CA: How Núñez rose to power so fast

San Diego - -- Assembly Speaker Fabian Núñez fidgeted with his BlackBerry as he sat in a leather seat in the back of a black Buick Park Avenue and zoomed south on Interstate 5.

He checked voice mail, read e-mail and barked his ideas for fixing California's ailing health care system to his staff in Sacramento.

He was a novice politician who had just won his first election. He also was a divorcé struggling to reconcile with his ex-wife, who had been his college sweetheart. And he was recovering from personal bankruptcy.

Five years later, he is living a rags-to-riches American success story, and more.

He's regarded by many as the second-most-powerful public official in California, next to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. He has remarried his ex-wife, and the couple and their three children live in a $1.2 million home in a woodsy East Sacramento neighborhood.

In the Capitol, he has emerged as an effective dealmaker who helped craft the landmark legislation to fight global warming two years ago and is a key player in efforts to provide health care to 6.8 million Californians who lack insurance.

But Núñez also has been dogged by reports that he used his campaign funds to pay for trips overseas and for lavish gifts.

Still, his personal tale - one of 12 children born to a gardener and a maid from Tijuana - is a remarkable story, and his quick rise to political power is even more surprising.

Núñez, 41, is the mastermind behind Prop. 93, and he enlisted his top political consultant, Gale Kauffmann, to lead the campaign for the measure. He would be able to serve six more years in the Assembly if the measure passes, rather than being termed out at the end of this year.

Five years later, he is living a rags-to-riches American success story, and more.

After demonstrating that you fail at everything in your life, become a politician and strike it rich!

Fabian Nunez, California assemblyman, at the Latino Summit Response to Prop 187 at U.C. Riverside (Jan. 14, 1995):
“Each of you, get ten people to go with us on that march in Washington, D.C., and I guarantee you just as we mobilized 150,000 to the streets of Los Angeles on October 16, we will mobilize 1 million people and bring Washington to a standstill, and those rednecks that are out there making decisions for the betterment of their communities will think twice before they push forward anti- immigrant legislation against our community.”
Art Torres, California Democratic Party chairman, at the Latino Summit Response to Prop 187 at U.C. Riverside (Jan. 14, 1995):
“Power is not given to you, you have to take it! People say to me when I was on the Senate floor, when I was in the Senate, why do you fight so hard for affirmative action programs. And I tell my white colleagues: because you’re gonna need them. Remember, 187 is the last gasp of white America.”
Villaraigosa: “Well, the will of the people is something all of us have to respect, but when the will of the people is unconstitutional, the will of the people is null and void.”
Mario Obledo, former California secretary of health and welfare and co-founder of Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF), interviewed on radio station KIEV, Los Angeles (June 17, 1998):
“We’re going to take over all the political institutions of California. California is going to be a Hispanic state and anyone who doesn’t like it should leave. If they [Anglos] don’t like Mexicans, they ought to go back to Europe.”
State Sen. Nell Soto, D-Ontario, June 25, 2003, San Bernardino Town Hall meeting to discuss SB60, the bill that would grant driver’s licenses to illegal immigrants, responding to critics who say the legislation promotes illegal immigration:
“Guess what?” Soto said. “The immigrants are already here. I welcome them. I hope they keep coming.”
http://archive.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2003/6/27/164428.shtml

Life began modestly for Núñez, who was born Dec. 26, 1966, at a San Diego hospital to Pablo and Soledad Núñez. The couple, who lived in Tijuana, wanted to have at least one child born on the other side of the border, and their opportunity came thanks to a program that allowed impoverished Mexicans to work in the United States. Growing up in Logan Heights, a tough neighborhood east of downtown San Diego with its share of gangs and drugs, Núñez often wore mismatched hand-me-down socks....

Was that the Sanctuary City Program?

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