Senate OKs Nominee to State School Board, Rejects Another

The Senate on Monday confirmed one appointee of Gov. Pete Wilson to the State Board of Education but rejected a second nominee because he embraced a controversial bill that would deny public education funds to illegal immigrants.

For the Republican governor, whose appointees to top education policy posts have faced stiff opposition in the Democrat-controlled Senate, the rejection of La Jolla businessman Frank R. Light was a political setback.

The Senate narrowly confirmed Yvonne W. Larsen, a San Diego civic activist, to a four-year term. The vote was 27 to 4, the bare two-thirds margin required. Although Larsen also had endorsed the controversial bill, she said later that she had been “blindsided” into supporting it and did not mean to do so.

Wilson was pleased at Larsen’s approval, said a governor’s spokesman, who accused the Senate of “playing politics” with Light, who failed on a 17-13 vote. Both had served for the last year as unconfirmed members.

The bill, which has little support in the Legislature, would prohibit the expenditure of state public funds in California to finance any part of the education of illegal immigrants from kindergarten through college.

Sponsored by Assemblyman Richard Mountjoy (R-Monrovia), the legislation is pending in an Assembly committee and has not been heard. The state board two weeks ago voted unanimously to support its enactment as a way to help “alleviate an inappropriate drain on scarce resources.”

One opponent of the bill, Sen. Charles Calderon (D-Whittier), asserted that the legislation is unconstitutional and could lead to non-Anglo children being required to prove their citizenship at the schoolhouse door.

Calderon read to the Senate what he called a transcript of a Marh 9 state board subcommittee meeting in which the panel endorsed the proposal before sending it to the full board for approval.

The document showed that during a discussion of the high costs to the state of federal immigration policies, Light indicated that for him the issue went further.

“This is a question of do we take our money to pay to educate people who don’t pay taxes, who take away jobs in the secondary market and that kind of thing,” Light said, according to the transcript. Later, the document indicated that board members agreed to support the bill only “in concept.”

Calderon said such views have “everything to do with the politics of division, with pitting one race against the other, with one person against the other.”

Calderon and others argued that immigrants, whether in the United States legally or illegally, do hold jobs and pay taxes.

Further, they said, no one knows the financial costs of educating illegal immigrants. Children born in the United States, even if their parents are illegal immigrants, are U.S. citizens and cannot be denied public education.

Defenders of Light and Larsen argued that both were dedicated to educating all children and wanted no part of divisive politics.

Former board Chairman Joseph D. Carrabino, appointed to a new term by Wilson, withdrew from confirmation last summer when it became clear that the Senate would reject him. The Senate also refused to confirm two appointees of former Gov. George Deukmejian to the board.