Anti-gun activists are howling against Gov. David Patterson’s nomination of Rep. Kirsten Gillibrand to succeed Hillary Clinton as the junior senator from New York.

But the Second Amendment isn’t the only issue likely to cause trouble for Gillibrand, judging from a statement released Friday by the New York Immigration Coalition.

“Now that she will be representing a far broader and more diverse constituency, Senator-Designee Gillibrand must reconsider her positions on immigration,” Chung-Wha Hong, the NYIC’s executive director, said in the statement.

As a U.S. representative, Hong said, Gillibrand has taken positions on immigration “that are deeply troubling, to say the least.”

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*Note: This post includes an update after the march, at the end.

Today is a day for celebration across the land. Tomorrow the real task of governing begins for some, and for others the work of lobbying and pushing for reform starts. Before the dust of the inauguration has time to settle a group of pro-immigrant organizations will hold a march in Washington D.C. for “just and humane” immigration reform. (See more below.)

Latino civil leaders and lobbying organizations intend to keep the issue in the front burner despite a new nationwide poll showing the economy, not immigration, is Latinos’ top concern.

Latino leaders reminded the incoming administration just that Monday during the Latino State of the Union gathering, organized by the National Council of La Raza, the Mexican American Legal Defense Fund and the League of United Latin American Citizens.

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By Diego Graglia, FI2W web editor

As the much-anticipated presidential inauguration of Barack Obama approaches, one group of immigrant activists in particular is feverishly pushing for their cause to be heard by the incoming president. They are young undocumented immigrant students who grew up in the U.S. and their supporters, who are hoping that the new administration will push for passage of the DREAM Act, a law that would allow the students to become U.S. citizens provided they meet certain conditions.

Their cause got an extra bit of support through an online contest organized by Change.org, a social action network (not to be confused with the president-elect’s website Change.gov.)

For the last few weeks, the site hosted an online vote to select “the best ten ideas for change,” which will be announced today at an event at the National Press Club.

The contest was born as a response to Obama’s call to Americans to get involved in their government. “We started the Ideas for Change in America initiative in the hope that we could translate the energy behind the Obama election into a citizen-led movement for change around the major issues we face,” the organizers said.

Thousands of ideas were submitted and over 600,000 votes were cast. Activists for causes as varied as marijuana legalization, gay marriage, and green energy mobilized to make their voices heard and to gather votes for their ideas. As of 5pm EST Thursday, when the vote closed, passage of the DREAM Act stood in eighth place, making it one of the ten winners. (Marijuana legalization was first.)

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By Diego Graglia, FI2W web editor

Latino political leaders have been touting the potential power of Latino voters for years. Though we knew that demographics would end up proving them right sooner or later, their discourse was starting to sound like they had hired The Boy Who Cried Wolf as a spokesman.

Then, 2008 happened.

The November presidential election became the quinceañera party where the Latino vote was introduced in the grand ballroom of American politics as a powerful voting bloc which can have an important role in deciding a nationwide election. (As we’ve already said before, there are many, extremely varied “Latino votes,” but we use the term here to simplify — though not oversimplify — matters.)

Both exit polls and post-Election Day surveys showed that Latino advocates’ turnout predictions had been fulfilled: over 10 million Latinos voted, as compared with 7.6 million in the 2004 presidential election and over 6 million in 2000. An America’s Voice poll [get the pdf here] claims Latinos were 9 percent of the electorate, “approximately 11 million voters.”

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By Diego Graglia, FI2W web editor

On the heels of a much-criticized decision by the Bush Administration to change the H-2A guest worker program, it looks like one of the public officials who spoke against the change is headed to be the new secretary of labor.

California Rep. Hilda Solís, the 51-year-old daughter of a Mexican father and a Nicaraguan mother, was signaled yesterday as President-elect Barack Obama’s choice for the labor position.

The Associated Press reported that Obama plans to make the designation official today,

Unions, which contributed heavily to Obama and Democrats this year, expect Solis to be an advocate for them and for workers. They expect her to press for legislation that would force businesses to recognize union representation once more than 50 percent of a company’s eligible work force signs union cards, instead of waiting for secret-ballot elections.

Solís becomes the third high-profile Latino official to join the Obama Administration, after the designations of New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson as secretary of commerce and Colorado Sen. Ken Salazar as interior secretary.

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By Diego Graglia, FI2W web editor

In this year of political firsts, Malcolm Smith has secured his chance to become the first-ever African American politician to preside over the New York State Senate (he’s also the first Democrat in four decades).

But for this Smith had to earn the support of two Latino senators from The Bronx who seem to have strong-armed fellow Democrats into granting one of them, Pedro Espada Jr., the position of majority leader, before they would support Smith. (This is an unprecedented split, since tradition holds that the Senate president also serves as majority leader.)

“Latino Punch”: Espada on El Diario/La Prensa

The New York Times, which reported on the new power distribution, said the deal makes Espada, who has just returned to the State Senate, “arguably the most influential Hispanic elected official in New York.”

“It’s a moment of great pride for our community,” Espada told El Diario/La Prensa newspaper. “It’s the first time in this state that we celebrate a power sharing agreement. Smith will occupy the first position and I, the second, in legislative and state affairs.”

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Bill Richardson may not have been appointed secretary of state, but his remarks in Spanish after a brief and ceremonial thank you in English left no doubt that he had in mind a bigger role for himself in the Obama Administration: that of “Latino in Chief.”

“To our Latino community, thank you for your votes. Like he (President-elect Barack Obama) told us, ‘Yes, we can’, and our vote has been our voice,” he said in his very Mexican Spanish. “To the millions of people in Latin America and the Caribbean, we have to strengthen the ties that bind us and remember the importance of a united continent.”

[Watch Richardson’s remarks here:]

Those are lofty words for somebody who is supposedly only going to deal with issues of commerce, and not diplomatic relations. But his comments made some believe that he sees himself as a link between Obama — who is said to have limited relations with Latino leaders outside of Illinois — and Latinos everywhere. (more…)