Republicans like California Gov. Pete Wilson have gotten so much political mileage out of the immigration issue that it's easy to overlook the fact that many Democrats have done the very same thing. Granted, Democrats do their immigrant-bashing less crudely than, say, Pat Buchanan. But the message gets through anyway. Just ask California's senior U.S. senator, Dianne Feinstein.
Wilson was deservedly lambasted for using Proposition 187, the initiative aimed at illegal immigrants, to revive his flagging gubernatorial campaign in 1994. But how many remember that Feinstein also played the immigration card to win a close election that same year?
At least one of her television commercials--which near as I can determine aired only in the San Diego area, where immigration has long been a hot-button issue--was as crude as anything Wilson did. It showed Feinstein in the foreground, bemoaning the evils of illegal immigration, while people were seen clambering over a high fence in the darkened background. It looked like the former San Francisco mayor was running for immigration commissioner rather than senator.
And it's worth remembering that her very tight race against Michael Huffington (who did his share of immigrant bashing, too) wasn't decided until the closing days of the campaign, when it was revealed that Huffington, like Wilson, had once employed an illegal immigrant. All this background is by way of pointing out some poetic justice in the distinctly uncomfortable position Feinstein may find herself in as Congress completes its latest effort to fix the nation's immigration laws.
In July, a House-Senate conference committee is scheduled to meet to reconcile the two versions of a 1996 immigration bill. The effort could bog down on any of several issues, but the most controversial is the Gallegly amendment, named for Rep. Elton Gallegly, a Simi Valley Republican. Dubbed "Son of 187" by critics, it would allow states to bar the children of illegal immigrants from public schools--the very provision of Proposition 187 that has kept it bogged down in the courts ever since it was approved by California voters.
The Gallegly amendment is opposed not just by education lobbyists but by most of the major police organizations as well. Groups like the Fraternal Order of Police are certainly not soft on illegal immigration. They just see no good coming from children being tossed out of schools and onto the streets. And White House spokesmen have warned that President Clinton may veto any immigration bill that includes the Gallegly amendment.
