GOP Should Retain Its Partisan Principles

One has to marvel at the hubris exhibited by Frank del Olmo (“Trying to Exorcise a GOP Demon,” Commentary, June 23). After commending GOP gubernatorial candidate Bill Simon Jr. for courting Latino voters, and after encouraging the California GOP to back away from Proposition 187-style “anti-immigrant themes,” he ends his commentary by saying that, should the GOP abandon its anti-immigrant tendencies, it “just might help bring some partisan balance back into California politics.”

If the state GOP becomes more like the Democrats by abandoning the millions of Californians (of all races and ethnicities) who consider illegal immigration to be a major problem for our state, then we won’t have “partisan balance.” Turning the GOP into the Democrats will only serve to give us two Democratic parties. I would rather have a minority of Republican state legislators who stick by their principles and represent people like me than a “balanced” Legislature in which both parties are practically indistinguishable.

Del Olmo should be reminded that voters in California overwhelmingly passed ballot initiatives that restricted services to illegal immigrants, ended race-based affirmative action and scuttled bilingual education. This is what the majority of California voters want. We deserve to have at least one party in this state that represents our views.

Kent J. Tyler

Los Angeles