Prop. 187 Sponsors Swept Up in National Whirlwind : Immigration: Callers seek help in carrying effort to other states. Some believe next step is up to Congress.

Alan Nelson is running out of c lean underwear. Barbara Coe jokes about running off to Mexico. And Harold Ezell hardly has time to run his consulting business--helping to obtain legal immigration status for well-to-do foreign investors willing to create new jobs in the United States.

Last week’s landslide victory of Proposition 187 has proved a dizzying experience for many of the key sponsors of the get-tough illegal immigration ballot measure. Swept into celebrity, they have been inundated by phone calls from reporters around the world seeking reaction and from grass-roots groups across the nation hoping to launch similar movements in their own states.

Flush with their success, the leaders of the so-called “save our state” movement are working nearly nonstop to spread the gospel.

“I’ve been donating my time for 13 months to this campaign, so what’s another week or two,” said Ron Prince, who headed the pro-187 campaign committee.

“I just got off the phone with the Washington, uh, I don’t remember if it was the Times or the Post, I’m so confused,” echoed proposition co-sponsor Coe, who heads the California Coalition for Immigration Reform. “I’m drowning in calls. I think I’m going to run away from home. I may run away to Mexico.”

As they seek to make use of their newfound clout, the movement’s leaders speak of recall elections targeting officials involved in the flurry of lawsuits filed to block the measure within hours of last Tuesday’s election. They talk of initiatives similar to Proposition 187 being placed on ballots in Arizona, Texas and Florida. And they voice hopes that the initiative’s success will spark similar efforts in Washington, particularly since Republicans will control the next Congress and incoming House Speaker Newt Gingrich is eyeing new measures.

Among their ideas are legislative action to bolster enforcement along the U.S.-Mexico border, to make it harder for employers to hire unauthorized workers, and to terminate the few remaining federal benefits that illegal immigrants now qualify for, such as school lunches and food for pregnant women.

“There’s no need for another Proposition 187 in any other state if Congress does its job: a law that says you will ask and determine the alienage of people before you give them any government handouts,” said Ezell, former western regional director of the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service.

Some allies even look to a renewed effort to reduce legal immigration, now at near-record levels.

“Proposition 187 is the clearest ringing bell to wake up our national leadership on this question that we’ve had in 100 years,” said Dan Stein, executive director of the Federation for American Immigration Reform, a Washington-based group known as FAIR that seeks restrictions on new arrivals and helped bankroll the pro-187 advertising effort.

Not all observers agree that Proposition 187 will travel well, cautioning that the measure may be a California anomaly. Unlike California, gubernatorial elections in Florida, New York and Texas hardly dealt with the issue of immigration, and New York’s mayor has publicly embraced immigrants, legal or illegal.

“We hope the ugliness of the debate on Proposition 187 in California is not the precursor to other ugly debates in other states,” said Cecilia Munoz, senior immigration policy analyst with the National Council of La Raza, a Washington-based Latino advocacy group. “We’re going to be watchful, but the dynamics in California are very different from elsewhere.”

Specifically, California has absorbed both a jarring demographic shift and, more recently, a particularly stubborn recession. There was relatively little talk about illegal immigrants posing a financial burden back in 1986, when there were many more undocumented people but California’s then-robust economy was generating widespread prosperity.

And nowhere else on the national scene has a leader of the stature of Gov. Pete Wilson--who helped catapult immigration and Proposition 187 to the forefront of the state agenda--been so anxious to take up the divisive and racially charged issue. Much of the business community and many Republicans remain pro-immigration, as the recent anti-187 blasts by former Cabinet secretaries Jack Kemp and William J. Bennett indicate.

“Republicans may rue the day if they decide to make immigration a huge, ongoing national issue,” said Rick Swartz, a Washington lawyer who advises pro-immigration groups. “They’re inviting a huge fight within the Republican Party.”

Many questions also remain about the future role of the INS, which, under Proposition 187, would be deluged with lists of “suspected” illegal immigrants reported by police, health care workers and educators. The INS already has problems just keeping up with the load of deportable criminal immigrants in prisons and jails.

In the midst of their celebrations, the talk among the Proposition 187 crowd is buoyant, upbeat and goal-oriented. And these days, they are being talked to on network news broadcasts, “Larry King Live” and “This Week With David Brinkley.”

“Like it or not, California is a national trendsetter,” said Ezell, a Newport Beach resident.

In its grass-roots, populist appeal and potential impact, Proposition 187 is most often compared to Proposition 13, the tax-cutting initiative spearheaded by the late Howard Jarvis.

And if anyone in the Proposition 187 movement brings to mind the memory of Jarvis, it would be Ezell, a onetime hot dog company executive who relishes the spotlight and is a comfortable, oft-humorous public speaker. Ezell, however, comes with his share of baggage--a controversial tenure at the INS during the 1980s (he once made headlines for attending a Hawaiian fete thrown by former Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos, then under federal investigation) and a caustic streak that runs counter to Jarvis’ folksy, grandfatherly image.

Take Ezell’s election night comments about the campaign rallies held by foes of the initiative:

“The biggest mistake the opposition made was waving those green and white (Mexican) flags with the snake on it. They should have been waving the American flag.”

Ezell said he’s having trouble these days finding time to make a living, or spend time with his wife, Lee, and their grown daughters.

“The first 48 hours after the election were a killer, man,” Ezell said. “But I think it will start leveling out soon.”

Prince, a Tustin accountant who handled the day-to-day campaign, seems less camera ready. Indeed, he grows testy whenever asked personal questions.

“I don’t have a personal life,” Prince declared Friday as he juggled calls from reporters flooding into the campaign’s Orange County headquarters, which long boasted a secret location because of his fear of death threats.

In the wake of a campaign that featured little centralized organization, it may come as little surprise that its leaders are now, on their own, pursuing a variety of anti-illegal immigrant agendas.

Prince, for one, is suggesting the recall of public officials who have voted to take part in anti-187 lawsuits, even though Prince and other sponsors of the measure have long acknowledged that it would not take effect until a flurry of lawsuits was ruled upon.

“The will of the people should be obeyed and it is too often thwarted by special interest groups,” Prince said. “It doesn’t make sense for elected officials to sue the people. They should be listening to the people.”

The tall, 61-year-old Nelson, who has been burdened by heart trouble, could be viewed as the elder statesman of the movement. The national director of the INS during the Reagan Administration, Nelson said he plans to fight for state legislation to ensure that jobs vacated by illegal immigrants rounded up by the INS are filled by U.S. citizens or lawful immigrants, “particularly those on welfare or benefit programs.”

“The jobs could run the gamut--from dishwasher jobs to landscaping to construction--illegals are involved in all of these,” said Nelson, who while a Sacramento lobbyist for FAIR was long unable to push through similar bills.

As for the next week, Nelson, fresh from a national appearance on the Larry King show, plans a short victory vacation in the desert with his wife and friends. “I hope to play a little golf, relax a little,” he said. “It’s been quite intense lately. I haven’t had time to get my car serviced for weeks. And I’ve gotten down pretty low in the underwear drawer, I can tell you that.”

Yorba Linda political consultant Robert Kiley, who served on the “save our state” committee, is seeking to market his skills to anti-illegal immigrant activists in other states.

Coe said she has received calls from grass-roots activists in 18 states since Election Day.

“We anticipated the passage of Proposition 187 would have a ripple effect across the nation. Right now, we feel like we are in the midst of a tidal wave, for goodness sake. We never in a million years anticipated this type of response, and we’re obviously thrilled.”

According to Coe, activists from states with high numbers of illegal immigrants are planning to convene in the near future to discuss a state-by-state strategy. But at this point, the “save our state” juggernaut remains more a shoestring vessel of public anger than a highly burnished political operation.

Prince, for example, placed a caller from Los Angeles on hold the other day to take an incoming call from a reporter in Florida. The reason, he said, was to save money for the financially strapped campaign committee by not having to return a long-distance call.

Coe continues to operate her immigration reform effort from her Orange County living room, which long ago became overgrown with campaign literature. “I have only one request of visitors,” Coe said. “If you walk into my place and you break your leg, don’t sue.”

Times staff writer Martin Miller contributed to this story.