District Court Ruling on Proposition 187

U.S. District Judge Mariana Pfaelzer’s decision to declare Proposition 187 unconstitutional (Nov. 15) is bad news, because it runs contrary to our Constitution and the will of the people. However, it is also good news, because it now allows the process to continue to the U.S. Supreme Court.

The federal government’s failure to enforce our nation’s immigration laws is rewarding those who deliberately break the law with multibillion-dollar benefits. The taxpayers simply cannot afford to be the HMO or the public school system to the world.

Los Angeles County spends approximately $2 billion each year on these services for illegal immigrants. This money would be better spent on legal residents, and by lowering taxes on our wage earners. Twenty percent of those incarcerated in our jails are here illegally. Two-thirds of the children born in our county hospitals are born to illegals. These catastrophic costs have wreaked havoc with our state and local budgets. Our state and local governments have the right to demand that only legal residents are entitled to health, welfare and educational benefits.

MICHAEL D. ANTONOVICH

L.A. County Supervisor

As one who personally collected over 400 Proposition 187 signatures in 1994, I can assure The Times that we don’t intend to “call it quits” (editorial, Nov. 17). When Judge Pfaelzer releases her final ruling within a few weeks, Proposition 187 will be launched on its journey to the Supreme Court. Four of the justices who affirmed Plyler vs. Doe in 1982 have left the court, while two dissenters remain, on a markedly different tribunal. Given the makeup of today’s court, there’s little doubt the justices will issue a ruling that closely supports the Plyler dissent of former Chief Justice Warren Burger, “It is simply not irrational for a state to conclude that it does not have the same responsibility to provide benefits for persons whose very presence in the state and this country is illegal as it does to provide for persons lawfully present.”

This is the principle for which we fight, and we simply cannot knuckle under to the likes of the ACLU and other groups that would challenge the concept of whose voices are final in American democracy.

MICHAEL A. SCOTT

Glendora

Why did it take Judge Pfaelzer three years to decide that Proposition 187 is, as your editorial said, “clearly in violation of a 1982 Supreme Court decision, Plyler vs. Doe”? Am I also being cynical in assuming that The Times will not publish the following editorial: “Proposition 209 Opponents Should Call It Quits”?

ROGER E. GOULET

Los Angeles