State Requests INS’ Help in Culling Illegal Voters

Treading on swampy political turf, Secretary of State Bill Jones on Thursday called on Washington officials to seek help in removing noncitizens from Orange County’s voter rolls while not inflaming immigrant rights groups and Democrats.

Jones, a Republican, had limited success in brokering a “bipartisan” deal over a list of 1,499 possible noncitizens who are registered to vote.

The list is a political hot potato that was handed to him two months ago by the head of the House Oversight Committee after it ended its investigation into the contested election of Rep. Loretta Sanchez (D-Garden Grove).

Jones wants immigration officials to verify the citizenship status of the voters before he takes steps to remove them from the rolls.

Democrats are wary of using Immigration and Naturalization Service databases to check voter lists. They say doing so would invade the privacy of INS clients and jeopardize voting rights nationwide.

Republicans, too, are concerned that, by pressing for a check of possible noncitizens on the list, they might be portrayed as racist.

The 1,499 possibly illegal registrants in the 46th Congressional District were identified by the House panel during its investigation into Republican Robert K. Dornan’s allegation that he lost the 1996 election because of noncitizen voting, according to a letter to Jones from the committee chairman, Rep. William M. Thomas (R-Bakersfield).

After a midday session at the Justice Department on Thursday, Jones and immigration officials failed to reach an agreement that would provide for an INS check of the list.

But both Jones and INS spokesman Eric Andrus called the meeting productive and in the “positive spirit” of previous dealings this year. Those included the INS working with Jones to check citizenship of 743 people who were registered by an Orange County Latino rights group. It led to removing 548 people from the rolls.

Late in the day after talking with Republican leaders, Jones met with half a dozen Democrats from the California delegation and others. Democrats at the session remained skeptical. Several even questioned the authenticity of the Thomas list.

Jones insisted he wants a bipartisan solution. “Neither Republicans nor Democrats want noncitizens on the voter file, and we also want to protect the noncitizens from deportation,” he said.

Everyone wants to resolve the status of the 1,499 voters before the November election. No one wants to revisit the 14-month contested election fight that was waged by Dornan and Sanchez into 1998, Rep. Xavier Becerra (D-Los Angeles) said.

“This is a political hornets’ nest,” said one participant in the talks.

In Orange County, Zeke Hernandez, the district director of the League of United Latino American Citizens, said the effort by Jones amounted to “a bashing trip.”

“I can present a list with 1,000 or 10,000 names,” he said. “But there has to be some basis to proceed on it. There is no basis. It shouldn’t go anywhere.”

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Times staff writer Erin Trodden contributed to this report.