PROPOSITION 187 : Measure’s Foes Try to Shift Focus From Walkouts to Issues

With attention in the Proposition 187 campaign increasingly riveted on a continuing series of high school student walkouts, leaders of the effort to defeat the anti-illegal immigrant measure scrambled Thursday to return public focus to the sweeping initiative itself.

At a Los Angeles news conference, top Los Angeles health officials said passage of Proposition 187 would have drastic health repercussions for the public.

“If we do not immunize undocumented children, we will increase the incidence of measles, whooping cough, mumps, rubella, diphtheria and hepatitis B in all children, not just the undocumented,” said Dr. Brian D. Johnston, secretary of the Los Angeles County Medical Assn.

Anti-187 campaigners also distributed a statement in opposition to the measure. It was signed by leaders of several politically conservative think tanks, including the Alexis de Tocqueville Institution, the Reason Foundation and the Heritage Foundation. Proposition 187, the conservative analysts said, would “promote government intrusion into the lives of individuals” and eventually create a hostile environment for legal immigration.

But despite such activities, leaders of several coalitions fighting Proposition 187 conceded Thursday that they have little control over the actions of high school students.

“Anybody who has kids--and a lot of likely voters have them--know when kids get impassioned about something and say they’re going to do something, they’re going to do it,” said Bobbi Murray, spokeswoman for Californians United Against Proposition 187.

Although grass-roots political action groups such as Californians United contended that the peaceful walkouts will have no negative impact on Tuesday’s election, others acknowledged that the demonstrations are hurting the momentum they say has been building in recent weeks against the get-tough ballot initiative.

“It distracts the voters,” said Scott Macdonald, spokesman for Taxpayers Against 187--which organized a news conference of student leaders Monday urging youngsters to walk precincts in “get out the vote” efforts rather than walking out of class. “We believe that anything that keeps people from taking time to understand the initiative is not helping our side.”

UC Berkeley political professor Bruce Cain, a longtime observer of California politics, agreed that the walkouts are “probably a break for the pro-187 people.”

“It would be very easy for everybody to become fixated on the events and sort of ignore the issues,” Cain said.

A month ago, polls showed an overwhelming margin of respondents in favor of Proposition 187, which would bar illegal immigrants from receiving education and most government services and require educational, health and law enforcement officials to report suspected illegal immigrants to state and federal authorities.

But in recent weeks, support fell significantly as voters began concentrating on election issues and a flurry of public leaders and organizations repeatedly emphasized their opposition. A Los Angeles Times Poll last weekshowed Proposition 187 ahead 51% to 41% among likely voters, compared to 59% to 33% in favor two weeks previously.

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On Tuesday, Macdonald proclaimed that his group’s nightly tracking polls showed the measure trailing for the first time. But on Thursday, Macdonald said he had not even inquired about the polling results for the subsequent two days, which coincided with a steady stream of school walkouts.

“I’m terrified to ask,” Macdonald said.

Proponents of Proposition 187 blasted the demonstrations on other grounds--while noting that the students’ actions certainly were not hurting the pro-187 cause.

“This kind of thing shouldn’t be going on and really isn’t necessary,” said Ronald Prince, co-chairman of the pro-187 campaign committee.

Measure co-author Alan C. Nelson, at a Sacramento news conference, criticized those rallying against Proposition 187 for waving Mexican flags. “People can draw their own conclusions,” Nelson said. “But I would say that’s un-American.”

Nelson also criticized the tactics of initiative opponents who are obtaining pledges from teachers and health care professionals who say they would not report suspected undocumented immigrants to authorities if the initiative is enacted.

In Los Angeles, leading health care professionals skewered the initiative at their own news conference, calling it inhumane and economically unsound.

“Every dollar spent on prenatal care saves between $3 and $10 later on in caring for babies who are born with medical problems that could have been prevented,” said the medical association’s Johnston. “Every dollar spent on immunizations saves between $10 and $14 in future disease and disability costs.”

David Langness, a vice president of the Hospital Council of Southern California, said the initiative would result in “medical apartheid,” preventing illegal immigrants from receiving anything but emergency medical care in virtually all hospitals and health clinics.

The think tank statement, organized by de Tocqueville executive director Cesar V. Conda, charges that Proposition 187 would turn educators and health care workers “into de facto INS agents and Border Patrol guards, forcing them to investigate the citizen status of every child and parent.”

“Basically, in our view, it’s a Big Brother, big government scheme that will do little to deter illegal immigration,” Conda said in an interview.

Meanwhile, Taxpayers Against 187 on Thursday filed an elections violation complaint against the pro-187 “save our state” campaign committee and two groups that have begun radio ad campaigns in favor of the initiative: the Federation for American Immigration Reform and the California Coalition for Immigration Reform.

The complaint, filed with the state Fair Political Practices Commission, charges that the two groups’ ad expenditures should be listed as in-kind contributions to the “save our state” committee.

SOS co-chairman Prince and a FAIR spokeswoman quickly shrugged off the action as groundless, saying the organizations sponsoring the radio ads are independent from the SOS committee.

Times staff writers Carl Ingram and James Bornemeier contributed to this story.