Initiative Sought on L.A. Sanctuary : Bernardi Seeks Chance for Voters to Reverse Council Move

Los Angeles City Councilman Ernani Bernardi said Tuesday that he plans to launch a petition drive to give Los Angeles voters the opportunity to vote upon--and reject--a controversial resolution passed by the City Council in November that declared Los Angeles a city of sanctuary for international refugees.

“Of course, we plan to test the matter first to find out just how much support there is for such an initiative by sending out letters to registered voters,” he said in an interview when asked about reports that such a drive was being planned.

“But, given the letters and telephoned responses we’ve had to the resolution, I’d say there’s no question of it passing.”

Bernardi later called a press conference to announce plans for the drive, which he said he hopes to put on the ballot for the November election. In order to qualify, according to the Los Angeles city clerk’s office, the measure would need 69,516 valid voter signatures, or 15% of the total number of votes cast for all candidates in the last mayoral election.

He said the idea was proposed to him by citizens whom he declined to name. He also said he hopes to gather support from organizations, which he also declined to name. At the news conference, Bernardi said he conferred with Harold Ezell, regional Immigration and Naturalization Service director and a vocal opponent of the council’s sanctuary resolution, but he refused to say what they discussed.

The sanctuary resolution that he seeks to nullify was passed by the City Council on Nov. 27 on an 8-6 vote. The vote, taken after a highly emotional debate, established a policy that would empower city employees to ignore a person’s refugee status in providing public services and called upon the federal government to halt the deportation of Salvadorans until war in that country stops.

The measure, sponsored by Councilman Michael Woo, was hailed as a compassionate, albeit largely symbolic, measure designed to protect Central Americans in particular and all refugees in general from deportation to dangerous homelands.

Bernardi and others who voted against the measure charge that it could induce large numbers of new immigrants to head for Los Angeles once news of the sanctuary measure reaches their countries. He said, however, that it is too early to determine if, as a consequence, an immigration increase is occurring.

“It’s one thing if the churches or certain civic organizations or individuals want to act as sanctuaries, knowing full well they could be subject to criminal prosecution for harboring illegal immigrants,” Bernardi said in the interview.

“But to have local entities of government do it--well, I don’t believe in it. . . . I think an initiative against it will pass, and I’m no stranger to initiatives.”

In 1984, Bernardi gathered 128,000 signatures for an initiative that led to the a limit on the amount of campaign contributions that candidates for city office may receive.