State Senate Votes Down Proposal on El Salvador

Declaring that foreign affairs is none of its business, the state Senate on Thursday scuttled a proposal calling on President Bush and Congress to reassess U.S. policy toward El Salvador.

The action occurred shortly after a labor leader from El Salvador, Jose Tomas Mazariego, a recent victim of kidnap and torture, was introduced to the Senate, given a warm round of applause and presented with a framed commendatory resolution.

His host, Sen. Art Torres (D-Los Angeles), said that Mazariego on June 12 was “abducted, interrogated and tortured repeatedly for 36 hours” by security forces of the new rightist government of El Salvador.

‘Reassess Policy’

Torres sought approval of a measure asking the federal government to “reassess” its policy toward El Salvador, noting that the United States has provided $3 billion during the last nine years to the civil war-torn country. The measure urged Bush and Congress to press hard for a “negotiated settlement” of the war.

Resolutions by the Legislature asking the federal government for some type of action usually pass routinely, with the understanding that they are ignored in Washington. More than 30 such Senate measures have cleared the upper chamber this session alone.

But Torres stepped into a hornet’s nest of opposition.

Sen. Ed Davis (R-Valencia), for instance, said he wanted more information on the issue and suggested that the proposal be sent to the non-existent “Foreign Relations Committee” for more study.

Identical Measure

Sen. Quentin L. Kopp (Ind.-San Francisco) said his constituents sent him to Sacramento to deal with California issues, not international affairs. He noted that the Torres proposal was introduced at the request of Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco), who is carrying an identical measure in the House of Representatives.

He told Torres that Pelosi should leave the issue to Congress.

Sen. John Doolittle of Rocklin, chairman of the Senate Republican Caucus, burst out that the Torres measure represented an “outrage” and its affect would be to “continue to coddle the Marxist regimes” in Central America.

In turn, Torres told Doolittle that “it’s very, very unnecessary to put me in the category of coddling Communists. We ought to be against all human rights violations. It is not coddling the Commies, as some suggest.”

The measure failed on an 18-9 vote, three short of the 21-vote majority required. Torres received permission to seek approval a second time some other day.