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Heritage Study Author: ‘Hispanic Immigrants Will Have Low-IQ Children’

By Zack Beauchamp/Think Progress

The Heritage Foundation’s analysis of the economic consequences of immigration reform uses absurd methodology to come to conclusions entirely at odds with the organization’s own findings in 2006. Perhaps one explanation for this incoherence is that one of the paper’s coauthors, a new hire, opposes Hispanic immigration because he thinks Latinos are stupid.

Jason Richwine joined Heritage in 2010, after finishing his PhD in Public Policy in 2009. The Washington Post’s Dylan Matthews dug up Richwine’s dissertation, which was titled “IQ And Immigration.” In it, Richwine argues that Hispanics have and will always have lower IQs than whites. Matthewssummarizes:

Richwine’s dissertation asserts that there are deep-set differentials in intelligence between races. While it’s clear he thinks it is partly due to genetics — ‘the totality of the evidence suggests a genetic component to group differences in IQ’ — he argues the most important thing is that the differences in group IQs are persistent, for whatever reason. He writes, ‘No one knows whether Hispanics will ever reach IQ parity with whites, but the prediction that new Hispanic immigrants will have low-IQ children and grandchildren is difficult to argue against.‘

Richwine concludes from this that American immigration policy should encourage high IQ individuals to immigrate, but limit low IQ immigration: as he puts it, “I believe there is a strong case for IQ selection, since it is theoretically a win-win for the U.S. and potential immigrants.” Since this eugenic language is politically toxic, Richwine advocates dressing it up in the language of “high skill” and “low skill” immigration. As Matthews details, the Heritage report does exactly that.

The study of race and intelligence has long been a problematic area for conservatives. In 1994, conservative pundit Charles Murray wrote a book called The Bell Curve, whose argument that blacks are on-average less intelligent than whites kicked off a critical firestorm. Conservatives since have generally defended Murray (who currently works at the American Enterprise Institute), occasionally citing him to get to some unsavory conclusions. Recently published research does not support the idea that there is an identifiably racial IQ gap, and the difficulty in defining “race” as a biological term makes it hard to pin down an appropriate methodology for studying the question in the first place.

Richwine is not the only author of the Heritage report with questionable views. Robert Rector, the paper’s lead author, was the source for then candidate Romney’s racially charged attack on President Obama’s welfare policy, and has spent his career dismissing the idea that poverty hurts people. On Tuesday, Rector admitted he hadn’t read the whole immigration bill before coauthoring his analysis of it with Richwine.

UPDATE

Heritage Vice President of Communications Mike Gonzalez released a statement to ThinkProgress disowning Richwine’s dissertation:

This is not a work product of The Heritage Foundation. Its findings in no way reflect the positions of The Heritage Foundation. Nor do the findings affect the conclusions of our study on the cost of amnesty to the U.S. taxpayer.

11 Reasons You’re Glad Jim DeMint Is Leaving The Senate

By Scott Keyes/Think Progress

In an unexpected move, Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC), an arch-conservative and leader of the Tea Party movement, is resigning his seat in order to head up the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank in Washington DC.

DeMint has been among the most extreme members of the Senate since first getting elected in 2004, drawing a hard-right line on issues from unions to LGBT rights to abortion and beyond.

Here’s a look back at some of DeMint’s Senate highlights:

1. Stood with Akin after “legitimate rape” remarks. Following Rep. Todd Akin’s (R-MO) infamous statement that victims of “legitimate rape” can’t become pregnant, DeMint was one of the first major conservatives to stand with the Missouri congressman. DeMint even used his political action committee to donate $90,000 to Akin’s campaign and used its network to raise hundreds of thousands more. “We support Todd Akin and hope freedom-loving Americans in Missouri and around the country will join us,” DeMint’s group said.

2. Led the opposition against Obamacare. In 2009, during the height of the GOP’s opposition to health care reform, DeMint told a conference call of conservative activists that, “If we’re able to stop Obama on this, it will be his Waterloo. It will break him.” Ironically, DeMint once supported Mitt Romney’s health care reform in Massachusetts, the law on which Obamacare is based.

3. Wants to prevent gay or unmarried teachers from teaching in public schools.In 2010, DeMint “said if someone is openly homosexual, they shouldn’t be teaching in the classroom and he holds the same position on an unmarried woman who’s sleeping with her boyfriend — she shouldn’t be in the classroom.” During his first Senate campaign in 2004, DeMint agreed with the state party’s platform barring gay teachers from public schools, claiming that the government shouldn’t endorse certain behaviors.

4. Pushed a bill outlawing the discussion of abortion over the Internet. Last year, DeMint proposed an amendment to an unrelated bill that would have barred a woman and her doctor from discussing abortion over the internet, even if her health was at risk and tele-conferencing was the most feasible option to receive care.

5. Wants to strip all federal employees of collective bargaining rights. Though most federal employees don’t enjoy the rights and benefits of unionization, DeMint wants to take away even the few bargaining rights they currently enjoy. “I don’t believe collective bargaining has any place in government,” DeMint told ThinkProgress last year.

6. Blocked creation of the National Women’s History Museum. Along with fellow arch-conservative Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK), DeMint placed a hold on a 2010 bill to sell land near the Smithsonian Institution in Washington DC in order to create the National Women’s History Museum. Coburn justified their move to block the museum by noting that there already exist museums for “quilters” and “cowgirls”.

7. Likened striking Chicago teachers to “thugs” in the Middle East. Speaking at the Values Voters Summit in September 2012, DeMint blasted Chicago teachers who were on strike for a brief period earlier this year. “On my way over, I was reading another story about a distant place where thugs had put 400,000 children out in the streets,” DeMint said. “And then I realized that was a story about the Chicago teachers strike.”

8. Threatened to single-handedly shut down the Senate. In September 2010, DeMint warned his colleagues that he would place a unilateral hold on every single piece of legislation in the Senate, bringing the entire lawmaking process to a grinding halt. Despite being in the minority, DeMint threatened to only allow bills to proceed that his office had personally approved.

9. Used a failed terrorist plot to attack unions. Following the failed “underwear bomber” plot in December 2009, DeMint went on Fox News and used the episode as an opportunity to bash unions. “I am concerned, because it’s related to another issue that we’re dealing with now in the Senate,” DeMint said. “The administration is intent on unionizing and submitting our airport security to union bosses’ collective bargaining.”

10. Argued that people with pre-existing conditions got better care before Obamacare. Speaking with ThinkProgress at a Tea Party rally this year, DeMintargued that Obamacare actually hurt people with pre-existing conditions, despite that fact that it bars insurance companies from denying them care. “I can guarantee you people with pre-exisitng conditions are going to get less health care—lower quality health care—under Obamacare,” DeMint said.

11. “Willing” to cause “serious disruptions” in the economy in order to secure draconian cuts. During last year’s debt ceiling showdown, DeMint appeared on Fox Business and said that, despite the fact that not raising the debt ceiling would cause “serious disruptions,” he was “willing to do that” in order to get major cuts to social programs like Medicare and Social Security.

Defending Senate Filibuster, Heritage Hosts Corporate Lobbyists Who Specialize In Holding Up Legislation

By Lee Fang In response to Sen. Tom Udall’s (D-NM) bipartisan attempt to reform the Senate, today the Heritage Foundation will host an event in defense of the Senate filibuster. In the first two years of the Obama presidency, Senate Republicans have obstructed through procedure, blocking a stunning record number judgeships, administration appointees, and pieces of legislation, all with as little as one to forty-one votes. For example, using a “secret hold,” which allows a single senator to block a bill or nominee, Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) prevented a veterans’ benefits bill from debate; the two Republican senators from Tennessee stopped legislation that would level the playing field between FedEx and UPS; and, Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) ensured that Obama’s nominee to head the TSA could not be confirmed during the period leading up to the Detroit Christmas-day bomber.

Heritage has applauded this dictatorship of the minority by hailing Republicans for exploiting loopholes in Senate parliamentary rules. But the status quo has little to do with “tradition” — filibusters have never been used as they were in the past two years by Senate Republicans. Rather, Senate obstruction benefits corporate interests looking to delay or kill regulations, reforms and taxes.

For today’s event, Heritage has invited lobbyists who personify the very problems of Senate obstruction to speak in support of the current Senate rules. Steven Duffield, one of Heritage’s experts for the event, is a GOP operative and the president of Endgame Strategies LLC, a lobbying firm he founded. According to Roll Call, Duffield, a former aide to Sen. Jon Kyl (R-AZ), the Republican whip in the Senate, created his firm to help his clients work with Senate Republicans to “use their power to filibuster to hold up legislation.” Duffield’s lobbying website advertises that he can help his clients find just the right “backbench Senate Republicans” to “exercise their prerogatives to delay or obstruct” controversial legislation:

Managing Holds and Filibusters. Your organization has an interest in a bill that has proven controversial and you require advocacy before those legislators – often backbench Senate Republicans – who may exercise their prerogatives to delay or obstruct. Endgame Strategies will give you new ways to manage your interests in a legislative environment that gives great power to individual senators.

Although Duffield does not disclose his full client list, Duffield’s LinkedIn profile says he serves “corporate” clients. Joining Duffield for the Heritage panel is another lobbyist whose business has monetized the broken Senate, Bill Wichterman. A longtime Republican operative who was caught funneling donations to a Green Party candidate to boost his ally Sen. Rick Santorum (R-PA) in 2006, Wichterman now works at the firm Covington & Burling representing a variety of corporate clients, including the mercenary company Xe Services (formerly known as Blackwater), a copper company, and Avantis Medical Systems. Like Duffield, Wichterman’s firm specializes in helping corporations win legislative battles by simply exploiting Senate procedures. Martin Gold, a colleague to Wichterman at Covington & Burling, advertised the firm in a fairly candid pitch for a lobbying seminar:

Can you turn Congressional rules and procedures into a tactical advantage for achieving your policy goals? Absolutely!

While he helps corporations place secret holds for his corporate clients, Duffield has elected a new crew of Republican senators to boost his business. In addition to his lobbying gig, Duffield serves as “Policy Director” of Crossroads GPS, the undisclosed corporate front group that helped elect Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI), Sen. Pat Toomey (R-PA), Sen. Kelly Ayotte (R-NH), and other freshmen Republican senators. By granting Duffield and Wichterman a platform to promote Senate obstruction, Heritage is doing a service for corporate lobbyists.

START Ratification Exposes Heritage’s Impotence

By Max Bergmann

The hard-right Heritage Foundation, one of the pillars of the conservative movement, made defeating START one of its top institutional priorities. Yet 13 Republican Senators ended up bucking Heritage and voted to ratify the START treaty. Heritage ended up so far to the right that it was unable to convince any significant number of Republicans to follow its nonsensical substantive attack on START that the treaty would lead to massive nuclear proliferation and eventually to a nuclear war.

Heritage fellows held event after event, wrote article after article, report after report,blog post after blog post, attacking the treaty. Heritage Fellow James Carafano, in columns for the Daily Caller, urged the Tea Party “tackle defense issues.” This summer, it launched a 501(c)(4) entity called Heritage Action for America and chose two issues to focus on: spending and stopping START. Josh Rogin reported in July:

Heritage Action for America was established as 501c4 organization, which means it can do direct lobbying on the Hill and broad grassroots lobbying around the country. Killing START is one of the group’s two keystone efforts, along with a drive to push a repeal of the new health-care bill in the House. The organization is now circulating a petition to its 671,000 dues-paying members featuring a video of Romney criticizing the treaty… And Heritage Action is not stopping there. The group has a detailed plan to target lawmakers on both sides of the aisle and persuading wavering senators to oppose the treaty. Votes up for grabs include moderate Republicans like Maine Sens. Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins, but also conservative Democrats like Ben Nelson, D-NE, and Evan Bayh, D-IN.

Heritage even produced a video that warned that, if START passed, it would lead to a nuclear attack in 2018.

Yet despite all this effort, a quarter of the Republican caucus bucked Heritage’s advocacy campaign and its lobbying efforts to support the treaty. As the facts came out and it became increasingly clear that none of their anti-treaty arguments held any water, Republicans increasingly relied on process complaints to oppose the treaty, rather than substance. In the end, few Senators, with the exception of Jim DeMint, really embraced the Heritage line. The pressure they exerted on Republican members was in the end outdone by the coalition of progressive groups that pressed to ratify the treaty.

FLASHBACK: Heritage Touted RomneyCare, Key Elements Of Health Reform Heritage Now Opposes

By Lee Fang

The Heritage Foundation, one of the leading conservative think tanks — which has historically provided many of the policy ideas for the Republican Party, Republican administrations, and Republicans in Congress — has aggressively attacked President Obama’s efforts to reform health care in America. In addition to providing academic voices in the media to knock reform, Heritage has churned out blog posts and reports denigrating reform legislation for various reasons. And in recent days, Heritage has scrambled to mobilize a repeal effort of health reform, calling the law “intolerable.”

But before Democrats took up the mantle of reforming health care on the national level, Heritage experts boosted former Gov. Mitt Romney’s (R-MA) health reform plan in the Bay State. In numerous pieces posted on the Heritage website before 2008, Heritage took a markedly different approach to health reform than it does now:

– Heritage On Romney’s Individual Mandate: “Not an unreasonable position, and one that is clearly consistent with conservative values.” [Heritage, 1/28/06]

– Heritage On President Obama’s Individual Mandate: “Both unprecedented and unconstitutional.” [Heritage, 12/9/09]

– Heritage On Romney’s Insurance Exchange: An “innovative mechanism to promote real consumer choice.” [Heritage, 4/20/06]

– Heritage On President Obama’s Insurance Exchange: Creates a “de facto public option” by “grow[ing]” government control over healthcare.” [Heritage, 3/30/10]

– Heritage On Romney’s Medicaid Expansion: Reduced “the total cost to taxpayers” by taking people out of the “uncompensated care pool.” [Heritage, 1/28/06]

– Heritage On President Obama’s Medicaid Expansion: Expands a “broken entitlement program,” providing a “low-quality, poorly functioning program.” [Heritage, 3/30/10]

In fact, in 2007, Heritage again boasted that Romney’s plan is “already showing progress.” That same year, Heritage proudly posted a video of Romney gloating that Heritage officials had supported him in creating “ultimate conservatism” with the Massachusetts health plan. Watch it:

Appealing to right-wing conservatives, Romney, like Heritage, is trying to distance himself from his own health reform ideas. He called the individual mandate unconstitutional, but conceded that the only real difference between his plan and President Obama’s is that his plan was crafted in a “bipartisan” manner with the Democratically controlled Massachusetts legislature.