Political notebook: Chávez (again), Brown say Trump should put a sock in it

By Michael Smolens | 10:21 a.m. Aug. 21, 2015 | Updated, 10:22 a.m.


Former Gov. Pete Wilson

“Massive illegal immigration will continue as long as the federal government continues to reward it. We must repeal the perverse incentives that now exist for people to immigrate to this country illegally. To stem the flow, we must seal the border and turn off the magnet.”

With that, the candidate called for a constitutional amendment repealing the guarantee that children of unauthorized immigrants born on American soil are automatically U.S. citizens.

That was Gov. Pete Wilson in August 1993. Add a little bombast and you pretty much have what Donald Trump said this past week.

Wilson, the former U.S. senator and San Diego mayor, rode the illegal-immigration hard line to re-election the following year, when he defeated then-state Treasurer Kathleen Brown, the current governor’s sister. Wilson also was a leading advocate for Proposition 187, the 1994 voter-approved initiative that sought to prohibit unauthorized immigrants from receiving state services, including a public education. Later, it was largely overturned in court.

Nevertheless, 1994 was a watershed election that more than a few Republicans have come to, if not regret, rue the lasting damage it did to the GOP, certainly in California.

It’s no secret that Wilson’s focus on immigration combined with Proposition 187 started the long-term disaffection of many Latino voters from the Republican Party. Wilson was the state’s last Republican governor initially elected in the normal sense — Arnold Schwarzenegger’s win in the 2003 special election recall of Democrat Gray Davis being an outlier with the rarest of circumstances aligning that aren’t likely to be repeated in my lifetime.

San Diegans have a more nuanced view of Wilson beyond his setting what critics call the modern standard for illegal-immigration bashing: A young assemblyman, he came back to town as a reformer to take over a corrupt City Hall after his mayoral election in 1971. He oversaw the emerging redevelopment downtown and helped transform San Diego from a backwater Navy town to a major city that is in many ways the envy of others.

He had the temerity to oppose Ronald Reagan in the 1976 presidential primaries and supported the more moderate incumbent Gerald Ford, earning him the enmity of many powerful California Republicans. His own run for president in 1996 fizzled, and his unsuccessful effort to help abortion-rights forces change the GOP platform cost him a prime-time speech at that year’s Republican National Convention — right here in San Diego.

But as a national and now historic figure, Wilson is largely known for one thing.

“Former Gov. Pete Wilson, Immigration Hardliner, Named Honorary Romney Campaign Chair,” was one headline about the 2012 presidential campaign.

A headline last month on a column by Thomas D. Elias in the Los Angeles Daily News: “How Donald Trump is the GOP’s new Pete Wilson.”

Chávez takes on Trump

Rocky Chávez, the Oceanside assemblyman and GOP U.S. Senate candidate, for the second time in two months publicly criticized Trump for his comments and positions on unauthorized immigrants.

“… It is clear to me that the ideologies of Mr. Trump will set our nation and our state back many years and damage our society for many years to come,” he said in a statement Monday. “… The mean spirited comments made by Mr. Trump are not characteristic of the Republican Party or our nation.”

http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/...-before-trump/