history on race relations:

“Attacks on Latino advocacy and civil rights organizations are not new -– we have seen figures in the media mis-characterize and slander our good works, using provocative terms that fan the flames of ethnic animosity. We expect and are entitled to better from a sitting member of the United States Senate.”

The letter supports the private view of some GOP strategists, which is that the attacks on Sotomayor risk destroying the GOP’s standing among Latinos at a time when the party is desperate to broaden its appeal. Senators like Jon Kyl and John Cornyn, who come from states with large Latino populations, can’t be happy about this kind of stuff."