Thread: CA: Whitman will face challenge on immigration issue in Cali

Whitman will face challenge on immigration issue in California general election

By Sandhya Somashekhar

BAKERSFIELD, Calif. - Now that Meg Whitman has won Tuesday's Republican primary for California governor, the former eBay chief will have to figure out how to navigate an issue that was foisted on her in her effort to secure the nomination: illegal immigration.

Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner, her Republican opponent, was making headway among conservative voters by casting her as too liberal on the issue. She regained support by fighting back, saying that she opposes amnesty and will be "tough as nails" on those without papers.

It is a dicey issue in California, which has fought this battle before. In 1994, voters approved a controversial referendum that would have denied services to illegal immigrants. The measure was thrown out by the courts. Those old battle lines still exist, and Whitman will have to soften her rhetoric to avoid provoking the wrath of groups that vociferously opposed the 1994 proposition.

But she will also have to face those voters who took her at her word that she would take a hard line similar to that of Arizona's governor.

"It's time that politicians accepted the facts instead of trying to be liked by everyone," said Lorraine Kirsch, 61, a retired sales representative from Bakersfield. Migrant labor is a mainstay in this agricultural community and the industry has attracted legal and illegal workers. "I like to see them working. However, I don't like to see them milking the system."

The sentiment was equally strong three hours south in Newport Beach, an upscale community without a strong immigrant presence. "We're drowning under the weight of it right now," said Virginia Wilcox, 55, a retired teacher and nurse. "It's real nice around here but if you go over to Costa Mesa or Santa Ana, you think you're in T.J.," she added, referring to Tijuana.

Whitman will also be under pressure from immigrant advocacy groups, and some say they are reserving judgment on Whitman because she did not come across as stridently on the issue as Poizner. "With Poizner we knew he was a lost cause," said Jorge-Mario Cabrera, spokesman for the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles. "Whitman is trying to sound like a tough Republican but she's gone back and forth so you can't really believe her."

June 8, 2010; 11:50 PM ET

http://voices.washingtonpost.com

Brown supports AMNESTY.

Whitman supports A PATH TO CITIZENSHIP.

RELATED

A PATH TO CITIZENSHIP IS AMNESTY

http://www.alipac.us/ftopict-197367.html

California needs to pass the AZ immigration law, either through their legislature or by referendum, and I believe Meg Whitman will sign it into law and enforce the heck out of it. If she doesn't, throw her out in 4 years on her arse.

Calif. gov hopeful Whitman opposes new Arizona law -

San Jose ...Apr 27, 2010 ... SACRAMENTO, Calif.—Meg Whitman, the Republican front-runner in the California gubernatorial primary, said Tuesday that Arizona is taking the ...

www.mercurynews.com/breaking-news/ci_14968509

Originally Posted by JohnDoe2

Calif. gov hopeful Whitman opposes new Arizona law -

San Jose ...Apr 27, 2010 ... SACRAMENTO, Calif.—Meg Whitman, the Republican front-runner in the California gubernatorial primary, said Tuesday that Arizona is taking the ...

www.mercurynews.com/breaking-news/ci_14968509

Yeah, but that was April 27, when the bill was signed and from Whitman's comments, she hadn't read the bill before making her comments:

"I think there's just better ways to solve this problem," Whitman said in a telephone interview with The Associated Press. "I'm a big believer in, 'What are the two or three things that will make the biggest difference here?'"

She wants the state and federal governments to spend more money on border security and favors sanctions against employers who hire illegal workers. Employers would face increasing fines and suspensions, leading to the permanent suspension of their California business license after a third violation.

Whitman also wants to ban the admission of undocumented students to state-funded colleges.

See, 8 pages of the 15 pages of the AZ immigration law does exactly what Whitman says she wants to do which sanctions employers who hire illegal workers. And if she wants us to believe that she's going to tell police officers not to ask for the immigration status of immigrants, then she's not going to be cracking down on anyone for anything. Before you can state sanction employers for hiring illegal aliens, the first thing you have to do is verify that their employees are illegal aliens which means doing exactly what the AZ bill does with regards to verifying immigration status when there is a reasonable suspicion that you're in the country illegally.

She was on the campaign trail, she gave a response that was not well thought out about a bill she hadn't read. When the General Assembly passes the bill, and it will, then she will read it and when she does she'll sign it into law and enforce it to the letter.

I don't know why politicians want to comment on important landmark legislation without reading it. I was hoping Steve Poizner would win the Republican primary in California, but we have Meg now and she will be better than Brown, although I must say I've always like Jerry Brown, he's just not want California needs in the Governor's Office at this time.

It is a dicey issue in California, which has fought this battle before. In 1994, voters approved a controversial referendum that would have denied services to illegal immigrants. The measure was thrown out by the courts.

where in our Constitution or The Bill of Rights,does it say immigrants have more rights then the citizens of this country? Our Constitution IS NOT FOR THE WORLD because it is better then their own

I am so tired of trying to get the immigration laws enforced in this country and ONLY to get STOPPED by "the Hispanics don't like this"! So CRY ME A RIVER and go back to Mexico or whereever you are from and take the bleeding hearts with you.

Personally Im so pissed at how the primaries went here that I feel ill today. When the hell are people going to wake up and do thier homework on these candidates!!?? Not ONE of the politicians who I voted for won. I spent hours looking each one up and reading as much as I could find on them----right down to city council.

Meg and Carly won because they bought the nomination. Meg is a flip flopper and Carly sees nothing wrong with outsourcing. This state is screwed up because of the idiot voters who live here.

If Jerry Brown gets elected - Im gonna cry.

Whitman supports A PATH TO CITIZENSHIP.

RELATED

A PATH TO CITIZENSHIP IS AMNESTY

http://www.alipac.us/ftopict-197367.html

Whitman on the right, Brown on the left, voters in the middle

LOS ANGELES TIMES | MICHAEL ROTHFELD | Wed, Jun 9, 5:08 AM

Jun. 9--REPORTING FROM SACRAMENTO -- -- He is a Democrat and former governor backed by the public employee unions that won the right to organize on his watch. He rails against Wall Street greed and preaches the virtues of alternative energy.

She is a former corporate executive and billionaire Republican who forged ties with investment bankers and seldom voted until she decided to run for the state's highest office, vowing to slash spending by shedding tens of thousands of workers from government.

On the core issue facing California -- finances -- the two agree in principle that the state must rein in spending. But that is where the similarities are likely to end.

As they prepare to do battle over who will become the next governor, Atty. Gen. Jerry Brown and former EBay Chief Executive Meg Whitman bring with them contrasting backgrounds and starkly different approaches to the state's most pressing problems.

Whitman, who dispatched Republican rival Steve Poizner in Tuesday's primary, would undoubtedly be a strong ally in the Capitol for influential business leaders, who are pushing her candidacy. Brown, in his current post and throughout his past, has advanced a populist message.

In the state's moderate middle, where the election will be won, the result may depend on who is perceived as most able to restore the lifestyle and promise that made California great: whether Brown is seen as a progressive visionary or a status quo politician kowtowing to tax-consuming liberal interests, and whether Whitman is seen as a no-nonsense manager who can impose discipline on a government out of control or a lackey of business at the expense of the average citizen.

Whitman, 53, proposes scaling back state pensions, making employees work longer before they can collect retirement pay and cutting 40,000 state jobs. She says she would also cut costs by improving computer technology, capping state spending and curbing debt.

She told farmers last month in Modesto: "Caltrans built a $3.4-million rest stop on one of our highways. I want to live in that rest stop -- $3.4 million?... We have a government we can no longer afford."

Her fiscal agenda is familiar. Like Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, she proposes to save money by finding fraud in social programs serving the old, disabled, unemployed and poor; paring redundant agencies; and reducing lifetime limits for welfare. But in such efforts she would face a hostile, Democrat-controlled Legislature that is not required to take orders from a chief executive.

Brown, 72, was known as a tight-fisted governor from 1975 to 1983. He believed in "limits," which translated to a lack of investment in the roads, universities and other infrastructure that his father, Pat Brown, had built as governor before him.

He has been vague about how he would tame the budget, but as governor and in this race, his biggest allies have been the public employee unions whose agendas include preserving big, expensive healthcare and social service programs. Yet he says he would slow the growth of social programs.

"I think we're going to have to look at every one of them," Brown said in March. "I don't see a draconian cutback on Day One, but I see over the next several years an aligning of what we spend with what we collect."

Brown says he would not support a tax increase unless voters approved one; Whitman says she would give tax cuts to businesses that would create jobs and bring in more revenue. Her aides declined requests for an interview with her.

Noting that "I travel Southwest, she has a private jet" (Whitman's aides say her plane has a propeller), Brown questioned the fiscal conservatism of a candidate who spent more than $80 million, most of it her own, to win the primary: "She handles money one way. I handle it another way -- far more frugally."

But as governor, Brown signed laws allowing unionization of government employees, whose organizations have grown into California's most powerful Democratic interest groups.

"You have somebody that's been part of a system -- both he and his father in this state, over the last 50 years -- and represents a line of more power to the unions, bigger pensions, bigger state spending," said Duf Sundheim, a former state Republican chairman.

On social issues, both are closer to the political center than to the extreme elements of their respective parties.

Brown has traditionally been socially liberal. He opposes the death penalty. He worked in India with Mother Teresa.

An early proponent of solar and other alternative energy and a champion of the environment, he has worked aggressively as attorney general to implement California's law to reduce global warming. He sued the Bush administration for Schwarzenegger when it blocked California's tailpipe emissions standards.

But on other issues, such as law enforcement, Brown is further to the right. He has opposed federal judges' push to release inmates from the state's overcrowded prisons and calls, as Whitman does, for reining in healthcare spending on prisoners. Like many Republicans, Brown says local government should have more power.

In the past, Whitman has appeared socially moderate to liberal on abortion and the environment, donating $300,000 to the Environmental Defense Fund to protect the Delta habitat and taking an Arctic cruise to study global warming. But this year she has framed her positions more conservatively, with an emphasis on helping business.

She has said recently that it is more important to get water flowing to farmers than to take steps to protect endangered fish. And she has proposed delaying the state's global warming law, contending that it would hurt the economy.

Whitman has also suggested putting a moratorium on other government regulations. In her policy agenda, laid out to voters in a glossy 46-page booklet, she says every state agency should identify "any negative impact" of new rules. Brown, on the other hand, has worked to enforce many state regulations, dragging California companies into court on consumer and worker protection issues. And he has blamed Wall Street for the mortgage meltdown and economic crisis that have impoverished many Californians.

And the two differ on one of the mostly highly charged issues of the primary campaign, which Brown largely sat out for lack of a major opponent. Whitman has promised to make it much harder for illegal immigrants to be in California. She wants tougher enforcement at the border. And she says she'll go after employers who hire undocumented workers.

Brown has avoided using his powers as attorney general to pressure the federal government to enforce immigration laws. In March, he accused Whitman and Poizner of pandering on the issue.

"Yes, protect our border. Yes, enforce the law," Brown said. "[But] I'm not going to scapegoat immigrants and public servants and poor people."

michael.rothfeld@latimes.com

http://dailyme.com/story/20100609000010 ... iddle.html

Whitman on the right, Brown on the left, voters in the middle

Clowns to the left of me, jokers on the right. Here I am, stuck in the middle with you....