As Republicans Block Aponte, All Eyes on Rubio

This week the Senate blocked the confirmation of Mari Carmen Aponte, President Obama’s nominee for ambassador to El Salvador. The supposed controversy around Aponte’s confirmation revolves around unfounded rumors that a once boyfriend was a Cuban spy.

Senate Republicans, never ones to let facts get in the way of a good story, buried that which was most relevant — that the FBI has cleared her of any wrong-doing, and that on two occasions Aponte has received top-secret security clearances. Instead, they did what they do best: stirred up fear and muddied the waters by calling into question a State Department sanctioned essay Aponte penned regarding LGBT rights.

The irony is that Aponte has already served as ambassador since September of last year, when President Obama used a recess appointment to overcome Republicans’ objections. In that time, she has made great strides, finalizing an international anti-crime agreement and finessing the relationship between the two nations.  She is, in other words, a known quantity.

It’s clear that Republicans’ reservations aren’t really about Aponte; they’re about not giving Barack Obama what he wants. At her March 2010 Senate hearing, Senators Jim DeMint (R-SC) and Jim Risch (R-ID) probed Aponte on her relationship. When the conversation finally turned to the substance of her future work, specifically the question of how to tackle gang violence, DeMint and Risch walked out.  They’d embarrassed her and they were done.  They didn’t actually care what kind of ambassador she’d be.

A year and a half later, as C-SPAN broadcast the vote, no one expected the DeMints and Rischs of the Senate to vote to confirm Aponte.  Instead, all eyes trained on the junior senator from the sunshine state as he voted nay.  In November, Rubio signaled his opposition to several Western hemisphere nominations, as a response to disagreements with the Obama administration over policy toward Latin America.  Yet even Democrats had held out hope that Rubio would be who we wish he was: a Conservative ally who will on occasion buck his own party in order to do what it is right.

This is not the first time Rubio has refused to support one of our community’s own.  In August of 2009, Rubio penned a carefully crafted op-ed explaining that his opposition to Sonia Sotomayor’s nomination to the Supreme Court was in response to “her case history and testimony regarding the Second Amendment at the state level, eminent domain takings and the so-called constitutional right to privacy that resulted in the Roe v. Wade decision.”  He lauded her personal story and wrote, “Many are now attempting to brand Republicans as anti-Hispanic. It should be clear, however, that our opposition to her judicial philosophy is in no way a wholesale opposition to Hispanics.”

Even if we take Rubio at his word, and accept that Republicans aren’t anti-Hispanic, he still has little to show us that proves that they are our advocates. If Republicans are to fashion Marco Rubio as a champion of the Latino community, in spite of his hard line on immigration reform and his English-only policies, then he will need to actually find someone or something in our communities to champion.

Follow Alicia on Twitter: @AliciaMenendez

More on Politic365

• GOP Donors Wary Of RNC Chairman Steele Flood New PAC's With Cash
• Can the Web Increase Black and Latino Political Participation?
• The Politics of Ozzie's Verbal Earthquake