Thread: CA: State GOP goes outside the U.S. to hire top aide

Heard about this on Lou Dobbs today.

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State GOP goes outside the U.S. to hire top aide
Carla Marinucci, Chronicle Political Writer

Thursday, June 14, 2007

The California Republican Party has decided no American is qualified to take one of its most crucial positions -- state deputy political director -- and has hired a Canadian for the job through a coveted H-1B visa, a program favored by Silicon Valley tech firms that is under fire for displacing skilled American workers.

Christopher Matthews, 35, a Canadian citizen, has worked for the state GOP as a campaign consultant since 2004. But he recently was hired as full-time deputy political director, with responsibility for handling campaign operations and information technology for the country's largest state Republican Party operation, California Republican Party Chairman Ron Nehring confirmed in a telephone interview this week.

In the nation's most populous state -- which has produced a roster of nationally known veteran political consultants -- "it's insulting but also embarrassing ... to bring people from the outside who don't know the difference between Lodi and Lancaster ... and who can't even vote," said Karen Hanretty, a political commentator and former state GOP party spokeswoman.

U.S. Department of Labor records show the state Republican Party applied for an H-1B visa to fill the job of "political consultant" and was granted a visa labor certification in March 2007. The three-year H-1B visa does not become valid until Oct. 1, 2007, government records show.

Party officials said Matthews has been working in the interim under a "TN" visa -- a renewable one-year special visa for Canadian and Mexican professional workers created under the North American Free Trade Agreement.

Matthews was hired by Michael Kamburowski, an Australian citizen who was hired this year as the state GOP's chief operations officer. But neither new official has experience in managing a political campaign in the nation's most populous state -- and as foreign citizens, neither is eligible to vote.

Kamburowski, a former real estate agent who sold property in the Dominican Republic, is a permanent U.S. resident in the process of obtaining American citizenship and does not require a specialized work visa, state GOP officials said.

With just months until the state's Feb. 5 primary and Republicans facing a roster of formidable challenges in California -- a key political fundraising state -- some party insiders are shaking their heads at the hirings.

"There are talented Republicans in California, and the message that (party chair) Ron Nehring is sending is that there's no talent pool here," Hanretty said.

The state party and its 58 county operations face several challenges, Hanretty said, including "redistricting on the ballot, uncertain legislative races ahead of us ... and a number of Republican congressmen who are under federal investigation and are going to be challenged by Democrats."

"Who will help these candidates?" she asked. "A couple of foreign transplants who don't know the political landscape and don't know the history of the complicated politics in California?"

Nehring defended his choices by saying Matthews and Kamburowski are highly qualified political professionals who will be an asset to the party -- and dramatize the GOP ideal of welcoming immigrants.

"Chris (Matthews) was inspired by the recall and by the governor to come to California in 2003 and volunteer for the Republican Party of San Diego," said Nehring, who chaired the San Diego party's organization from 2001 to 2007.

Nehring, a conservative Republican, became state chairman earlier this year, replacing Palo Alto attorney Duf Sundheim.

Nehring said he met Matthews while overseeing a campaign school in Calgary, Alberta, "and when the recall started, Chris said he wanted to come down and be part of it."

Matthews spent a month as a volunteer and in 2004 began work as a paid consultant to the San Diego County Republican Central Committee, party officials said.

As deputy political director, Matthews will be responsible for political campaigning and technology issues because "he has a successful track record of working with the party for the last three years," Nehring said. "He's developed an incredible body of knowledge in those areas. ... He's one of the strongest campaigners I've ever met."

Nehring said he has been inspired that Matthews "has wanted to move to America and become an American citizen ... and we embrace that."

"Our job at the California GOP is to build the most effective campaign organization. ... And the fact that we have two people on staff who want to become Americans ... is a great story that is at the heart of what the Republican Party is all about."

But the party nationally has fought efforts to increase immigration, calling during the recent debate in Congress for much tighter border security and resisting efforts to providing a path to citizenship for the estimated 12 million illegal immigrants now in the country.

The hiring of two immigrants at top Republican Party posts has handed ammunition to critics who note that many Republicans have spoken critically about the impacts of waves of Mexican immigrants.

"The hypocrisy is disgusting," said longtime Democratic Party activist Gloria Nieto, policy director at San Jose-based Services Immigration Rights and Education Network, or SIREN, an immigrant advocacy nonprofit organization.

Nieto argued that the party has painted Latinos "as the brown menace. ... But it's perfectly OK to hire people from outside the country? What does it say about the Republican Party that they import their hired guns?"

State campaign finance records show that Matthews earned almost $19,000 for work as a campaign consultant in 2005 with the San Diego GOP but has earned little in other years.

While the hiring of Matthews under the H-1B visa for "specialized workers" is legal, it appears to skirt the intention of the program -- which calls for most employers to make a good-faith effort to hire Americans first, according to U.S. Department of Labor regulations.

The H-1B program -- currently limited to 65,000 workers -- is aimed at providing workers for jobs that presumably cannot be filled by American workers, and prospective employers must publicly advertise or post notice of their intentions to hire under such visas, labor guidelines state.

A bill proposed by Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., would require that all employers seeking such visas be required to pledge they have made such an effort and that the visa holder does not displace an American worker.

The H-1B program's greatest advocates are Silicon Valley technology firms, which have pushed for more visas so they can hire computer specialists from overseas.

Jon Fleischman, Southern California GOP vice chair, said he was not aware of the hiring of Matthews -- but added that hirings are routinely made without consulting party officers. He said he doesn't consider it a problem to hire foreigners if they are the most qualified job applicants.

Nehring and one of his new hires also are connected to one of the nation's most conservative activist groups, Grover Norquist's Americans for Tax Reform.

Kamburowski was chair of the group's Reagan Legacy project, an effort to name landmarks in all 50 states after the deceased president.

Nehring was a senior consultant to Americans for Tax Reform and has listed Norquist as a client of his own consulting group. State GOP officials insist Matthews has never had any connection -- professional or volunteer -- with Norquist or his organization.

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f ... QF4U11.DTL

Is it any wonder that California is now a Democrat State?

With idiots like that...the Republicans will never win the State back.

I thank God I left before it went down the tubes!

Unbelievably shocking!!! Another job Americans won't do!!!

Maybe we can insource someone from Canada to replace the Terminator!

Welcome to the Twilight Zone!!!

I am disgusted!

I didn't know there were any Republicans left in Mexifornia. All I see and hear are latino democrats.

Could these people be any more out of touch?

WHY do they think they are LOSING???

OMG, I am really frightened that these people are our leaders.
I bet you could take a handful of common Americans and they would do a better job then these elitists!

More then ever, I can see how our party has fallen apart.
I can not wait until after the presidential elections to dump these losers.

As proud as I used to be to be a Republican, that is how embarrassed I am by it now.
The only course I can see now is to be independant so that NO ONE can assume they will get my vote.

UPDATE

Latest news from sfgate.com has the guys boss and buddy Michael Kamburowski as someone who also is an "legal alien" as someone who previously was ordered deported in 2001 for "visa" violations.

Now the guy is suing the DHS for 5 million...

The Republican Party in California is just simply an absolute joke. Even the left-wing radical Bernie Ward on KGO has been know to say it.

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Link:

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.c ... QKUID1.DTL

A note promoting common courtesy and efficient bandwidth and disk use for Alipac:

(I didn't create a dupe...merely updated and old thread...)

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It gets better.
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Two Top California Republicans Are Aliens
BY JOSH GERSTEIN - Staff Reporter of the Sun
June 25, 2007

SAN FRANCISCO — The California Republican Party is coming under criticism for its decision to hire political operatives who are not American citizens for two top jobs.

In March, the state party hired an Australian, Michael Kamburowski, to be its chief operating officer. He now lives in America on a so-called green card, but he was ordered deported in 2001. That order was eventually lifted, though he is now suing the Department of Homeland Security for $41 million over an episode in 2004 where he was jailed for 30 days by immigration authorities, according to court records.

Recently, the party gave the position of research and political technology director to a Canadian, Christopher Matthews. Mr. Matthews is presently in America on a special work visa for Mexican and Canadian nationals, but California GOP officials applied for and received a coveted "H1B" visa for him, a party spokesman said. The H1B program is the subject of intense lobbying by the technology industry, which has urged Congress to increase the annual allotment of 65,000 visas for skilled workers.

Last night, one of the men abruptly resigned. "The California Republican Party Operations Committee held a teleconference tonight with Mike Kamburowski where he offered his resignation, which has been accepted," the state party chairman, Ronald Nehring, said in a terse statement e-mailed to The New York Sun. "We thank him for his service."

Reports in the San Francisco Chronicle about the unusual hires prompted puzzled, angry, and obscene reactions from Republicans, along with some ridicule from Democrats.

"Are you kidding me? … Is our COO suing America?" a party vice chairman from Southern California, Jon Fleischman, asked on his blog yesterday.

The flap comes as the Republican Party is riven by a fractious debate over immigration legislation championed by President Bush.

The international hiring has also led to the mocking of California Republicans on national television. "The Republican Party here in California has obtained a special visa to hire a Canadian to be the state deputy political director, because they say they can't find a qualified American to do the job," Jay Leno joked on NBC's "Tonight Show" last week. "Apparently, working for Republicans is one of those icky jobs Americans just don't want to do."

A former spokeswoman for the California GOP, Karen Hanretty, called the hiring decisions unfathomable. "It's insulting but also embarrassing ... to bring people from the outside who don't know the difference between Lodi and Lancaster ... and who can't even vote," she told the Chronicle.

"The Republican grass roots are up in arms about it," a strategist for the California Democratic Party, Robert Mulholland, said. "At the very time they're arguing at the national level against Bush's immigration proposal, they've got their own story about bringing in foreigners."

Mr. Kamburowski worked in the 1990s on projects for an anti-tax group, American for Tax Reform, which is run by a prominent conservative activist, Grover Norquist. Mr. Nehring also has close ties to Mr. Norquist. Mr. Kamburowski's last job was working for a real estate broker in the Dominican Republic, the Chronicle reported.

Mr. Nehring initially defended the hires as part of an open-door approach by the party.

Mr. Matthews was chosen because of his political work in Canada, Britain, and San Diego County, a party spokesman, Hector Barajas, said. While it is believed that employers looking to hire under the H1B visa program must show that no qualified American is willing to take the job, one critic of the program called that "an urban legend."

"There is no requirement to demonstrate that there's not qualified Americans" in many cases, a computer programmer from Sacramento, Kim Berry, said. He said firms that get 15% of their work force from H1B visa holders are supposed to show that they advertised the jobs, but most do not have to file any proof of a labor shortage.

"I don't think this should be happening," Mr. Berry said. He said he has no objection to admitting people with exceptional or unusual skills, but that many people being admitted under the H1B program were doing "very mundane" work.

In an e-mail to Republican leaders a few days ago, Mr. Kamburowski said the flap was unwarranted. "When we promote individuals who have displayed great skills but who just happen to hail from another country, we are pegged as hypocrites," he complained. "No one ever raised eyebrows when James Carville and other Democrat operatives traveled to Israel, the U.K., and elsewhere to lend their political skills to foreign political campaigns."

http://www.nysun.com/article/57203

It gets better still.

Nehring, reached by telephone during a business trip to Africa last week -- before the news surfaced of Kamburowski's fight with immigration authorities -- defended his decision to hire two immigrants with no California campaign experience for top posts in the run-up to the 2008 elections.

The decisions to hire Matthews and Kamburowski represent the welcoming values of the Republican Party, the California Republican chairman said.

"Our job at the California GOP is to build the most effective campaign organization,'' Nehring said. "And the fact that we have two people on staff who want to become Americans ... is a great story that is at the heart of what the Republican Party is all about."

But Kamburowski's former boss in the Dominican Republic resort town of Punta Cana -- where Kamburowski worked until February -- expressed astonishment that the Australian was hired for such an important financial job in a major political party.

"I wouldn't give him my company to run, I can tell you that,'' said Rico Pester, the owner of Re/Max Island Realty in the fashionable Caribbean beach region.

Pester said Kamburowski arrived in Punta Cana in the summer of 2006 and "was so successful that he couldn't sell anything the whole time he was here -- and we provided him with clients. He didn't rent anything and he didn't sell anything. ... I have no idea what he was doing.''

Then, in February, Kamburowski "ran away without mentioning anything to us,'' he said.

"I couldn't understand how somebody like him could become a (Republican Party) COO,'' Pester said in a telephone interview.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.c ... QKUID1.DTL

I'm guessing that California Republican Party Chairman Ron Nehring had a crush on the guy.