Pete Wilson

I take exception to the tone of your Dec. 28 editorial on Gov. Pete Wilson. Although you did condescend to give him some good marks, which he richly deserves, your theme seems to be that he has “divided Californians.” You don’t acknowledge that Wilson’s hard-headed measures were in order to try to get the state back on a stable economic track. Instead you inject the “race” thing, which always seems to be the editorial tool whenever a political cause arouses radical racial activists to tirade against imagined abuse by the white majority.

JAMES C. KERR

Laguna Beach

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You wisely and carefully acknowledged that it would be “risky and unfair” to second-guess Gov. Wilson’s motives for pushing Props. 187 and 209, then went right ahead and did it anyway. How dare you decide that these propositions “appealed in particular to white voters who resented the fact that California was becoming a state of diverse populations, to voters who were open to the suggestion that California’s problems were caused by the newcomers”?

Prop. 187 appealed to, and was passed by, the majority of California voters who know the difference between legal and illegal immigration and who resent paying benefits to those who enter our country illegally. Illegal immigration isn’t a race, it’s a crime. Likewise, Prop. 209 appealed to, and was passed by, the majority of California voters who wanted equal rights for everyone.

CAROL KEELER

Sylmar

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The review of Wilson’s legacy (‘Wilson Years Saw State Regaining Lost Luster,” Dec. 28) forgot to mention his many “accomplishments” with the state prisons.

The governor and his appointees at the Department of Corrections inflicted cruel and unusual punishment on thousands of inmates at Pelican Bay prison and on tens of thousands of mentally ill inmates statewide. These same prison officials for years embraced a shooting policy that caused almost two dozen unjustified deaths or serious injuries at Corcoran prison alone. The governor also mostly ignored the recommendations of the Little Hoover Commission regarding alternatives to prison, thus creating a grossly overcrowded system that will cost taxpayers billions in coming years.

STEVEN FAMA

San Francisco