Calif. candidate urged to exit race (Voter Fraud Alert)

GARDEN GROVE, Calif. - Orange County Republican leaders on Thursday called for the withdrawal of a GOP congressional candidate they believe sent a letter threatening Hispanic immigrant voters with arrest.

Tan D. Nguyen denied knowing anything about the letter in an interview Thursday with The Associated Press but said he fired a campaign staffer who may have been responsible for it.

County Republican Chairman Scott Baugh, however, said that after speaking with state investigators and the company that distributed the mailer, he believes Nguyen had direct knowledge of "obnoxious and reprehensible" letter. He told the AP that the party's executive committee voted unanimously to urge Nguyen to drop out of the race against Democratic U.S. Rep. Loretta Sanchez (news, bio, voting record).

"I learned information that allows me to draw the conclusion that not only was Mr. Nguyen's campaign involved in this, but that Mr. Nguyen was personally involved in expediting the mailer," Baugh said in a telephone interview.

State and federal officials were investigating the letter, which was written in Spanish and mailed to an estimated 14,000 Democratic voters in central Orange County. It warns, "You are advised that if your residence in this country is illegal or you are an immigrant, voting in a federal election is a crime that could result in jail time."

Nguyen, a Vietnamese immigrant whose opposition to illegal immigration has figured heavily in his underdog campaign, was not immediately available to react to the committee's vote. A staffer at his campaign headquarters said he was meeting with investigators.

Earlier Thursday, he said in an interview, "I did not do this. I did not approve of any letter."

Nguyen said he has fired an employee in his office who he believes might have used his campaign's voter data base to send the letter without his knowledge. He said he was cooperating with authorities and planned to continue his campaign.

"I will do whatever I can do to encourage all citizens in this district to vote," he said.

Orange County is an immigration battleground. One founder of the Minuteman civilian border patrol group ran for Congress here and cities have debated issues such as the value of public centers for day laborers and the use of local police to arrest illegal immigrants.

Complaints about the letters this week prompted a state probe, and a spokesman for California's attorney general said investigators had been questioning people in Orange County. U.S. Justice Department spokeswoman Cynthia Magnuson said the department's civil rights division was investigating in coordination with the state attorney general's office.

Numerous political leaders denounced the letter, including Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.

"If it is proven that a candidate was responsible for this action, that candidate is clearly not fit to serve the people of California and should withdraw immediately from his or her race," California GOP Chairman Duf Sundheim said in a statement.

In an interview Thursday morning, Sanchez said she had never spoken to Nguyen because her campaign didn't see him as a threat to her re-election.

"If it is in fact this guy (who sent the letter), the most disgusting and saddest thing about it is that it comes from another immigrant," said Sanchez, a congresswoman born in the U.S. to Mexican parents whose 1996 election signaled Orange County's increasing diversification. "These communities have spent years trying to get naturalized immigrants to vote."

Nguyen's campaign Web site says he was born in 1973 in Vietnam, where his family fled the communist regime.

In 2004, he unsuccessfully ran in the Democratic primary to challenge GOP Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (news, bio, voting record) in a heavily Republican coastal district. He later changed his party affiliation and declared his bid to upset Sanchez.

State attorney general spokesman Nathan Barankin said he did not know how long the investigation would take, but did say that investigators "have identified where we believe the mailing list was obtained."

The owner of Huntington Beach-based Mailing Pros, Christopher West, said he did not know any laws were being broken when his company sent the mailer. "It was in Spanish, and I don't read Spanish," he said.

West said he gave investigators the name of the person who hired him, but declined to provide that name in an interview.

The letterhead of the mailing resembles that of an anti-illegal immigration group, the Huntington Beach-based California Coalition for Immigration Reform. The group's leader, Barbara Coe, said she told investigators Wednesday that her group didn't authorize the letter and that she didn't know who sent it.

"The letterhead was altered, and I've never head of any Sergio Ramirez," the name signed to the letter, Coe said.

This is not the county's first dispute over alleged intimidation of Hispanic voters. In 1988, Republican Assembly candidate Curt Pringle posted uniformed "security guards" at 20 predominantly Hispanic voting places in Orange County.

Republicans said the guards were stationed to prevent noncitizens from casting ballots. Pringle and the county GOP paid $400,000 to settle a civil rights lawsuit alleging intimidation of Hispanic voters.

Dornan Fights to Overturn Vote Fraud.

By Al Santoli
Special to the U.S. Veteran Dispatch
January-February 1997 Issue

Don't count Congressman Bob Dornan out. During nearly twenty years in the House of Representatives, the fiery Congressman from Orange County, California, earned a reputation as the most outspoken advocate for American servicemen and their families. In the face of the most difficult challenge of his political career, the former Air Force fighter has filed a petition in the House to reclaim his seat. During a February 1 interview with the U.S. Veteran Dispatch, the former Chairman of the House Military Personnel Subcommittee passionately vowed to continue his effort to overturn large scale vote fraud that tipped the balance of the most hotly contested Congressional race in the nation to his liberal Democrat opponent, Loretta Brixey-Sanchez.

Congressman Dornan's case was bolstered by independent investigative reports by both the Los Angeles Times and Orange County Register that found a number of non-citizens who illegally voted for the Democratic ticket. Dornan's attorney, Michael Schroeder, claims that as many as 3,500 potentially invalid ballots have been identified, including about 1,000 cast by non-citizens or convicted felons and 1,985 in excess of the number of persons who signed up to vote. For example, in one precinct the California Coalition for Immigration Reform (CCIR) obtained a list of 18 illegal immigrants who voted, compiled by a social worker on duty at the polling place. The Orange County office of the Registrar of Voters claims to have found only 11 who double voted. However, the registrar has refused to consider the large number of non-citizens who voted and the illegal chain of custody of absentee ballots that were delivered to polling places by radical Hispanic activists. As a result of newspaper reports of illegalities, investigators from the office of the California Secretary of State and the Orange County District Attorney raided the Santa Ana office of Hermandad Mexicana Nacional on January 14.

The Los Angeles Times randomly interviewed 64 Mexican emigrants registered by Hermandad before they received citizenship, a felony under U.S. law, of which 19 emigrants illegally voted against Dornan in the election. The organization, which was contracted by the Clinton administration to assist the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service to register new citizens under the controversial "Citizenship USA" program, was founded in 1974 by a self proclaimed "militant Marxist-Leninist," Hermandad Mexicana registered some 585 voters in the 46th District, most of whom have yet to be investigated for ballot legality.

Hermandad was not the only radical leftist organization hired by the Clinton administration or Democratic Party to mobilize the Hispanic community, which comprises more than fifty percent of Dornan's District. The ingenue victor, Loretta Brixey-Sanchez, admittedly convinced the Democratic Campaign Committee to bring in the radical pro-Sandinista organization, Neighbor to Neighbor, from San Francisco to devise and coordinate a program to get "occasional Hispanic voters" - many of whom may not be U.S. citizens - to the polls on election day.

While Brixey-Sanchez celebrated her dubious victory, Shelley Moskowitz, the Neighbor to Neighbor political director in Washington, D.C., cited revenge for Dornan's support of the Contra's struggle for democracy in Nicaragua. "We are tickled to see him (Dornan) retired," said Moskowitz, "and to elect a Latina to represent the District."

The most obvious casualty caused by the Brixey-Sanchez election coup is the violation of the integrity of United States Constitutional voting process. "I will continue my campaign to overturn the fraud in my district," Dornan vows. "There is still much unfinished work to account for our POW/MIAs. What's at stake is the precedent - for better or worse - that will be set for future elections throughout California and in many other parts of the country."

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