Trio behind anti-illegal-immigration law may return

By J. Harry Jones
Wednesday, November 3, 2010 at 8:30 p.m.

Tuesday’s election of Sam Abed as mayor of Escondido, the re-election of Councilwoman Marie Waldron and the apparent win by former Councilman Ed Gallo bring back to power the same trio that voted for a nationally known anti-illegal-immigration ordinance in 2006.

Gallo’s return to the City Council isn’t certain yet. He leads Lori Holt Pfeiler by 47 votes out of more than 39,000 cast. It may take a week or longer before all outstanding absentee and provisional ballots are counted to confirm the victor.

If Gallo remains triumphant, Escondido’s five-member, predominantly conservative council will become even more so. The restored majority’s vocal criticism of illegal immigrants likely will create a bigger rift with the Latino community, which this year became the largest ethnic group in the city.

In 2006 the council, led by Abed, Gallo and Waldron, enacted an ordinance that would have penalized landlords who rented to undocumented immigrants. The measure sparked fury among many Latinos. City Council meetings during the debate period were guarded by police. Officers with rifles walked along the top of City Hall, on the lookout for trouble. Activists held boisterous rallies.

After a federal lawsuit was filed and a judge made it clear the ordinance wouldn’t hold up under legal scrutiny, the council reluctantly voted to rescind the measure before it ever went into effect.

In 2008, when Gallo and Abed were up for re-election, Abed retained his council seat but Gallo was defeated by Olga Diaz, who had come to prominence as a critic of the 2006 ordinance.

On Wednesday, Diaz said she doesn’t think the latest election results are a sign that residents want to go back to those tension-filled days. Diaz believes the results were merely political in nature — that Abed, Gallo and Waldron benefited from an election cycle that was Republican-friendly.

“Having Sam as a mayor is quite an achievement for him, and I think he’ll want to be known as a successful mayor,â€