Congressman Raul Labrador says Mitt Romney's poor showing among Hispanics was
key to his defeat and that Republicans can't elect a GOP president without
them.
"We are never going to be a majority party if we don't figure out a way
to reach out to the Hispanic community," said Labrador, a native of Puerto
Rico elected to his second term in Idaho's 1st District. "So we have to find a
conservative consensus on immigration."
Labrador spoke during a Capitol Hill news conference Wednesday sponsored
by a group he co-chairs, Conversations with Conservatives. Labrador
co-sponsored a bill to loosen work visa requirements for students with degrees
in science, technology, engineering and math, which failed this fall.
"We can't keep punting the ball for the next Congress to fix this issue,"
he said. "I'm trying to get the conservatives here in the House to work on
this issue, to find a solution to the immigration problem."
Labrador said Republican opposition to immigration reform leaves many
Hispanics unwilling to consider voting GOP.
"One of the main reasons that we lost is because Romney got 27 percent of
the Hispanic vote," Labrador said. "If we continue to get 27 percent of the
vote for the rest of our lives, we will continue to lose every single
presidential election that's out there."
Labrador said clearing the immigration hurdle could bring a wave of votes
for the GOP.
"Hispanics agree with us on social issues, they agree with us on fiscal
issues, they're usually business oriented. ... They don't want higher taxes,"
he said. "But we cannot even reach them with our message if they feel like
they're not welcome in our party."
Labrador said he agrees with Wall Street Journal columnist Peggy Noonan
that Romney lost because Americans felt like the GOP doesn't care about
ordinary Americans.
"It's the average American people that have a hard time under a
Democratic administration -- it's Hispanics, African Americans, women who have
been losing jobs, who have been losing houses," he said. "And we have done a
terrible job of selling that message."
