New Effort to Deny Services to Illegal Immigrants Fizzles

Proponents of a new state initiative to deny illegal immigrants most public services abandoned their effort this week, saying they couldn’t gather enough signatures to place the measure on the November ballot.

Supporters blamed the development on lack of backing from California’s GOP leaders and the long legal battle that eventually smothered the first such effort, Proposition 187.

That proposition, approved by nearly 60% of the voters in 1994, died in July after Gov. Gray Davis decided not to appeal a federal court ruling that declared the initiative’s core provisions unconstitutional. The measure provoked protests across the state and encouraged as many as 1 million Latino legal residents to become citizens.

The sequel to Proposition 187, written by Tustin accountant Ron Prince, who co-authored the earlier measure, sought to change the state Constitution by forcing California to abide by federal immigration law. Under federal law, state and local governments cannot provide benefits to illegal immigrants unless a state passes a law allowing it. Prince’s initiative also would have prohibited the Legislature from approving such a law.

Prince said the new campaign got off to a late start because Proposition 187 remained alive until the governor’s protracted effort to mediate the legal battle over the measure ended in July. Prince also complained that conservative legal organizations spurned his requests for help in drafting the initiative. In addition, some Republican representatives declined to publicly support his effort, he said.

Tom Fuentes, chairman of the Republican Party of Orange County, said that the success of initiatives depends on timing and that Prince’s campaign was never viable.

“I don’t think it ever evolved to a serious consideration in this election cycle. The focus of the political arena has been [otherwise],” he said. The proposed initiative “never captured much energy in the community.”

GOP endorsement of the first measure cost the party support among Latinos, and few Republican leaders wanted to take that risk with the newest version.

“In the last six years, we have really regretted” supporting Proposition 187, said Michael Capaldi, president of Orange County’s Lincoln Club, a Republican organization that endorsed the earlier measure but opposed the new version. “It accomplished nothing but to drive a wedge between Anglos and Latinos. It didn’t create a disincentive for illegal immigration.”

The Republican Party and big conservative organizations backed away from the latest effort, and for that reason supporters probably will run into the same barriers in the future, he said.

“If you can’t raise the money to collect the signatures, you can’t get it on the ballot,” Capaldi said.

Mark Silverman, a lawyer for the Immigration Legal Resources Center and co-counsel in a lawsuit against Proposition 187, said he was happy to hear of the initiative’s demise. “This is a very good development, not only for immigrants but for all Californians,” he said. “It’s another indication that we are moving away from scapegoating and the politics of division to working together on our common problems.”

Despite the setback, Prince said, he believes the public still wants a measure that prohibits illegal immigrants from receiving benefits and may launch another effort next year.