Joe Guzzardi
August 20, 2003

As a candidate in the Recall Election (www.GuzzardiForGovernor.com), let me make one thing perfectly clear: in 1994, I voted for Proposition 187. And I would vote for it again today.

No issue in California’s political history has been as poorly reported on or as shallowly analyzed as Proposition 187. Nearly 60% of California voters supported the initiative.
 
For the last decade, the mainstream media has insisted, “the anti-immigrant proposition was killed in the courts.”

Here’s the truth:

• Proposition 187 is not “anti-immigrant.” An immigrant is a person who applies in his native country to come to the U.S. Once his paperwork is processed and approved, a visa is issued. Then, that person legally comes into U.S. through a port of entry.

One of my rivals in the Recall election, Lt. Governor Cruz Bustamante, told Los Angeles Times Sacramento-based columnist George Skelton, “Proposition 187 was like illegitimatizing the Latino experience.”  What in the world does that mean?  What’s illegitimate is forcing taxpayers to fork out billions of dollars to provide services to people illegally in the U.S. 

Without a shadow of a doubt, the failure to implement Proposition 187 has played a major role in dragging California into the budget crisis. The cost of educating illegal alien school children alone is $3 billion annually. Over a decade, that’s $30 billion! 

Non-emergency medical care for illegal aliens has brought hospitals and clinics to the brink of bankruptcy. One nurse in a major metropolitan hospital confided in me that uninsured illegal aliens receive the “platinum” treatment. Hospital administrators told her that under no circumstances is she to talk to the press about what goes on behind closed doors regarding illegal alien health care. 

More truth:

• Proposition 187 was not “killed in the courts.”   After U.S. District Court judge Mariana Pfaelzer ruled Proposition 187 unconstitutional, the next step in the legal process is an appeal to a higher court. Instead, Governor Davis in concert with the Mexican American Legal Defense Fund and other similar-minded groups entered into a bogus “mediation” to prevent Proposition 187 from going to the U.S. Supreme Court. 

In the ten years that have passed since Proposition 187 was scuttled, none of the ethnic identity activists have missed a chance at slurring anyone who voted for the initiative. Among the predictable charges are “racist,” “xenophobe,” “nativist” and “ignorant.”

But here’s still more truth:

• The unfounded charges of racism are, of course, directed at any white Californian who might have expressed reservations about providing unlimited social services to illegal aliens. In a democracy, citizens are allowed to voice disapproval without becoming the target of ugly efforts to have their voices silenced. That has not been the case for Proposition 187 supporters.

According to Bustamante and his allies, then, whether you are Mexican, Asian, Black or White, if you voted “Yes” on Proposition 187, you are a racist.

The final reality:

• If Proposition 187 had been enacted, one of the major causes of the budget crisis—expensive social services to illegal aliens---would have been removed.