Thread: Anti-illegal-imm measures, offi English pass with landslides

Published: 11.08.2006

Anti-illegal-immigration measures, official English pass with landslides
By Brady McCombs
ARIZONA DAILY STAR
Arizona voters resoundingly passed three anti-illegal-immigrant ballot measures Tuesday and established English as the state's official language.
The landslide victory — all four passed by about 3-to-1 ratios statewide — sends a message that the state won't tolerate illegal immigration, said proponent Don Goldwater.
"The people of Arizona have said, 'Enough,' and that they want this issue taken care of," said Goldwater, a gubernatorial candidate who lost in the Republican primary in September. "If the federal government won't stand up, then by God, the state of Arizona will."
Election night proved a sad outcome for immigrant advocates who carried out a grassroots campaign of rallies, fliers and news conferences to try to defeat the measures.
The results send a negative message to children that there are two classes of residents in Arizona, said Lorraine Lee, vice president of Chicanos por la Causa, a nonprofit community-development corporation.
"It makes me very fearful of what the future holds because I think that this may potentially send out a message that it's OK to continue to bash immigrants," Lee said.
The four measures passed in each of the 15 counties. Pima County, which was one of three counties to defeat the anti-illegal-immigration Proposition 200 in 2004, passed the measures by about a 2-to-1 ratio, results showed.
The overwhelming victory was no surprise to proponents, who were so confident that they spent no money on a formal campaign or advertisements.
"It's been pretty much a bipartisan issue. People want something done about illegal immigration," said Sen. Dean Martin, R-Phoenix, the sponsor of Prop. 300. "I'm not surprised to see this reaction at all," said Martin, who was elected state treasurer Tuesday.
Voter intimidation by anti-illegal-immigration activists at some South Side precincts affected the results, said Ramón Garcia of the Campaign for Community Change. It opposed the measures and worked to get Hispanics registered to vote.
"We understood that we probably weren't going to be able to beat all the propositions, but we anticipated our numbers would have been much closer," he said.
Assuming they survive court challenges, the measures will prevent illegal immigrants from taking adult-education classes, getting state-funded child-care assistance and paying in-state tuition at state colleges and universities, automatically keep those charged with serious felonies in jail without bail, and prevent them from receiving punitive damages in civil lawsuits.
Proposition 103 establishes English as the state's official language, 18 years after voters passed a similar proposition in 1988 that was later overruled by the Arizona and U.S. Supreme Courts.
http://www.azstarnet.com/sn/printDS/154986

Published: 11.08.2006

Gov. won't change approach to immigration issue
PHOENIX -- Gov. Janet Napolitano said she won't change the way she approaches the issue of illegal immigration despite voters effectively overriding two of her vetoes on the issue.

More than 70 percent of Arizonans who cast ballots decided that Arizona law should deny adult education classes and subsidized child care to those not in this country legally. The margin of victory on that is larger than Napolitano's win over Republican Len Munsil.

Proposition 300 also says students who are not citizens or legal U.S. residents have to pay the higher tuition charged by state universities and community colleges to out-of-state residents.

Napolitano had vetoed that measure, specifically calling the tuition provision unfair.

And by an even wider margin, voters also approved Proposition 103 to declare English the state's official language -- a measure also rejected by Napolitano.

Lawmakers put both measures on the ballot following her vetoes.

Voters also adopted two other measures that never made it to her desk: Denying bail to people accused of certain crimes if they are here illegally, and saying that illegal immigrants are ineligible to collect punitive damages in lawsuits.

Napolitano, however, said she does not consider any of the votes a rejection of her policies.

"They expressed their opinion," she said. "And I disagree."

Napolitano said voters "are going to disagree with me from time to time."

"At least they know where I stand," she continued. "I know where they stand. I will carry out their wishes."

But Napolitano, who has argued for only a limited role for the state in dealing with border crossers, said the votes will not change how she deals with the issue in the next four years.

"I'm going to continue to insist that we get fundamental immigration reform from the U.S. Congress, that we get Washington monies out here as opposed to Arizona taxpayer monies ... to keep the focus on the federal government," she said.

Napolitano vetoed several border related measures last session, saying some are an unfair burden on state resources while others do not go far enough. She has particularly pushed for sanctions against employers who knowingly hire undocumented workers, saying that is a key to drying up the flow of people across the border.

House Speaker Jim Weiers said Republicans intend to pursue border security measures. And he said the GOP also is willing to pursue employer sanctions if they can be enacted in a fair manner -- and if it can also gain the blessing of the business community.

That could prove difficult: The Arizona Chamber of Commerce and Industry fought against any type of state penalties for employers, saying this is a federal issue. Weiers defended seeking business input before enacting any new state law.

"You work with all parties," he said. "You get the input in finding out what does work."

The measure finally adopted by the Legislature last year not only required the state to prove that a company knowingly hired an undocumented worker but also gave the firm 10 days to dismiss the employee. Napolitano rejected that measure -- actually passed as part of a more comprehensive plan -- saying it amounted to amnesty for lawbreakers.

Weiers said federal law limits what states can do about employers who hire people not in this country legally.

http://www.azstarnet.com/sn/printDS/155077

Precinct 25 seen as Hispanics' bellwether
CLAUDINE LoMONACO
Tucson Citizen
Gabriel Cordoba is a good indicator of the Hispanic vote.
Which is to say, there is no one Hispanic vote.
He voted against Proposition 300, which would take adult education and English classes away from illegal immigrants, but for Proposition 103, which would make English Arizona's official language.
"We're in America," said Cordoba, 68, a retired mechanic who moved to Arizona in 1970. "Even though I don't speak much English, hearing more, we'll learn more."
Cordoba spoke outside the American Legion's Sahuaro Post 68, at 4724 S. 12th Ave., just after casting his ballot.
Precinct 25 is a bellwether district for the Hispanic community, said Alonzo Morado of the Washington, D.C.-based Democracia USA, which sought to increase Latino turnout this election. The precinct's voters are conservatives, liberals and moderates and match the larger Latino electorate, he said.
"That's the beauty of the Latino vote," Morado said. "You have people in the labor movement and in unions. People who are very close to the church. It's a cross section of everything."
Bruce Merrill, a pollster at Arizona State University, said there's a "tendency to see the Hispanic as a homogenous group, like African-Americans, who overwhelmingly vote Democratic and were molded that way during the civil rights movement."
In reality, Hispanics tend to be varied in their political leanings, with the starkest difference between those Hispanics who have been in the country for a while, who tend to vote more conservatively, and those that are more recent arrivals, who vote more liberally.
In a recent poll, Merrill found Hispanic support fairly evenly divided on the four propositions aimed at illegal immigrants, with slightly more people, around 55 percent, voting liberal, and 45 percent voting more conservatively.
Within the propositions, he found two-thirds of Hispanics opposed to Proposition 300, which would deny illegal immigrants access to adult education and in-state college tuition rates.
He found likely Hispanic voters about even on the other three propositions to make English the state's official language and deny illegal immigrants punitive damages and bail.
Rosela Arvizu, a 64-year-old retired middle school counselor who moved to the United States when she was 4, voted for the propositions to take away bail and punitive damages from illegal immigrants but against the initiative to make English the official language and Proposition 300.
"We have to make everything available to them so they can learn the language," she said.
Arvizu is a registered Democrat, but said she will register as an independent in the future, joining growing numbers of Arizonans abandoning their traditional political allegiance.
http://www.tucsoncitizen.com/daily/local/31892.php

What a big Bi@@@

These things passed with 3 to 1 margins and her response is.......

Voters will disagree with me from time to time?

Isn't she supposed to represent the wants of the voters?

Isn't that how it's supposed to work?

There should be a law that ejects elected officials who don't follow the voter's lead!!!!!!!!!!

Where do these Hispanics get off saying that there is two classes. Everyone else that immigrated to the United States from a non English speaking countries all learned our language and never complained about it.