1988 Incident Still Haunts Pringle

A political incident that targeted Latino voters in Orange County a decade ago has emerged as a key point of attack in the state treasurer’s race.

Democratic candidate Phil Angelides has begun airing a TV ad blasting Republican foe Curt Pringle for the 1988 episode, in which Pringle’s Assembly campaign and the Orange County Republican Party placed uniformed security guards at Santa Ana polling places.

The guards, including some who asked voters for identification, carried signs in English and Spanish warning: “Noncitizens can’t vote.” The incident prompted an FBI investigation and a civil rights lawsuit.

Without admitting any wrongdoing, Pringle and the local GOP agreed to pay $400,000 to settle the lawsuit. No criminal charges were filed.

The ad coincides with an effort by a coalition of Latino and labor groups to spotlight the issue. On Thursday, the coalition began dispatching volunteers to primarily Latino neighborhoods across the state to remind voters about the poll guard incident.

In response, Pringle campaign consultant Sal Russo charged that the Angelides campaign is resorting to sleazy tactics. He blamed the county GOP for the guards.

Pringle’s campaign manager, Jeff Flint, said Pringle didn’t know about the guards at the time “and would have stopped it if he knew.”

Angelides said voters deserve to know Pringle’s role in an act that was “contrary to the very notion of American democracy.”

Until this month, Pringle had said little about the incident and dismissed it as part of his political past. When pushed about his part in the matter at a Sacramento debate this month, Pringle denied that he had known or approved of the idea, and insisted that he had spoken out against it when he became aware of it.

On election day 1988, however, Pringle told reporters that he was aware poll watchers would be used to monitor voting in his race but said he didn’t know that they would be in uniform, something he said he didn’t approve of.

Pringle at the time repeatedly defended poll watchers as necessary to ensure that Democrats would not use illegal immigrants to stack the vote in the hotly contested race--his first. He said he was satisfied with the election’s outcome and denied that his campaign or the party had done anything wrong.

The local Republican Party paid for the guards; Pringle’s campaign paid for their red-and-white signs. Party Chairman Thomas A. Fuentes, who later apologized, and the party’s then-executive director, Greg Haskins, said the security plan for Pringle’s race was done by Pringle’s campaign.

The guards, dressed in dark blue uniforms, had been given written instructions not to approach voters. But several did, and others copied voters’ license plate numbers. At least one guard was photographed handling ballots.

In depositions taken in 1989 for the civil lawsuit, Pringle declined to answer questions about the guard plan, citing his constitutional right against self-incrimination.

Criminal investigations by the FBI and Orange County district attorney’s office ended without charges being filed.