On January 4th , members of the 110th Congress were sworn in, following midterm elections where the war in Iraq was widely held to be a major voter concern. What of other issues with international import? Three University of Illinois faculty members weigh in on some of these. Kenneth Cuno is Professor of History; Noreen Sugrue, Coordinator , Health Policy Initiatives, Office of Women and Gender in Global Perspectives, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign; Jorge Chapa is Director, Center on Democracy in a Multiracial Society, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Kenneth Cuno
What international implications do you see for the election of the first Muslim to Congress, Minnesota Representative Keith Ellison?

The implications of Mr. Ellison's election are not huge, but on the whole they are positive. The image of the U.S. in the Muslim world has sunk to an all-time low. Much of this has to do with perceptions of U.S. policies in the Middle East: support for authoritarian regimes; support for Israeli occupation and colonization in the Palestinian territories; and the dire effects of the sanctions against Iraq followed by the disastrous invasion and occupation.

America's xenophobic reaction to the September 9/11 attacks is another negative—here I mean the witch-hunt atmosphere against Muslims, which resembles the darkest days of the "Red Scares" of the 1920s and the 1950s.

Some Islamophobes have tried to tar Mr. Ellison as an extremist and others have objected to his private swearing-in ceremony using a Qur'an. But he won over most Jewish voters in his district and he is taking the oath of office using a translation of the Qur'an once owned by Thomas Jefferson. Clearly, he is a savvy politician who has figured out how to unite people instead of dividing them. That may positively impress some in the Muslim world, but it won't have a huge impact on Muslim opinion in general because Muslim anger is directed at U.S. policies, not at the U.S. itself nor at individual Americans.

Noreen Sugrue
In the midterm elections, immigration was thought to be a major issue, yet immigration reform is absent from the Democrat's list of priorities, the so-called New Direction for America. What is your assessment of this apparent dichotomy?

Immigration is a divisive issue among Democrats. To solidify her power base and appear to have party unity, speaker Pelosi has chosen to walk away during the first 100 hours from issues where divisions will come to light. In addition, the Democratic Party and the President are in closer agreement on immigration than almost any other issue. But there is no chance that the new Democratic leadership will share the spotlight with President Bush at this early stage.

The top priorities laid out in the New Directions for America—raising the minimum wage, lowering interest rates on student loans, implementing the 9/11 commission’s recommendations— represent issues on which the Democratic leadership believes they have consensus. Bills can thus be drafted and passed quickly and the Democrats can show the voters a unified party that translates to tangible good things for average people.

Finally, the issues the Democrats have picked for their initial priorities back Republicans into a corner. For example, if Republicans won’t support a minimum wage hike when they supported tax breaks for wealthy Americans, it will not play well with voters. So Republicans will be forced to support things they might not normally support—the Democrats are playing smart post-election politics with issues that mean something to the average citizen. Many of these bills are likely to be seen as problematic by Republicans and that is an added benefit, from the Democrat’s perspective. Immigration as an issue has none of those benefits.

Jorges Chapa
Many people assume that because large numbers of Latina/Latino voters are naturalized citizens, their voting is heavily influenced by international issues that affect their countries of origin, like trade agreements and immigration. Is that your analysis of the recent mid-term elections?

The first point that has to be made is that Latinos are a diverse population and no one generalization applies to all. Given that, it is safe to say that Latino voters are more aware of international issues than most other U.S. voters if only because of their familiarity with foreign cultures through their own immigration or that of a friend or relative.

However, in recent elections, trade issues and immigration have become important domestic issues to many U.S. voters, Latino and non-Latino. Many Latinos are employed in industries that have been hurt by NAFTA, so many Latinos and their representatives opposed CAFTA. Moreover, one factor behind the recent surge in Mexican migration to the U.S. is that many Mexicans lost their livelihood due to economic dislocations caused by NAFTA. The group of Latinos that did support CAFTA were business-people and entrepreneurs who could benefit from these expanded trade opportunities.

In terms of immigration, many Latinos were probably motivated to vote because of the immigration politics of last spring. Most Latinos opposed the Sensenbrenner bill, HR 4437, which proposed drastic measures against undocumented immigrants. It also sparked massive demonstrations that likely increased voter turnout by those Latinos who could vote. There was also an increase in applications for naturalization around this time.