- Originally published by The Dallas Morning News on Friday, August 27, 2004 [here
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By RUBEN NAVARRETTE /
Elephants don't forget. But you would think that every now and then they could learn a thing or two. They haven't learned much in my home state of California, where a group of renegade Republicans seems hellbent on reopening one of the ugliest chapters in recent political history: the gut-wrenching battle 10 years ago over illegal immigration. In 1994, I was co-hosting a radio talk show in Los Angeles when voters in the state decided that a surefire way to get rid of unwanted guests was to burn down the house. The guests were illegal immigrants, and,technically, they weren't really unwanted. In fact, they were desperately wanted -- to do all sorts of jobs all over the state. The real problem was that the landscape had changed. Young Mexican men hawked bags of oranges on freeway medians. Billboards pitched products in Spanish. Taco trucks cruised residential neighborhoods. Before long, Californians got fed up and -- with the help of Republicans in the Legislature and Gov. Pete Wilson, who was up for re-election -- they decided to do something about it.
That something was Proposition 187, a ballot initiative that set out to make California inhospitable to illegal immigrants. The measure barred illegal immigrants and their children from public schools, social services and non-emergency health care. While it sailed through with the support of nearly 60 percent of voters, the initiative was never implemented. Most of it was struck down as unconstitutional by a federal judge.
Then there were the political costs for the GOP. Enraged by demonstrably anti-Latino television commercials, 78 percent of Latinos voted against the initiative. Latinos flocked to the Democratic Party, where they helped deliver a string of elections and wound up in positions of power and influence. Before 1996, there had never been a Latino speaker of the California Assembly. In the eight years since, there have been three.
And now a similar drama is being played out. This time the spark is, of all things, the movement in the Legislature to give driver's licenses to illegal immigrants. Legislators had already provided licenses once before, but the law was repealed with the help of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. Now Mr. Schwarzenegger is ready to do something radical: restore the driver's licenses, but only if they carry a distinguishing mark showing that the driver is an illegal immigrant.
Even going that far is unacceptable to immigration hard-liners within the Republican Party who, eager to pre-empt any driver's license reform, seem to have decided that the best way to kill a mosquito is with a cannon.
Behold the cannon: a new ballot initiative -- already dubbed the son of Proposition 187 -- which supporters hope to put on the ballot in March 2006 if they can collect the nearly 600,000 signatures necessary. This initiative would create a constitutional amendment that would bar illegal immigrants from getting driver's licenses as well as any public benefits not required by federal law -- from welfare to housing subsidies to college scholarships to unemployment and disability checks.
Proponents say that denying these benefits will remove the "incentive" for people from other countries to immigrate without proper documentation.
They know better. The real incentive is the jobs that Californians keep giving illegal immigrants in exchange for immigrants giving Californians a cushier and more affordable quality of life.
History need not repeat itself, says Arnold Torres, a longtime observer and participant in California politics and co-owner of the Sacramento-based public policy firm Torres and Torres. For one thing, he predicts, the people pushing this will themselves be pushed to the fringes of their own party.
"I cannot see the Republican Party touching this," said Mr. Torres, who hosts a talk show on Univision, the nation's largest Spanish-language television network. "Schwarzenegger's not going to be able to embrace it."
For Mr. Torres, this thing's a loser -- destined for the political scrap heap. Like father, like son. "I don't think the initiative passes. I think you get more votes against it than for it. Because people were really stunned with what happened with Proposition 187. It's been driven home that this is an extremely dangerous path to go down."
Mr. Torres would prefer that the California debate be limited to driver's licenses and that any more ambitious attempt to solve the immigration problem come from the federal government, not from any one state.
Sounds like federalism, a good concept. As a matter of fact, more than 200 years ago, a guy named James Madison actually put it in a rather important document.
- Ruben Navarrette is an editorial columnist for The Dallas Morning News. His e-mail address is rnavarrette@dallasnews.com .