Elton Gallegly

Elton Gallegly was elected to Congress from Ventura County in 1986 after serving as mayor of Simi Valley for six years. He has emerged as the House’s most aggressive Republican voice on immigration and illegal immigrants. Gallegly recently talked about national and local issues and politics as the 105th Congress resumed after its winter recess.

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Question: Are you supportive of the Save Open Space and Agricultural Resources initiative?

Answer: I’m a tremendous supporter of preserving agriculture. I think it’s also very important to not get involved in local land-use issues that come under the jurisdiction of a local board of supervisors or a local city. However, I am working at the Washington level and trying to find ways that we can provide incentives, whether they be tax incentives or other things, that will help preserve agricultural land. It’s particularly vital to this district because it’s the No. 1 industry.

Q: You represent Ventura County in Congress along with Brad Sherman, a Democrat who has been targeted by the Republican Party for defeat in the upcoming election. Will you work to ensure Sherman’s defeat?

A: It’s very important to us Republicans to increase the percentages in the House. We have a very slim majority now. I have a good working relationship with Brad Sherman. I think Brad is a nice person. He’s a very decent guy who works hard. Philosophically we’re miles apart on many issues. The person who I believe is going to win the Republican primary is Randy Hoffman, a guy who is a self-made man who has had a brilliant career in electronics. I will be working to help Randy; I am working to help Randy.

Q: You have developed a national reputation for your work on immigration control legislation. Are you still working actively in this area?

A: Just so there’s no gray area right from the get-go: There is probably no member in the House of Representatives who is a stronger advocate for immigration than I am. My voting record bears that out. When there were real movements to severely cut legal immigration, I fought that. And one of the reasons that I am such a strong opponent of illegal immigration, other than the fact that it’s illegal, is because it poses the greatest threat to legal immigration. We allow more people the legal right to immigrate to this country every year than all the rest of the countries of the world combined. And I support that. But we need to do it to benefit this country, not hurt it.

We need to continue reasonable legal immigration for any number of reasons: for the benefits that immigrants bring us from other countries, for the technical skills and diverse knowledge and so forth. But not if they’re coming here for the purpose of welfare and other social benefits. And let’s face it, the people who are hurt the most by illegal immigration are those who can least afford it. And my most liberal colleagues are beginning to acknowledge that.

There is an attempt, maybe not by journalists, but from the people who write letters to the editor, to find ways to try to put the ugly spin on you. They try to paint you as mean-spirited or racist or whatever. That’s a very painful thing. And that’s a ploy of the people in the other party, to try to put that spin on it. Approximately two-thirds of my office’s caseload has to do with immigration issues, where we’re helping folks reunify their families, get their naturalization completed--getting a green card or getting their status adjusted or whatever. And the files are full. And people say, “Well, he’s anti-immigrant. I don’t want anything to do with him.” The fact is, we do more to help immigrants than any other organization in town.

Q: The Republican Party has recently made a high-profile attempt to reach out to Latinos. Will this make your immigration stance more difficult?

A: I am firmly convinced that the second-, third-, fourth-generation Latino families in this country philosophically relate more to the Republican platform with its family values and pro-life stances. Most are quite conservative in the way they run their households. And, again, they are without question the most directly impacted by those who are coming here illegally. Besides, my own survey shows that I get the majority of the Latino votes, Democrats or Republicans alike. There is no question that the Republican Party should be very aggressive in trying to reach out to all people for the purpose of realistically showing them philosophically why we’re an all-inclusive party. And you shouldn’t support or oppose the Republican Party because of the color of your skin but as an American. And that should be where our energy should be. The Latino population is growing and it’s a population that is certainly getting more active. But you don’t go out and say, “Hey, I want you to be my friend because I want you to think I like you because of the color of your skin.” I want you to support me because you agree philosophically, or we agree, or I want to hear what your rationale is and maybe you can convince me why I’m wrong on the issue.

Q: What do you see as the most important challenges facing Congress this term?

A: Education and health care are two important things to me. This whole issue of HMOs and the effect they are having on the health care process, I think Congress has to look at. I don’t like getting the government involved in things they don’t need to be involved in, but the HMO situation has to be reviewed. And, of course, there’s the whole issue of education, particularly what we’re going through here in California, when we are spending millions and millions and millions more dollars and we’re getting less and less and less out of our schools.

When we have young people who are graduating and they can’t even read the diploma--that sounds like a cute 10-second sound bite, but it’s a fact. And we have a lot of very committed teachers out there who are playing more the role of a prison warden, or a guard, spending more time watching their back than they are at the blackboard. It is probably the single most important issue that we have to deal with for the next 20 years.

I don’t know what’s going to happen in California when all these kids today who are 8, 9, 10, 11, 12 years old become adults. And I think that for us to stick our head in the sand on that, whether you’re a Republican, Democrat or independent--it’s a luxury none of us can afford. We’re trying to look at this from two or three different angles, but at the same time, you want to make sure that you don’t try to make your effort so broad that you don’t end up doing anything. I’m not one of these people who’s saying, “Well, we just need to tear this agency down, tear that agency down, let’s just get right down to the nuts and bolts,” although I am kind of a bottom-line kind of person.

I think we need to spend a lot fewer dollars on people sitting in their ivory towers in Washington, rubbing their sideburns and puffing on their pipes, coming up with some esoteric thing that you need in California when they’ve never been west of the Potomac River. This is a Code 3 call. This is 911. And there are a lot of wonderful things that we’d like to see out there, but we’ve got to get a bandage on the open wound before we start doing hair transplants.

Fortunately, here in Ventura County we’re in a lot better shape than many urban areas. Certainly, few places in California are suffering like the city of Los Angeles is. This goes way beyond political rhetoric. This is a national crisis. And whether we have the good fortune of having a good public school system here in this county, and our children here are getting a decent education, we are still going to be affected by the product coming out of Los Angeles, or out of Detroit, or out of New York, or out of whatever. Even though our children individually may have access to pretty decent education, we as a society are all going to be impacted and directly affected by the results of what we’re doing in our neighboring cities across the country.