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Border Skirmish
A Latina Democrat and a Republican leader grope for right line on border and immigration issues

~ By JOHN SEELEY ~



Can this Latina Democrat split the GOP over immigration?

Can the wealthy white voters of Los Angeles County’s second-reddest and most-conservative district – disenchanted though they are with their current congressman – learn to love a Latina lesbian who opposes the Iraq war, the Patriot Act, and most of the Bush agenda?

The voters of the 26th District, which follows the foothills from the chateaux of La Cañada-Flintridge through Glendora, San Dimas, Claremont, and into San Bernardino County, flirted with Democrat Cynthia Rodriguez Matthews two years ago, coming within six percent of sending her to Washington in lieu of their longtime beau David Dreier, a Republican power player who chairs the House Rules Committee.

But that flirtation was largely about a common interest in curtailing illegal immigration. It was warmly encouraged by KFI’s right-wing radio shoutfest, The John and Ken Show. The L.A. duo, godfathers of the Gray Davis recall, held several “Fire Dreier” rallies outside his Glendora field office, had Matthews on regularly to discuss her immigration stance, and dissected the congressman’s statements to other media outlets. The John and Ken hi-jinks, no joke to Dreier, led to the filing of a Federal Election Commission complaint by the Republican National Committee against KFI and its owner, Clear Channel Communications, alleging that the hosts were making an illegal contribution to Matthews’s campaign.

In the current campaign, Dreier has spun himself to the right and won’t present a hot talk-radio target. Observers wonder whether Matthews can still make inroads in the 26th, ordinarily considered a hopeless district for a Democrat. The San Gabriel foothills have long been a stronghold for rigidly Republican officeholders. From 1970 to 1982, its congressman was John Rousselot, an officer of the John Birch Society, which thought President Eisenhower a communist puppet and predicted the U.S. would be occupied by African troops under a United Nations flag.

Dreier’s conservative credentials seemed to be in order. He got 84- and 88-percent ratings from the American Conservative Union, 85 percent from Concerned Women for America, and big goose eggs from liberal watchdogs Americans for Democratic Action. Moreover, Dreier was a rising star in the House Republican hierarchy, part of Speaker Dennis Hastert’s inner circle, and the youngest Rules Committee chair in memory.

But there has been a chink in Dreier’s conservative armor: immigration, where the schism between GOP corporate funders and its culturally insecure and sometimes xenophobic foot soldiers is widening into a war. Dreier’s tilt away from a strict anti-illegal-immigration stance didn’t please the faithful – the Federation for Immigration Reform, which wants immigration capped at near 300,000 a year, gave him a zero score in 2003 and U.S. Border Control rated him at 10 percent.

Two years ago, that split in Republican ranks offered the perfect opening for Matthews. If one had some uneasy feelings that being anti-immigration might be seen as prejudice, here was evidence that it was legitimate within the Latino community. Better than that, one could be triply broad-minded by voting for a Hispanic, a woman, and a gay candidate with a single punch on the ballot.

Retooling for the rematch, however, Matthews has soft-pedaled immigration while Dreier is bringing the topic to the ? fore. A resolution to the Iraq war tops Matthews’s agenda now, and is a prerequisite for dealing with other spending needs.

Once those wasted dollars are freed up, she says, she has a priority list of things to be fixed: Health care for all through a single-payer plan, and affordable drug coverage for seniors are on the bill. So is affordable education from kindergarten to college, reversing all the recent cuts in grants and loans. The “No Child Left Behind” Act, she says, needs major changes, and the parts that aren’t junked need funding. Matthews sees new jobs created in the environmental field, where she would underwrite cleaning up America’s water, reforestation, and expansion of federal protected land. She would also invest in alternative energy research – hydrogen, solar, tidal, and wind. A member of the Operating Engineers union who segued from heavy-equipment operator to monitoring cleanup of contaminated sites, Matthews took a degree in environmental management.

Border and trade issues, meanwhile, migrated across party lines into the Republican primary, where La Cañada-Flintridge businessman Sonny Sardo, running for the second time, knocked Dreier around over his positions on those issues. Sardo blasted Dreier’s backing for President Bush’s temporary worker status for the undocumented, maintaining, according to the FreeRepublic.com website, that Dreier “doesn’t seem in favor of enforcing our borders.” Like Matthews, Sardo also hammered Dreier over NAFTA and similar trade treaties, which he blames for job losses and a dwindling manufacturing base that’s “dangerous for our country.”

Sardo’s campaign, backed by the grassroots conservative California Republican Assembly, raised only $60,000, mostly in small contributions. But that was enough to take almost 30 percent of the vote, leaving Dreier with less than two-thirds of the GOP base in a three-way race.

Consequently, the post-primary Dreier, after thanking supporters for his “wonderful win” of 65 percent, hastened to list “securing our borders and ending illegal immigration” as topmost among his priorities (which also feature the war on terror, lower gas prices, and improved transportation and education). In touting his record on Capitol Hill, the Dreier website enumerates nine anti-immigrant accomplishments, although in fact four of them are different sections of the same bill (HR 98), which addressed counterfeit Social Security cards, a national database for work eligibility, toughened penalties for hiring illegal immigrants, plus funding for additional Border Patrol agents. Dreier also boasts of writing or sponsoring other bills to speed deportation of dangerous criminal aliens, to make killing a police officer and fleeing the country a federal crime, to increase reimbursements to localities for the cost of jailing illegal immigrants, and to complete the San Diego-Mexico border fence.

In contrast, Matthews’ website, until late July, had no immigration subjects in its issues section. But given the opportunity, Matthews expounds at length a four-point policy which (though it includes augmenting border personnel and interdiction technology) emphasizes the roots of migrant supply and demand. On the supply side, she stresses revising or eliminating our current trade agreements with the sending countries like Mexico and El Salvador, which, she says, have brought depression and environmental degradation.

On the “demand” side, she stresses employer sanctions, pointing out that the exploitation of immigrant labor undermines wages for all workers and ultimately hurts American businesses dependent on their spending. Lastly, Matthews opposes “amnesty” for illegal immigrants, citing both economic grounds and fairness to the law-abiding applicants. She would instead prioritize “eliminating the bottleneck” for millions who have legally applied for permanent status.

It’s a policy more complex than most politicians’ sound bites, but its anti-corporate focus doesn’t offer much red meat to lure angry Republicans across party lines. Dreier’s rightward shift poses an almost insoluble dilemma for the Matthews campaign. As the softer-edged candidate on the issue, she can’t raid Republican ranks.

And any stress on the tough aspects of her policy risks alienating anxious Latinos and liberals in her base. A few years ago, Matthews says, Rep. Hilda Solis, who represents the neighboring district to the south, called her a racist for refusing to back efforts to give children of illegal immigrants the same state college tuition rates as other Californians. While Matthews has the endorsement of local assemblywoman Nell Soto, Solis will only say (when pressed) that she’s “supporting all Democratic candidates.”

Whether they are uneasy about Matthews’ stands or just reading the voter registration numbers, party powers have not moved to put any muscle into the race. Matthews’s fund base is stagnant at about $30,000, no better than in 2004 – not a good place to be when opponent Dreier, whose committee clout gets him attention in corporate circles, has already raised $3,000,000.


Additional reporting by Mark Cromer.