Dallas area State Rep. Jason Villalba was the featured speaker at this week’s Downtown Houston Pachyderm Club meeting.
It is unusual for a freshman state representative from another area of the state to speak to a Houston Republican club. Clearly, he is setting the stage for a later run for higher profile office. After meeting him and listening to his ideas on state government, spending, illegal immigration, and funding for transportation and education, I wish that he were on the ballot this year for a position for which I could vote for him.
He started his presentation with an Ebola update, since he had been at the major press conference with Texas officials in Dallas on Wednesday.
After that update, he told us that his reason for conducting a statewide tour was to stress to Republicans the importance of changing demographics in Texas, what it means for the Republican Party of Texas, , and what he thinks we can do to insure that Republicans remain in power. He explained that in six years, Hispanics will have a plurality in Texas. After three more election cycles (presumably four year ones), Hispanics will have a majority in Texas.
Since George W. Bush won the governorship, the trend has been downward for the share of Hispanics voting for Republicans. If we allow this trend to continue, and it turns Texas into a blue state, we will not see another Republican president in our lifetime. Democrats think that this will automatically happen over time without reaching out to Hispanics. Rep. Villalba thinks that we can reverse this trend and cites as examples New Mexico Gov. Susanna Martinez, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie.
Rep. Villalba cites two things that Republicans must do to reverse the trend:
- Change the way we articulate our message. He specifically mentioned the language that we use (anchor baby, terror baby, illegal) and said that we must be more sensitive to the way Hispanics perceive this language. He used the recent example of talk radio host Laura Ingraham’s comments. He stressed that he was not advocating political correct speech but common sense when you are trying to get someone to vote for you.
- Immigration reform. Rep. Villalba acknowledged that border security is the number one priority but he stressed that Republicans must be in favor of immigration reform. He listed several things that he thinks must be included in that reform package:
- Penalty for breaking the law and coming here.
- Pay back taxes (income)
- Learn the English language and assimilate
- Keep out of trouble
- If these four things are met, the people already in the country should receive a legal right to work and to be in the country.
Rep. Villalba went on to explain that Hispanics are generally conservative in nature and should be a natural addition to the Republican Party. He listed three points on this:
- Strongly pro-life.
- Largest small business owners as a group in Texas. They want low regulations and low taxes.
- Hispanics are by and large pro-family and pro-freedom.
During the question and answer period, several of his positions were clear.
- Not for decriminalization or recreational use of marijuana. He is somewhat open to medical marijuana use and is willing to listen to the arguments but at this time remains against it.
- Zero chance he would support a gas tax increase. He wants to stop any diversion of this money and keep it for building roads. He made a good case against a gas tax increase, saying that the revenue raised from it would be short term at best given the increase gas mileage and movement to other sources of fuel for powering automobiles.
- Zero chance he would support a state income tax.
- He is an ardent supporter of Speaker Joe Straus and will support him fully. In fact, he picked up my microphone and shouted into it that he wanted to be on the record as supporting the Speaker. He then made a passionate defense of the Speaker’s record. I’d love to play it for you but he inadvertently turned off my recorder when he picked it up!!! Rookie!
- He is impressed with Sen. Dan Patrick, has met with him, and thinks that Sen. Patrick has toned down his white hot rhetoric after the primary.
I have to say that I was extremely impressed with Rep. Villalba. He is one of many bright, young conservatives that Republicans have on the bench. I don’t think he will be on the bench long.
If you have a club of any type, I would highly recommend that you invite him to speak at one of your meetings. It will be well worth your time.
Facebook page: Texans for Jason Villalba
David, I gather by your comments about immigration that you were for Texas Solution, which I was completely against.
Just looking at the immigration reform points in this article, do you truly think any of them will be followed “pay back taxes”, “learn English and assimilate”? So the guy getting $10/hour ($25k/year) in cash is going to pay 7.6-15{997ab4c1e65fa660c64e6dfea23d436a73c89d6254ad3ae72f887cf583448986} FICA/medicare taxes and 10-15{997ab4c1e65fa660c64e6dfea23d436a73c89d6254ad3ae72f887cf583448986} federal income tax for say the last 3-10 years?. On the low end that is $5100 per year and for 4 years that is $20,000.
What happens if illegals do not follow the rules. The “immigration reform” is not even practical.
It appears that Rep Villalba espouses the notion that the GOP can connect with Hispanics around the issue of “strong family family.” Presumably this means Hispanics are particularly likely to marry, have children within wedlock, support their families, care for their children, and set a good example for them. In fact, none of this is true. By virtually every significant social measure, Hispanics rank below whites and even, on occasion, below blacks. Strong Hispanic “family values” are a myth.
Probably the single best indicator of the strength of “family values” in any community is the illegitimacy rate. Fully 42 percent of Hispanic women who gave birth in 1999 were unmarried. The black rate of 69 percent was even worse, and the white rate of 22 percent is hardly admirable, but Hispanics were still nearly twice as likely as whites to have illegitimate children.
Many of these children are the result of pregnancy at a very early age. Hispanic girls under age 14 give birth at a rate more than four times the white rate. Child-bearing as young as this is nearly always a prelude to disaster. When it comes to births to girl ages 15 to 17, Hispanics, at three times the white rate, are even more fertile than blacks. This country has put a huge effort into persuading teenagers not to have children; Hispanics are not listening. Moreover, Hispanic teenagers are not giving birth because they are Catholic and avoid abortion for religious reasons. Hispanics are 57 percent more likely than whites to abort. Yet Republicans somehow persist in believing Hispanics are a naturally “pro-life” constituency that will respond to conservative appeals.Hispanics do marry, and are considerably more likely to do so than blacks, but are less likely than whites. They are also more likely than whites to be divorced, and never to have married.