Free Republic

WITH CALIFORNIA political leaders already behaving illogically and erratically on illegal immigration, I have a sense of dread about what they'll do after the May 1 job walkout by backers of amnesty for illegal immigrants. For years, illegal-immigration policy in California has been driven by fear -- fear of being unfairly labeled "anti-Latino" is one reason the California Legislature doesn't study basic questions, such as, "What does it cost the average California taxpayer to support an illegal immigrant?" Nervous Sacramento politicians don't talk openly about crucial policy issues, such as the cost to California's infrastructure from illegal immigration. Now, even...

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Prominent Latino leaders in California on Tuesday played down death threats apparently sparked by the divisive debate over illegal immigration. California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger told reporters on Monday that Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and California Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante had both been targets of "disturbing and hateful death threats." "Hate, racism and intolerance are never accepted in our public debates," said Schwarzenegger, himself an immigrant from Austria. "That is not what California stands for. The greatness of California is its rich diversity." Police are investigating the threats, which came in postcards, e-mails and an Internet...

SACRAMENTO — Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said Monday that prominent public officials of Mexican heritage, including Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, have recently received racially motivated death threats. At a news conference in the Capitol, Schwarzenegger said he had asked district attorneys throughout the state to take extra precautions against hate-based crimes. Villaraigosa and Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante have both "received disturbing and hateful death threats," the governor said. The governor's advisors had heard about the threats from a Sacramento news report. They told the governor, who decided to make a public statement. (snip) Villaraigosa told KCAL-TV Channel 9 news late...

Prominent Hispanic elected officials, including the mayor of Los Angeles and California's lieutenant governor, have received threats in the midst of a heated national debate over immigration policy, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said Monday. Schwarzenegger told reporters about the threats against Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante, both Democrats, during a news conference in his office Monday. "There's something very important that I need to speak to my fellow Californians about," he said. "It has come to my attention that our Lieutenant Gov. Bustamante and our Los Angeles Mayor Villaraigosa and other elected officials of Mexican heritage have received...

Every decade or so, California experiences a watershed election year which realigns the state's cast of politicians - bringing some careers to an end and jump-starting others - and 2006 could be one of those events. Whether Arnold Schwarzenegger continues his governorship or becomes an idiosyncratic footnote to history is, of course, the biggest political question hanging over the state. But polls indicate that Schwarzenegger's political position is improving - in part because voters are giving him credit for trying to fix infrastructure - and his two would-be challengers, Treasurer Phil Angelides and Controller Steve Westly, have their own problems....

OAKLAND — The 25-year-old daughter of Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante was charged Monday with driving under the influence, according to the Alameda County District Attorney's Office. Sonia Bustamante, a University of California, Berkeley graduate who lives in Oakland, was arrested by the California Highway Patrol at about 2:45 a.m. Saturday after an officer spotted her driving erratically on eastbound Interstate 580 near the Grand Avenue curve, court records show. She failed a field sobriety test and registered a 0.16 blood-alcohol level — twice the legal limit — on the first of two Breathalyzer tests, authorities said. A second Breathalyzer registered...

Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante used to joke about his ballooning weight, even when he was running against celebrity body builder Arnold Schwarzenegger in the 2003 gubernatorial recall election. Then Bustamante woke up one morning in January and the scales beneath him read 278 pounds. Suddenly, the jokes weren't funny anymore. He wasn't just fat, but clinically obese. To put his weight in perspective, he wrestled at 145 pounds as a 5-foot-7 senior at Tranquillity High School. Bustamante, 53, was a mere 12 pounds short of being exactly twice as heavy as he was when he was sweating to make weight...

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - A company that sought state approval for a major development deal on the city's waterfront made substantial campaign contributions to politicians who controlled the project's fate, a newspaper reported Saturday. Campaign finance records show that Mills Corp., which long has lobbied to build a $210 million retail and sports complex on Piers 27-31, contributed at least $53,250 to Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante, state Attorney General Bill Lockyer and state Controller Steve Westly in the months before and after they endorsed the project, the San Francisco Chronicle reported. Westly and Bustamante, who sit on the three-member California...

The Smearing of BustamanteThe Far Right and Anti-Mexican RacismBy JORGE MARISCAL09/01/03 It would be tempting to dismiss the recent media flap around the candidacy of Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante and his membership in the student organization Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlán (MEChA) as much to do about nothing. But for those of us who have been following over the last decade the political propaganda of anti-Mexican hate groups, the controversy indicates just how far the rhetoric and tactics of the extreme right have entered the media mainstream. As Bustamante's poll numbers began to rise, his affiliation with MEChA over twenty-five...

Narcotics officers stumbled upon a record number of illegal immigrants Friday evening while searching the Madera County home of a man arrested in a drug sting, police said.Fresno police say they found 80 undocumented Mexican immigrants at the home of 38-year-old Jose Esparza, an accused methamphetamine dealer who allegedly sold an undercover officer a half-pound of drugs Friday afternoon.The discovery marked what appears to be the largest immigrant smuggling ring uncovered by the Fresno Police Department, said Sgt. Alex Flores, supervisor of the major narcotics unit..Flores says federal agents needed two large buses to take the immigrants to Fresno, where...

SACRAMENTO (AP) - Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante's former fiscal officer was sentenced to three months in jail for embezzling more than $65,000 in state money he spent partly for trips to Hawaii and a down payment on a Nissan 350Z sports car. Michael Keolanui, 34, also will make restitution and serve an additional three months of home confinement. He had faced up to a year in prison under a plea bargain with federal prosecutors. He pleaded guilty in September to forging two checks totaling $53,700, felonies that could have carried a sentence of up to 20 years in prison. He...

Schwarzenegger will have been out of California about one day in five during his tenure. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has left California through the end of the year, handing off control of the state during his absence to Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante, a Democrat.

MONTEREY - Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante ripped into Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger in Monterey on Friday, accusing the governor of playing presidential politics and engaging in hypocrisy on the use of steroids. Bustamante, the top elected Democrat in California who lost badly in the October 2003 recall election to Schwarzenegger, also took digs at the governor's height, his alleged sexual harassment on movie sets and his early days as an immigrant. A representative of the governor characterized Bustamante's comments as ``a nasty-gram.'' `Sour grapes' ``Our response is that it sounds like sour grapes from someone who is going to be a...

As California moves to begin a lushly financed program of embryonic stem cell research, medical ethicists and other skeptics are concerned that the $3 billion that state voters approved for the endeavor could become a bonanza for private profiteers. Critics say the ballot measure that passed by a wide margin on Nov. 2 contains inadequate safeguards to ensure public oversight of the financial allocations and guarantee public benefit from any medical breakthroughs. They also worry that the promise of stem cell studies has been oversold to the public and say the money might better be directed to more mature medical...

A San Francisco nonprofit group that touts its ties to Secretary of State Kevin Shelley, Assemblyman Leland Yee and other well-known politicians made thousands of dollars in illegal campaign donations during the past three years, state and local records show. Campaign finance reports show that America Education Foundation International, a corporate-funded charity set up to help low-income schools and students, made $3,665 in banned political donations from November 2001 to September 2004. The donations include $500 to former San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown; $800 to Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante; $500 to San Francisco Supervisor Michela Alioto-Pier; $500 to San Francisco...

SACRAMENTO (AP) - Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante paid a record $263,000 fine for violating state limits on accepting campaign donations, California's Fair Political Practices Commission said today. The state's political watchdog agency charged in a civil lawsuit filed in January that Bustamante and his supporters improperly moved $3.8 million between campaign committees during the recall election in an effort to skirt contribution limits. Although FPPC officials have said Bustamante faced fines of as much as $9 million, the $263,000 settlement is still the largest ever paid by a candidate.

SACRAMENTO - Finding an opening on Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante's schedule is not normally a problem -- even last week when the state's No. 2 executive took over the wheel while Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger vacationed in Hawaii. Backed up in his lobby one afternoon was a group of Sikh businessmen from Stockton, here to talk to the lieutenant governor about a parade. There was a pair of conference calls on the list as well, an aide explained. And then there was the paperwork to read and sign -- two or three sheets at least that Bustamante busied himself with while...

<p>Three years after backers of Proposition 34 promised to "put the brakes on special-interest dollars" in California elections, hundreds of well-heeled donors ran over the $21,200 contribution limit.</p> <p>Some 80 people, businesses or labor unions plunked down at least $100,000 on the Oct. 7 recall election, according to reports filed with the secretary of state. A dozen gave $1 million or more - 47 times the Prop. 34 limit.</p>

SACRAMENTO – In a pair of searing rulings issued over the past four months, a Sacramento judge has suggested that the state's political watchdog has been behaving more like a lapdog. In both cases – one involving Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and one involving Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante – Superior Court Judge Loren McMaster said the Fair Political Practices Commission overlooked clear language and voters' intent to punch loopholes in a political reform measure approved four years ago. The commission already rewrote one regulation to reflect McMaster's opinion, and it is scheduled to review the other one he rejected. Critics say...

Lockyer apologizes for `frat boy' description (booed for voting for Arnold) *** Calif. Democrats Pledge to Re-Elect Boxer (Bush officials compared to vegetables) *** State Demos fix sights on 2004 (Lyndon LaRouche Jr. stages sit-in) *** Posted on Sat, Jan. 17, 2004 Lockyer apologizes for `frat boy' description By Dion Nissenbaum Mercury News Standing before a large group of skeptical Democratic women, Attorney General Bill Lockyer apologized Friday night for describing allegations that Arnold Schwarzenegger had sexually harassed several women before he became governor as ``frat boy behavior.'' ``Anyone that I offended I apologize to,'' Locker told more than 300...