A national grassroots organization of Latino Republicans this week announced it is opening a Colorado chapter in order to impact the immigration debate in Colorado.

Somos Republicans (Somos is a Spanish word that transates to “we are” in English) was founded last year in Arizona in response to what its founder sees as hateful and destructive rhetoric and legislation in that state. It has since expanded into 10 additional states, with more coming online soon.

“Our only purpose in the beginning was to try and save the Republican Party’s image with Hispanics,” founder DeeDee Garcia Blase told The Colorado Independent this morning.

She said the group started small and “exploded” when Governor Jan Brewer signed SB 1070. “People feel they have to take a stand. We have to get in the ring and fight. They want Hispanics to leave the party. They try to discourage us, but we aren’t going to leave the party. We’re going to fight for the party. We are going to return it to the values of Ronald Reagan and Lincoln. They are hijacking the party with people like the Tancredo Club.”

Garcia Blase said she has always been a Republican. She joined the military after seeing pictures in Time magazine of Saddam Hussein gassing Kurds. “I joined the military because I wanted to kill Saddam. I wanted to help the underdog. I can’t help it. That’s the way I am.”

She said three-fourths of Latinos in the United States are Catholics or evangelical Christians. “Pro-life, pro-family positions are important to us. A strong national defense is important to us. Most of us want to be Republicans, but Republicans choose to demonize us with talk of anchor babies and English only laws and repealing the 14th Amendment. Let me tell you something, Hispanics speak English and the ones who don’t speak it want to learn. You don’t need to pass a law demonizing us. Calling the children of immigrants anchor babies demonizes us.”

She said Republicans in Colorado think they lost the Senate and Governor’s race because of liberal spending.

“That’s wrong. Democrats won in Colorado because of Tom Tancredo and people like him demonizing us. You’re missing the boat with this English-only crap. Leave us alone,” she said. “Democrats in Colorado are smart. They know Tom Tancredo is the best Christmas present they could ever get. Republicans just don’t get it.”

Even so, she said she and the people in her group are committed Republicans.

In Colorado, Steven Rodriguez is leading the effort with Somos. Rodrigues is a past candidate for the legislature and a fourth generation Pueblo resident. He is currently trying to drum up support for a document called the Colorado Compact, modeled after the Utah Compact, which Somos has had tremendous success with. The Compact is a short statement that Somos hopes will be used as a guideline in any immigration legislation considered in the statehouse this next session.

The Salt Lake City Council recently voted to support the Compact and The New York Times this week praised it as a voice of reason.

Garcia Blase said Somos is working on gathering support for the document in Colorado, meeting with church groups and business organizations statewide.

“Building a coalition of religious and business organizations is key to creating intelligent immigration policy,” she said.

The Compact:

FEDERAL SOLUTIONS Immigration is a federal policy issue between the U.S. government and other countries—not Colorado and other countries. We urge Colorado’s congressional delegation, and others, to lead efforts to strengthen federal laws and protect our national borders. We urge state leaders to adopt reasonable policies addressing immigrants in Colorado.

LAW ENFORCEMENT We respect the rule of law and support law enforcement’s professional judgment and discretion. Local law enforcement resources should focus on criminal activities, not civil violations of federal code.

FAMILIES Strong families are the foundation of successful communities. We oppose policies that unnecessarily separate families. We champion policies that support families and improve the health, education and well-being of all Colorado children.

ECONOMY Colorado is best served by a free-market philosophy that maximizes individual freedom and opportunity. We acknowledge the economic role immigrants play as workers and taxpayers. Colorado’s immigration policies must reaffirm our global reputation as a welcoming and business-friendly state.

A FREE SOCIETY Immigrants are integrated into communities across Colorado. We must adopt a humane approach to this reality, reflecting our unique culture, history and spirit of inclusion. The way we treat immigrants will say more about us as a free society and less about our immigrant neighbors. Colorado should always be a place that welcomes people of goodwill.

Garcia Blase said passage of the DREAM Act is very important. “There are so many young Hispanic kids who are just desperate. It just breaks my heart to see them with so little hope.”

Rodriguez spoke to us via email about his hopes for Somos and the Colorado Compact. Excerpts follow:

Our first goal is to build a consensus of groups and individuals to agree that rhetoric (which includes racial overtones) is void of context and superficial, and does not produce results, therefore, we must exclude it from any and all meaningful immigration discussion.

Secondly, there must be an understanding and a consensus agreement that we are dealing with an issue that is extremely complex and politically charged. It is not reasonable to expect to deport all “illegals”.

This is an issue driven by: human rights, respect for the law, business/labor relations, educational rights of children, separation of authority between the states and federal governments, and the basic attributes of citizenship itself, in other words it is more than an enforcement only issue.

Priorities must be established if coherent, effective policies are created. Thus, Somos Republicans is working via a non-partisan effort in order to effectively advocate for Latinos. Latinos need to mobilize in a coordinated effort to ensure that the interests of the Latino community are fully understood, and that any future policies are formulated with Latinos included in the decision making process. We would encourage all Latinos to come together, to join us in any and all efforts to ensure that any future policies that protect our citizens will create both economic enhancement for Colorado and economic opportunity for all.

As a former state house candidate, I am familiar with the legislative process and I am committed to ensuring that Latinos are included in the decision making process. As a conservative, I am also committed to leading other conservative Hispanics to becoming involved in the political process to ensure our voice is heard.

From the Somos Republicans web site:

Somos Republicans is a national watchdog group. The Mission of Somos Republicans is to promote political education and information needed to make more informed political decisions. To inspire the Hispanic people to make a difference in their lives and the lives of their neighbors through collaborative political education, volunteer commitment and responsible participation in society. Our vision is to increase the Latino Republican voting block by 100% within two years. To increase voter registration, precinct committeemen recruitment, campaign volunteering, fundraising and events to reflect quality of future Latino leadership.

A poll released Tuesday by the Colorado Springs Gazette shows Denver Democratic Mayor John Hickenlooper leading the governor’s race in Colorado Springs with the support of 52 percent of those polled.

Republican Dan Maes was second with 34 percent and American Constitution candidate Tom Tancredo brought up the rear with 3 percent.

The poll, conducted by Public Opinion Strategies and FM3, contacted 473 voters in Colorado Springs and Pueblo — which often votes Democratic. It showed Republican Ken Buck leading incumbent Democrat Michael Bennet 56 percent to 30 percent in the U.S. Senate race.

He said Colorado should look into banning large tractor-trailers during weekend rush hours, perhaps not allowing westbound truck traffic on Friday afternoons and not allowing eastbound trucks on Sunday afternoons.

It’s not going to happen, according to Colorado Department of Transportation spokesman Bob Wilson. He said Federal laws prohibit states from restricting commercial traffic in that way. He said truckers pay a large share of the taxes for the highways and “have the same rights as anyone else.”

He said the state was engaged in discussions with business owners along I-70 to try and schedule deliveries during times that will have the least impact on traffic but that doing so is completely voluntary.

GOP nominee in the governor’s race Dan Maes said he likes the idea of installing a monorail along the highway but that he wouldn’t support tax money to pay for it. He also said he likes the idea of a zipper lane or adding another lane to the highway in areas where there is room.

American Constitution Party gubernatorial candidate Tom Tancredo agreed that a zipper lane is an attractive idea, but said he didn’t know where the state would find $40 million to make it a reality.

“Lots of problems can be solved if you have the money. The bigger issue is how do we fund transportation?”

CDOT is looking at a number of options that include zipper lanes and additional lanes along the route. The Revised Draft Programmatic Environmental Impact Study will be released Sept. 10 and will be open for public comment for 60 days. Three public hearings are scheduled: Oct. 5 in Summit County; Oct. 6 in Clear Creek County; and Oct. 7 in Eagle County.

Wilson said once the issues relating to environmental impact are vetted then it will be time to look at specific options, their costs and their possibilities for funding.

Hickenlooper said something needs to be done because it is important that Front Range residents be able to get into the mountains for recreation. He said that ability to get quickly from urban areas into the mountains is “what makes Colorado Colorado. That’s what makes us different,” he said.

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WSJ readers looking for substance in the Platform were also discouraged.

“Color me less than impressed,” writes someone named Colin, reporting at his “To Get Rich Is Glorious” blog. (The name of the blog is a quote from postmodern Chinese Communist Party leader and free market enthusiast Deng Xiaoping.) Colin criticizes the Platform as a sad mixture of not-very-conservative platitudes, “sops to various party factions” and borrowed thinking– some of it borrowed from pro-government Democrats!

Here’s how the WSJ summarized the Platform:

Key Points from the Colorado GOP’s ‘Platform for Prosperity’

* Oppose efforts to increase taxes and fees unless they’re put to a popular vote

* Restore a cap on state spending

* Invest in roads, bridges, higher education and workforce training

* Support a law to make health insurance portable from job to job

* Allow patients to purchase health insurance across state lines

* Promote responsible development of Colorado’s energy resources

* Expand charter schools

* Require employers to verify that their workers are in the U.S. legally

* Prohibit state grants for women’s health care to any organization that also provides abortions

* Oppose future stimulus bills

Here are some choice bits from sharp analyst Colin:

Of the ten items outlined, two of them — the first and last — aren’t even plans for action but rather statements of what the party will not do. Are they really so bereft of ideas that they must define themselves by what they are opposed to than what ideas they support?

What on earth does the third point have to do with limited government or conservative values? And have the Republicans really sunk to co-opting Democratic rhetoric about government spending being “investments”? Truly pathetic.

The fourth point shows a real lack of ambition. Serious health reform would not attempt to make employer-provided health care portable, but rather would seek to sever the connection between employment and health care. Introducing portability is simply another burden for business and helps to calcify the current system.

Where is the truly bold thinking? Solutions meant to address the true ills which face this country? Where are proposals for regulatory reform? Restoring personal freedom through a re-examination of drug policy (which diverts police resources)? A simplified tax code? Outsourcing government functions where possible?

If this is symptomatic of the national Republican party and the narrow thinking taking place in party corridors then Republicans deserve to wander the Sinai a bit longer.

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ConsiderThisNews has the video of protesters in New Hampshire, expressing their anger at President Obama. This is the highlight:

“We don’t need illegals,” says a white-bearded protester into his megaphone. “Send ‘em all back. Send ‘em back with a bullet in the head the second time.”

The man goes on to cite Thomas Jefferson, saying “Read what Jefferson said about the Tree of Liberty — it’s coming, baby.”

What Jefferson actually said was: “The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.”

It’s getting ugly.

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Hallelujah. Let the healing begin. Whichever Caucasian male succeeds Tancredo in the white bread, solidly Republican 6th Congressional District, he likely won’t be talking about bombing Mecca, calling Miami a Third World city, singing the praises of torturing terrorists or singing Dixie in front of a Confederate flag.

Thank you, Jesus. Or whoever your higher power happens to be.

Constituent service took a back seat to race-baiting in Tancredo’s final term. His rants against so-called “illegal aliens” morphed into a bigot’s message against brown people. He wanted to suspend all immigration to get control of the undocumented folks crossing the southern border. He bucked any attempt to deal with an estimated 12 million undocumented workers already in the American economy with anything other than police-state tactics.

Tancredo obsessed on immigration to the exclusion of the people who elected him, most of whom are not Latino.

“The more he became focused on immigration,” said pollster and political analyst Floyd Ciruli, “the less he represented the district. Tom alienated himself from a substantial part of his own party.”

So much for bringing home the bacon.

The four men who have expressed interest in replacing Tancredo as the Republican nominee in next November’s election are Secretary of State Mike Coffman, state senators Tom Wiens and Ted Harvey and Will Armstrong, the son of former U.S. Sen. Bill Armstrong.

All four will have to talk the talk on illegal immigration to keep Tancredo from attacking them in their Republican primary campaigns. But if Coffman, Wiens, Harvey and Armstrong become single-issue nut jobs like Tancredo, they miss the chance to return the 6th CD to its rightful status. The district can be a cauldron of conservatism that pushes limited government regulation, frugal spending and low taxes without fomenting hate.

“They’ll be rhetorically in line on immigration,” Ciruli predicted, “but not single issue. Tom is in a different place.”

He didn’t use to be. Tancredo got the Republican nomination for the 6th much the way his successor will – in a multi-candidate primary that splits the vote so thoroughly that a tiny percentage of district voters actually determine who goes to Congress.

Ciruli thinks Wiens looks like the front-runner at this point. My money’s on Coffman.

Wiens failed to file timely tax returns on a group he formed supposedly to help soldiers returning from Iraq. When he did file his taxes, records show Wiens distributed less than half of what he collected in donations to actual soldiers. The majority of the money donations went to pay for administration of his group. Excessive overhead is the kiss of death to anyone claiming to operate a charity.

Moreover, Wiens and Harvey often appear strident and vindictive in their right-wing politics. Both senators look like dividers in a district crying out for unification, not to mention real representation.

Will Armstrong has never held public office.

That leaves Coffman. As Secretary of State and former State Treasurer, Coffman has won statewide election twice. He’s a former state legislator. He took a leave of absence from being treasurer to serve as a Marine officer in Iraq.

Mostly, however, Coffman is a nice guy. Coffman is a fiscal and social conservative, but even lefties like him as a person.

That’s a far cry from the human lightning rod he would replace.

And at this point, just what the 6th Congressional District needs.

Support for the bi-partisan plan to cover more children whose parents can’t afford health insurance will not be enough to turn the measure into law.So expansion of the State Children’s Health Insurance Program – or SCHIP – gets to be the Achilles heel in the re-election campaigns of every member of Congress who opposed it.

Unless they undergo last-minute conversions, that will include Colorado Republican Representatives Marilyn Musgrave, Doug Lamborn and Tom Tancredo. The trio has spouted the White House line on SCHIP – that it is a step toward government-administered health care. You know, the bogeyman of “socialized medicine.”

SCHIP is no more “socialized medicine” than many current forms of health care finance, including the federal workers health insurance programs that Musgrave, Lamborn and Tancredo enjoy.

Don’t look for them to give that perk up for the cause.

Do look for the SCHIP veto to play not only in Congressional races, but also state elections in 2008.

“There has been a real shift in how the public cares about health care,” Colorado Gov. Bill Ritter said Monday. “It is number one in the minds of Coloradans. The voting public is concerned about the uninsured. So I do think it will play a role in state elections. (SCHIP) may not be the only issue, but it will be a significant issue that can make inroads with independents and moderate Republicans.”

The governor’s take is based in part on a recent state survey by pollster Floyd Ciruli that showed concerns about health care have moved past taxes as the chief interest of potential voters in Colorado.

That should sound the alarm for opponents of SCHIP. Instead, at the state and federal level, they have decided to make a stand by denying preventive health care to kids. The right wing of the Republican Party has gone so far as to attack a brain-damaged 12-year-old who called out Bush on the veto.

They say the kid lives in a $400,000 house and represents the kind of person who doesn’t need government-subsidized insurance. The child’s family bought the house several years ago for $55,000 in a sketchy neighborhood that got better. But that is beside the point.

You can argue, as many opponents do, that expanding SCHIP coverage to kids whose household incomes are several times the federal poverty level gives government insurance to those who don’t need it. But in the end, you argue to deny children efficient and affordable medical treatment.

In other words, you argue to hurt kids. That is a huge political gamble.

“There is,” said Udall, “a moral component to this.”

There are also built-in savings, if that is all you care about.

“When you have children insured,” Udall pointed out, “they don’t go to the emergency room, which is expensive.”

And mandatory. The law requires that emergency rooms treat the sick regardless of their ability to pay. The costs of indigent care are passed along in the form of increased health insurance premiums paid by workers and employers. Those rising costs then force more workers and employers to have to cancel health insurance benefits, which then leave more uninsured families headed for the emergency room.

It is a vicious cycle.

This is why the Senate, divided almost equally between Democrats and Republicans, passed SCHIP expansion with 68 votes, enough to override a presidential veto.

With the looming defeat of the veto override in the House, children’s health insurance is about to become a huge wedge issue in the 2008 federal and state elections.

Ritter said he has never seen more bi-partisan support in the National Governor’s Association than he saw for expansion of the State Children’s Health Insurance Program.

“Forty-three governors supported it, including 16 Republicans,” Ritter said. “The president’s (alternative plan to expand the program by $5 billion a year) doesn’t keep up with medical inflation. That means less services for kids already covered.”

Or it could mean dropping kids from the program.

Either way, the president’s supporters have a big problem.

Udall remains focused on getting the override measure passed on Thursday. If it fails, he said, “my proposal is to pass the bill again, and send it back to the president.”

As for the 2008 elections, added Udall, “let the chips fall where they may.”

Or the SCHIP’s.

So when Tom Terrific went after a law expanding health insurance coverage for children of the working poor, he reached a pinnacle of cynicism. Tancredo opposes a bill expanding the State Children's Health Insurance Program, or SCHIP, because it might extend services to the kids of undocumented immigrants.

I suspect Tancredo’s call for an ID check in the SCHIP bill has much more to do with the Congressman’s flagging nativist campaign for president than it does with the potential that “real” Americans will be denied health care while undocumented people get treated.

“The problem with the new bill is that it removes safeguards,” Tancredo spokesman T.Q. Houlton told me Tuesday. “It will encourage more illegal immigrants to come here. The program is now up for grabs.”

Up for grabs by whom?

“It’s a problem that doesn’t exist,” said Edie Sonn, a spokeswoman for the Colorado SCHIP Coalition. “We used to talk to hourly employees at hotels and laundries. We’d tell them, ‘It doesn’t matter if you’re documented, if your child was born here, they’re an American citizen, so sign them up.’ None of those people would do it. People who come here illegally are scared to death to take advantage of programs.”

Even ones for which their kids qualify.

Tancredo, meanwhile, is talking about kids who are here illegally.

“Removing the ID requirement will simply make the (SCHIP) program more susceptible to waste, fraud and abuse by persons who are here illegally at the expense of U.S. citizens,” the Congressman insisted in a statement.

But the Congressman has not documented any level of abuse by those children getting health care.

Recent reports which have measured the savings of increased ID requirements to Medicaid, the government-subsidized health insurance for the poor, showed no cost savings for excluding illegal immigrants, said Elizabeth Arenales of the Colorado Center for Law and Policy.

No similar study has been done for SCHIP that Arenales knew of.

But the idea that there is great abuse of the system by children who are undocumented is a mirage.

“We’ve never identified that undocumented people are a problem in Colorado,” the Center for Law and Policy’s Adela Brennan said of SCHIP and Medicaid.

Actually, the idea that treating children of any background for medical conditions is bad turns the concept of health care and abuse upside down. For Tancredo, it’s a self-serving interpretation that plays fast and loose with the lives of innocents who have no more control of their presence in the United States than they do of contracting a case of the flu.

That doesn’t seem to matter to Tancredo as he claws for some traction in a presidential campaign that seeks to exploit fear of foreigners.

Houlton could not tell me his boss’ alternative to the expansion of SCHIP, which pays for care for children whose parents make too much to qualify for Medicaid, but too little to afford regular health insurance premiums. It’s all about keeping the ID check.

By that measure, if the ID check stayed in, Tancredo should support SCHIP expansion.

Only he doesn’t.

“Democrats are looking at the reauthorization of this entitlement program as an opportunity to move us toward a taxpayer-funded, government-run, socialized health care system,” Tancredo said in his statement.

President George W. Bush has threatened to veto the SCHIP bill if it passes both houses of Congress.

Tancredo and Dubya both think the bill takes away money from the private sector that would otherwise be able to provide better and more economical health care for kids. That, of course, is an empirically proven lie.

What stinks about all of this is the willingness of politicians to make pawns of children in a failed system that does as much to make insurance executives rich as it does to make people well. It is one more example of medicine practiced to promote income instead of healing.

Tancredo’s tangent of immigrant-bashing is gravy for conservatives trying to stop the delivery of decent health care to Americans. Conservatives in the House of Representatives have already glommed on to the bad foreigners idea to gain strength to attack SCHIP. Tancredo, meanwhile, has gotten his nativist agenda back in the headlines.

Proof of the stupidity of this approach is only as far away as your nearest hospital emergency room. There, doctors must treat the sick, regardless of ability to pay and regardless of legal status. The cost of that care gets passed on in the form of higher health insurance premiums and fees for those of us lucky enough to have coverage.

Here’s what Tancredo forgets as he tries to exploit children in behalf of an ultimately doomed presidential campaign:

The laws of this country eventually mandate medical treatment. But human decency and our claim to a civilized society also require it. The problem is that America is in a self-destructive cycle where paying for health care will eventually kill us all with its runaway costs, if not untreated illnesses.

So Tancredo can rant his nativist rant. And Tancredo and other private-sector advocates can keep trying to put corporate profits before public interest.

Emergency room care will still remain the most expensive and least efficient form of health care.

That’s true for the children of undocumented immigrants. But it’s just as true for everyone else.

“Well, heck, yes!” you would offer.

“Well, hell, no!” said the three Republican teammates.

In a bi-partisan vote, 368 Congressmen supported HR 700; only 59 Republicans voted against it. The vote on HR569 was similar. In the front line of negativity were Musgrave, Tancredo and Lamborn.

In Colorado lately, you have read and heard a lot about renewable energy. Governor Bill Ritter would like to make Colorado the leading state in the nation to pursue energy self-sufficiency. Sounds good, heh? Wouldn’t it be great to have a special Congressional committee created (HR202) to study energy independence and global warming, too?

The Colorado Democratic Congressmen thought so as did the majority. The Republican trio of M-T-L did not.

Bad water and hot air. Sounds like the M-T-L team is listening to the White House instead of us.