Thread: Election Report Card: Which CA Candidates Are Best for Latin

Editors' Note: One in three Californians is Latino but among California’s voters, only one in five is Latino. Why isn’t the Latino political voice as strong as our numbers? The simple answer is that large numbers of Latinos are either too young to vote or cannot vote because of citizenship status. Since so many Latinos cannot vote, those who are eligible have a great responsibility to represent the entire Latino community and vote for politicians and policies that are responsive to Latino needs.

It’s not easy to keep up with information about candidates and issues on the November 2 ballot. With this challenge in mind, students in the Raza Politics course in the Department of Raza Studies at San Francisco State University researched the frontrunner candidates in five statewide races. Below is a summary of each candidate and an evaluation of how responsive she or he has been to Latino political interests. Each candidate was graded on the issues important to Latinos and then given an overall grade that takes into consideration their performance and responsiveness to Latinos and to the Latino community.
Governor
Jerry Brown received an overall grade of a B because his support of the Latino community has been apparent throughout his career.

Brown received a B- on immigration because he supports immigration reform and a pathway to citizenship as well as the Dream Act.

Brown’s policies towards education earn him a B+ because he has increased Cal-Grant awards by 50 percent, which benefits our low-income Latino communities. Brown plans to work with the State Board of Education to provide support to English learners and provide after school and summer programs to increase English learning. Brown supports in-state tuition for qualified high school students regardless of their residency status.

Meg Whitman received the very low overall grade of D- because on the whole, her policy preferences would be damaging to Latinos.

Whitman received an F in the area of immigrant rights because she opposes social services that would benefit Latino communities. Whitman is against any pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants and she plans to militarize the border. She openly opposes the DREAM ACT, which would allow US high school graduates who are undocumented to become legal residents after spending two years in college or the military. She also wants to eliminate sanctuary cities (such as San Francisco) from protecting undocumented immigrants from federal immigration laws and does not want to issue driver’s licenses to undocumented immigrants.

We decided to give Whitman a D for employment concerning Latinos because she supports an established system that allows employers to verify the immigration status of workers (e-verification system). Whitman also supports conducting workplace inspections modeled after drug seizure raids of businesses suspected of hiring undocumented immigrants.

For education Whitman receives a D- because she supports Proposition 227, which banned bilingual education in CA. Whitman also promises to ban undocumented students from colleges and universities and not allow further admission to any state-funded institution

LT. GOVERNOR'S RACE
Abel Maldonado received an overall grade of D for discouraging the opportunities of immigrants, Latina/o youth and children throughout his past six years as a California senator.

He supported Proposition 187, a 1994 ballot initiative that prohibits illegal immigrants from using health care, public education, and other social services in California.

He also voted in favor of three ballot initiatives against illegal immigration, affirmative action and bilingual education. He voted against propositions that support struggling youth (Safe Place to Learn Act, Student Civil Rights Act, Youth Bill of Rights for Incarcerated Youth, Protection for Teen Age Pregnancy Programs, and many that concern LGBTQ youth).

Moreover, he supported the Education Law Amendment to expand the gap between wealthy schools/parents and the poor. He is partly responsible for the $8.6 billion budget cut to public education last year.

Gavin Newsom receives an overall grade of B because while he is responsive to Latinos, his long-term political plans seem to be contradictory with his short-term policies.

Recently, he launched Kindergarten to College (K2C), the first universal children’s saving account program in the nation, designed to send all children to college. He also supports an Anti-Truancy Program, which offers local supports for youth to stay in schools. He enthusiastically supports ending furloughs and cuts for faculty and workers in public education, as well as providing health care for K-12 students.

He advocates for illegal immigrants and promises safe access to city services such as medical care and criminal reports regardless of residential status. Despite this record of Latino responsiveness, Newsom’s perspective is not perfect since the Sit and Lie Ordinance marginalizes underprivileged groups, including Latina/os and immigrants.

U.S. SENATE RACE
Barbara BoxerBoxer earned an A in education policy for consistently signing legislation to support public schools, minorities in higher education, and provide tax relief to lower-income families for college. Boxer believes that all Americans should be covered for health insurance and that healthcare should be affordable for all. She calls for more oversight and helped to draft the Patient’s Bill of Rights.

For her extensive health care policies and legislation, which largely help minority groups and Latinos, we gave her an A. One of her more striking attributes, Boxer has long recognized the impact and importance of immigration on our culture and economy. She supports a pathway to full citizenship for those already here and she believes in comprehensive immigration reform and the Dream Act, which provides citizenship for children of immigrants either through higher education or military service.

For her support of immigration reform we gave her a B+. Almost in complete contrast to her opponents on environmental policy, Boxer has developed clean-energy jobs, passed successful carbon reduction legislation, believes that polluters should pay for their cleanup, not the taxpayers, and strongly opposes drilling off the California coast. She receives her best grade here with an A+. Barbara Boxer’s concerns are tied into the Latino community and overall Latino wellbeingBoxer’s overall grade for this election was an A-.

Carly Fiorina’s overall grade for this election was a D.

On immigration Fiorina’s platform is to secure the borders and stop the influx of “illegalsâ€

So to get a good grade you have to support an invasion of latinos and throw American sovereignty out the door

I"m sick to death of these ethnic driven morons

Maybe we should ............................

Traitors, all of them who support this.

I thank them for this score card. It answered questions I had on a few of the candidates. I of course do not have to tell anyone here how I am going to vote it is obvious. To me a D or F grade equals a vote.