Judge Favors Quick Appeal on Prop. 187

The federal district judge in Los Angeles who recently declared much of Proposition 187 illegal said Tuesday that the case should move as swiftly as possible to the appeals court level.

“I must say I think it should go on to an appellate court,” said Judge Mariana R. Pfaelzer during a hearing to determine the next phase of legal proceedings concerning the landmark anti-illegal immigration initiative, overwhelmingly approved by state voters in November, 1994. “I am in favor of a permanent injunction and going to a [higher] court.”

Pfaelzer began the session by announcing that she had denied a state request to reconsider her decision tossing out the initiative’s ban on public education for illegal immigrants. Although state attorneys had contended that Pfaelzer ruled on the issue prematurely, she said she was obligated to invalidate the education provision immediately because it clearly flew in the face of a 1982 U.S. Supreme Court decision.

Pfaelzer did, however, grant a request from lawyers for Gov. Pete Wilson and state Atty. Gen. Dan Lungren to hold an additional hearing Jan. 31, when the state will reveal whether it will seek immediate implementation of relatively minor portions of the initiative or move to quickly appeal her recent rulings.

In her late November decision, Pfaelzer ruled that the state is preempted from barring illegal immigrants from health care and social welfare services that are federally funded and to which they are otherwise entitled under federal law. She also tossed out the public school ban and ruled that the initiative’s provisions for investigating, notifying and reporting alleged illegal immigrants constituted an unlawful state scheme to regulate immigration.

Pfaelzer ruled that California could nonetheless seek to exclude illegal immigrants from health and social service programs funded entirely by the state, following submission of regulations to show how the ban could be legally implemented.

Senior Assistant Atty. Gen. John H. Sugiyama told the judge that a pair of programs covering prenatal and long-term elderly care for illegal immigrants are fully state funded--at about $70 million a year--and could meet the judge’s criteria. He added that the state is still at work identifying a handful of smaller state-funded programs and would provide a list at the January hearing.

Sugiyama told Pfaelzer--who had been accused by leading initiative supporters of taking too long to decide the legal fate of the measure--that the state would not be prepared until Jan. 31 to declare its intentions on whether to seek implementation of the possibly valid programs or move forward directly to the appellate courts.

“That’s a matter we have to consider very carefully,” he said. “I realize it’s five or six weeks, but from a practical perspective, we’re looking at the holiday season.”

After the hearing, anti-187 attorney Peter A. Schey accused state officials of indecisiveness. “The state once again floundered and can’t decide what they want to do,” said Schey, of the Center for Human Rights and Constitutional Law in Los Angeles. “Dan Lungren and Pete Wilson really don’t know how they want to proceed--and their inaction does not serve the voters who voted for Proposition 187 very well.”