GOP Latinos Assail Pringle in Bid for Treasurer

Three Latino Republicans on Thursday denounced Assemblyman Curt Pringle as “anti-Latino” and called on voters to reject him as the GOP nominee for state treasurer.

But a spokesman for Pringle, a Garden Grove Republican, said the complaints were simply an orchestrated attack by his main GOP rival for the treasurer’s post, Assemblyman Jan Goldsmith (R-Poway).

The Latino activists criticized Pringle for joining with the Orange County Republican Party to post uniformed security guards outside polling places on election day 1988 in hopes of discouraging Latinos from voting. Pringle and the GOP were sued by several disgruntled Latino voters and eventually settled for $400,000.

“Curt Pringle is not acceptable to Latinos,” Henry Gonzales, acting chairman of the Republican National Hispanic Assembly, said during a news conference on the steps of the Capitol.

Craig DeLuz, chairman of the California Republican Party Ethnic Outreach Coalition Committee, said Pringle’s role in the incident sent “shock waves of resentment throughout the Latino community.”

Donald Sanchez, another Latino Republican, called on Republican leaders to “send a message that these tactics and candidates who use them are not going to be tolerated.”

Jeff Flint, Pringle’s chief of staff, said the lawmaker’s bid for statewide office won’t be undercut by the decade-old incident. He said the Latino Republicans were “put up to it” by Goldsmith.

“This was something Curt was only peripherally involved with,” Flint said. “If that’s the best [Goldsmith] can come up with, I think that’s a sign of a weak campaign.