Lawmaker Strikes Nerve in Fight Against Illegal Immigration

No stranger to political hot buttons and conservative bombast, Richard L. Mountjoy rode to the Assembly in 1978 on the strength of an anti-tax stand and support of Proposition 13.

Last year, Mountjoy took up the banner of small business owners squeezed by the high cost of workers’ compensation. But no cause has struck a nerve like his latest: illegal immigration.

“It took on a life of its own. It was like self-ignition. I have never had one like this. It just exploded,” said Mountjoy, among the most conservative of Assembly Republicans.

Mountjoy is carrying five bills aimed at cutting public funds for educating and giving medical care to illegal immigrants. In the process, the 61-year-old grandfather and general contractor from Arcadia has become the main spieler of the conservative Republican line against illegal immigrants.

“If the Legislature doesn’t do anything, you’re going to see a bankrupting of the medical system,” Mountjoy said. “I don’t think the time is far off when the system goes into overload. We can’t pay the bills.”

Democrats have killed most of his bills in committee votes. Although he gets Republican support for the measures, most GOP moderates have shied away from sponsoring such bills for fear that they will be tagged racists. Indeed, the label has been tossed at Mountjoy, a former Monrovia mayor.

“Mountjoy would like to have a whole generation of illiterates and sick people,” said Assemblyman Richard Polanco (D-Los Angeles). “He is not thinking it out. He’s just playing the politics of it.”

Mountjoy insists that he is motivated by policy, not politics. But he has received scores of letters from conservative supporters, not to mention national attention from visiting reporters intrigued by the latest issue cooked up in California’s political melting pot.

The view from the Capitol, however, may be clouded by all the sound and fury attached to illegal immigration.

Based on a Los Angeles Times poll, immigration appears to be a back-burner issue. When asked to identify the most important problem facing California, only 2% of the respondents to a March statewide poll cited immigration. It was dwarfed by the issues of unemployment, the economy, crime and schools.

When asked who or what is most responsible for California’s budget woes, only 3% cited illegal immigrants, compared to 25% who blame the Legislature and 18% who point to Gov. Pete Wilson.

The responses change only when people are asked specifically for their opinions about immigrants.

In a Los Angeles city poll in February, The Times found that 63% of respondents--including Anglos, African-Americans and Latinos--say that there are too many immigrants in Los Angeles.

The poll also found that 62% of the respondents said illegal immigrants should not receive much of the blame for the city’s economic downturn and that 63% believe immigrants take jobs that citizens do not want.

Still, Mountjoy--like many Democrats--is convinced that the issue will be a hot topic for years to come.