Free Republic

Historian Victor Davis Hanson described why he feels his home state of California is America’s first “Third World state” during a Monday night appearance on Fox News’ “Tucker Carlson Tonight.” Hanson’s comments came after the state’s Democratic governor, Gavin Newsom, said that national Republicans will go “into the waste bin of history, the way Republicans of the ’90s [in California] have gone.” Responding to host Tucker Carlson’s question about why he considers California a “Third World state,” Hanson pointed to “symptoms” we typically “associate with failed states” such as high taxes, poor schools, a super-rich class, and a significant percentage...

Talk to almost any Californians (that is, to any who’ve been in the state since before the ’90s) and they’ll tell a simple story of conservative decline. A crucial 1994 ballot initiative that attempted to enact stricter restrictions on illegal immigrants, Proposition 187, was pushed by a radicalizing GOP in a diversifying California. This initiative was a draconian effort to lash out against minorities’ political gains, and it especially enraged and energized Latinos, long a sleeping giant in California politics. In short, overreach tinged with racism caused Republicans to go the way of the grizzly on the state flag: extinct....

From newtimesla.com Originally published by New Times L.A. Jun 20, 2002 ©2002 New Times, Inc. All rights reserved. Border Buster Critics say L.A. lawyer Peter Schey is ruining America by helping hordes of illegal immigrants stay here. Schey says his work's far from done. By Susan Goldsmith Peter Schey was raised on the story of the Nazis marching into Paris during World War II. His gentile mother and communist Jewish father escaped from France on one of the last planes to England. They were German refugees and knew what France's Jewish community was in for. In London, Schey's father...

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Twenty years ago this month, 59 percent of California voters passed a ballot measure designed to set up a state-run immigration system and deny most public benefits — including K-12 education — to illegal immigrants. Proposition 187 was widely viewed as one of the harshest anti-immigrant measures in the country. But when President Barack Obama last week signed executive orders to protect about 5 million undocumented immigrants from deportation, there were only muted protests in the Golden State. And polls show that more Californians back Obama on this than oppose him. “It’s a very different atmosphere from what we had...

With the California primary fast approaching, the media are rolling out their favorite fairy tale about how Republican Pete Wilson’s support for Proposition 187 in 1994 was a historic, game-changing error for the GOP, driving Hispanics from the party for good! Both CNN and MSNBC retold this completely bogus narrative this week. NPR rolls it out once every two weeks. I — along with other people capable of reading election returns — have written about this forever. I did most recently in “Adios, America,” in a chapter titled, “I Wrote This Chapter After Noticing How Stupid Rich People Are,” inspired...

With the initiative process, both liberal and conservative causes could be realized. Liberal public employee unions, most notably the California Teachers Association, could lock in high levels of education spending with Proposition 98. Fed-up taxpayers could place limits on property taxes with Prop 13. Californians concerned with illegal immigration could pass Prop 187 (if only later to see it fail in court). And those Californians who saw the injustice of state-sponsored racial preferences could ban them with the California Civil Rights Initiative. But the initiative process, however satisfying it sometimes seems, has also made electoral politics seemingly less important. Whereas...

[SNIP] ....Based on my limited interactions and after reading more about [San Antonio Mayor Julian] Castro, it is clear that he is superficially very different from the older Latino leaders but very similar in other ways. The most prominent Hispanic mayor in America is Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa. Before Castro was born, Villaraigosa was at UCLA leading the openly racist, secessionist, and anti-American group MEChA. After engaging in protests to try to get the ChicanoStudies Department to give money to an openly communist group, he dropped out of UCLA and attended the unaccredited People's School of Law. He took...

So, too, has a striking increase in the number of Californians who blame illegal immigration for the state's problems. "There is more unity among Republicans in this state on illegal immigration than on anything else, including taxes," said Tom Hudson, chairman of the Republican Party in Placer County, near Sacramento, one of the most conservative counties in the state. Among the GOP candidates, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney has seized the issue with vigor, and U.S. Rep. Tom Tancredo of Colorado has made border security the centerpiece of his long-shot campaign, even airing a campaign commercial comparing illegal immigration with...

Reading Between Feinstein's Lines Showing Strain of Public Backlash Against Illegal Immigration Lou Dobbs Tonight - Jan. 28 Feinstein: Border security really is essential because if you have open, porous borders you can be absolutely sure that terrorists are going to take advantage of them and may have already. (Translated: Illegal Mexicans are no problem.) Feinstein: In California we passed Proposition 187, it was found to be unconstitutional (it was killed by Mexico)...there is a worry that someone will put something on the ballot and it would pass again. So we really have to be practical. (Translated: Citizens are getting...

Vote analysis of Prop. 187, the illegal alien initiative Proposition 187, the controversial ballot initiative which makes illegal immigrants ineligible to receive public health and education services, was approved by voters by an 18- point margin, 59% to 41%. An analysis of the vote by regional and demographic subgroups shows the following:     The proposition carried all regions of the state except the Bay Area (where it trailed by 10 points). Support for Prop. 187 was extremely strong in the Inland Empire (+40 points), the North Coast/Sierras (+36 points), San Diego/ Orange (+34 points) and the Central Valley (+32 points)....

I'm looking for quotes and links by George W. Bush regarding his opposition California's Proposition #187, which would have denied State tax-funded benefits to Illegal aliens. I'm interested in his quotes during the1994 campaign and afterward.

CALIFORNIA POLITICIANS & GOV. GRAY DAVIS: TRANSCRIPT: AMERICAN PATROL ON RECALL DAVIS American Patrol Report Friday, December 10, 1999 Broadcast on KIEV Radio, 870 AM and on the Web at www.kiev870.com, Glendale, California Opening music: "American Patrol" by Glenn Miller This is Glenn Spencer with the American Patrol Report, a production of Voice of Citizens Together. On August 19, 1999, California Governor Gray Davis was served with a notice on intent to recall him. It was signed by 74 citizens. This American Patrol report focuses on that recall. It is estimated there are more than more than 2,000,000 illegal aliens...

Page 3 -- A Conversation With Tom McClintock Posted Aug 28, 2003On August 25, the editors of HUMAN EVENTS interviewed California State Sen. Tom McClintock via telephone. McClintock, a Republican whose district includes Ventura and Santa Barbara counties and part of Los Angeles County, is a candidate to replace Gov. Gray Davis in California’s special October 7 recall election. HUMAN EVENTS has additional interview requests pending with Republican actor Arnold Schwarzenegger, who also is running to replace Davis, and Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R.-Calif.), a conservative who has endorsed Schwarzenegger’s candidacy. McClintock, who graduated with honors from the University of California...

California’s special October 7 election on whether to recall Democratic Gov. Gray Davis ought to resurrect an issue that fainthearted Republicans have too long avoided: Should taxpayers be forced to fund education, non-emergency health care and welfare benefits for foreign nationals living illegally in the United States? In 1994, California voters answered this question with a thundering "No Way." By 59% to 41%, they approved Proposition 187, terminating non-emergency state services for immigration lawbreakers. Eight days later, Federal District Judge Mariana R. Pfaelzer, a self-professed "liberal" appointed by President Jimmy Carter, issued an injunction suspending enforcement of the law. In...

Below is my email to the ombudsman and Washington Post editorial page - Sorry for the vanity Dear Michael, Dana Milbank stated today in his article about California’s recall election that Proposition 187 limited services for immigrants. It didn’t. It limited services for illegal aliens. Hopefully this is just a case of lazy journalism and not misrepresenting a position to fit Dana’s political agenda.

A key to Arnold Schwarzenegger's prospects in the coming recall election is one that few have taken notice of: His campaign is being run by the most brilliant California Republican campaigner since Ronald Reagan. Former governor Pete Wilson, who is chairman of the Schwarzenegger campaign, shares Arnold's centrist brand of Republican politics, which is the only kind of Republican politics that can win at the state level. Even Ronald Reagan left issues like abortion on the back burner when he led California Republicans to victory. This is a state, it should never be forgotten, that has a million more registered...