VOICE Begins Drive to Get Voters to Polls

A church- and synagogue-based coalition favoring immigrant rights and a statewide minimum wage increase announced a drive Sunday to get 26,000 like-minded voters to the polls for the November election.

Valley Organized in Community Efforts, better known as VOICE, is targeting 250 precincts primarily in the northeast San Fernando Valley in its get-out-the-vote campaign, said Fred Ross, a VOICE organizer. Ross said the targeted precincts are populated largely by Latinos and often have low voter turnout.

VOICE on Sunday also unveiled a seven-issue platform that includes support for immigrant children, affirmative action and affordable health insurance.

“These issues are our candidate,” said Ross, speaking after a meeting of about 600 VOICE members who arrived by the busload from member churches and synagogues throughout the San Fernando Valley. Many of those at Sunday’s meeting in the auditorium of North Hollywood High School are among the 2,000 people Ross said VOICE has aided in the citizenship process during the past nine months.

The group will soon begin going door-to-door to persuade people to support its agenda on the November ballot, he said. A key issue for VOICE will be to defeat a ballot measure that would outlaw affirmative action in state and local governments.

Eliseo Medina, an official with the western region of the Service Employees International Union, told those present at the meeting that it is time to put an end to immigrant bashing.

“This country depends on immigrant labor,” he said. “Because of us, this country is as rich as it is.”

Miguel Contreras, the newly elected secretary treasurer of the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor, attended the meeting and vowed that the AFL-CIO would work with VOICE to get its agenda accepted by the public.

“Together we will pass the minimum wage increase,” Contreras said. “Together we will stop the attacks on immigrant workers and their families.”

U.S. Rep. Howard L. Berman (D-Panorama City), who attended Sunday’s meeting, praised the 8-year-old organization. “VOICE is becoming a voice to be reckoned with,” he said.

Earlier this month the group participated in a rally outside a Wells Fargo branch in Studio City to hold the bank to its promise to lend $45 billion for inner-city economic development. A second protest is slated for July 20 outside the bank’s Beverly Hills branch.