Reagan

In 1986, lawmakers decided the problem of illegal immigration had to be dealt with. More than 3 million people were living in the United States after crossing the border illegally or overstaying their visas. A new law signed by President Ronald Reagan gave legal status and a path to citizenship to most of those unauthorized residents - helping many secure a slice of the American dream but also giving fuel to critics who sought to turn "amnesty" into a pejorative. Less than 30 years later, the number of immigrants living in the country illegally is thought to have nearly quadrupled, and the freighted baggage of amnesty looms over new efforts to reform the nation's immigration laws.

Responding to Seth Rosenfeld's May 10 Op-Ed article linking then-California Gov. Ronald Reagan's harsh condemnation of student protests in the 1960s to the eventual decline of the University of California system, reader Bruce Bates wrote in a letter published Tuesday that Rosenfeld "overlooks that this very radicalization has diminished the value of a UC education. " Bates continued: "In the 1950s, when the UC system was at its peak, students were 'well groomed and complacent' (to use Rosenfeld's words)

'Nancy Reagan: The Role of a Lifetime' Where: KOCE When: 10 p.m. Sunday Rating: TV-G (suitable for all ages) 'Reagan' Where: HBO When: 9 p.m. Monday Rating: Not rated

Re "Reagan and the fall of UC," Opinion, May 10 Seth Rosenfeld argues that then-Gov. Ronald Reagan's opposition to the 1960s radicalization of the University of California campuses - Berkeley in particular - was the main driver in the decline of the UC system. He overlooks that this very radicalization has diminished the value of a UC education. In the 1950s, when the UC system was at its peak, students were "well groomed and complacent" (to use Rosenfeld's words). They were in college to learn, not to protest.

Responding to Seth Rosenfeld's May 10 Op-Ed article linking then-California Gov. Ronald Reagan's harsh condemnation of student protests in the 1960s to the eventual decline of the University of California system, reader Bruce Bates wrote in a letter published Tuesday that Rosenfeld "overlooks that this very radicalization has diminished the value of a UC education. " Bates continued: "In the 1950s, when the UC system was at its peak, students were 'well groomed and complacent' (to use Rosenfeld's words)

Call me the skunk at the picnic, but as conservatives celebrate Ronald Reagan's 100th birthday, I'll remind them that their icon often governed as a moderate. Reagan talked like an unbending small-government ideologue, but in Sacramento and Washington he acted as a flexible whatever-size-fits pragmatist. Those types of Republicans are in very short supply today and don't seem to exist at all in leadership positions. For that reason alone, all of us should be commemorating the centennial of Reagan's birth.

With the 100th anniversary of Ronald Reagan's birth exactly one year away, the former president's admirers are pondering what kind of party to throw. Events are planned across the country: A Reagan-themed float will grace Colorado Boulevard in Pasadena during the Rose Parade on Jan. 1. His boyhood home of Dixon, Ill., has commissioned an original piece of music -- the "Reagan Suite" -- to honor him. A program at Eureka College, from which Reagan graduated, will reflect on his Midwestern roots.

Help! If Americans rate Reagan "average," America needs help. A twice-elected President has to be good, not just average. Oh yes, he was nice. SOPHIE BINGHAM, Laguna Hills

Regarding Reagan's testimony for the Poindexter trial: It is "sex, lies and videotape" without the sex. JOANNE C. MURRAY Santa Barbara

You have to give Reagan and Bush credit. They got government off our backs . . . and into our pockets. LEE WHITMAN South Pasadena

WASHINGTON - The man who shot Ronald Reagan and three other men in 1981 has been behaving normally when he leaves the mental hospital in Washington, D.C., where he is being treated, according to Secret Service observations in newly released court documents. John Hinckley Jr., 57, shops at Wal-Mart, Target and PetSmart during visits to his mother's home in Williamsburg, Va. One of his first stops is often a Wendy's. At home with his mother, he performs lots of chores, plays guitar and makes art. He shows few of the symptoms that led to the 1982 finding that he was insane, and therefore not guilty of attempted murder and other charges in the assassination attempt.

If presidential politics ever involved time travel, President Obama might be in a little trouble. If an election between Ronald Reagan and Barack Obama were held today, 58% would vote for Reagan over Obama, according to a survey of 1,000 Americans age 18 and older conducted by Kelton Research for the National Geographic Channel. Though when the field is narrowed to people ages 18-34 -- those either too young to have known Reagan as president or too young to remember much -- the gap shrinks to 51% in favor of Reagan.

The alliance between Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan was one of the most enduring political friendships of the past 50 years. The former British prime minister and the decades-long relationship between the two families are the subject of a new exhibition that the Reagan Library and Museum will present starting Tuesday at its location in Simi Valley. A spokeswoman for the organization said the small exhibition will include photographs as well as an assortment of Thatcher-related objects, including a portrait painting by artist Richard Stone, and various gifts exchanged by the Thatcher and Reagan families.

Former First Lady Nancy Reagan said she is "terribly saddened" by the death of former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and described her as a "true champion of freedom and democracy. " In a statement released Monday, Nancy Reagan acknowledged the "very special relationship" between Thatcher and her husband, the late President Ronald Reagan. Their relationship was developed "as leaders of their respective countries during one of the most difficult and pivotal periods in modern history," the statement said.

Would Ronald Reagan have supported gay marriage? His daughter, Patti Davis, thinks so. She told the New York Times in an interview that, growing up in California her family had close relationships with and accepted gay couples. “I grew up in this era where your parents' friends were all called aunt and uncle,” Davis told the paper. “And then I had an aunt and an aunt. We saw them on holidays and other times.” She added, “We never talked about it, but I just understood that they were a couple.” According to the New York Times: Davis "offered several reasons her father, who would have been 102 this year, would have bucked his party on the issue: his distaste for government intrusion into private lives, his Hollywood acting career and close friendship with a lesbian couple who once cared for Ms. Davis and her younger brother Ron while their parents were on a Hawaiian vacation - and slept in the Reagans' king-size bed. " She also said that when Reagan once saw Rock Hudson kill a woman on screen, he told her the closeted gay star “would rather be kissing a man.” Davis' comments come as the U.S. Supreme Court is deciding the fate of Proposition 8, California's ban on gay marriage.

President Reagan stunned fellow citizens and the world 30 years ago this month with a dramatic announcement that the United States would develop and deploy a system capable of intercepting and destroying strategic ballistic missiles. Like President Kennedy's pledge to send a man to the moon, Reagan's vision was meant to stretch minds to new realities that most found inconceivable. As the Strategic Defense Initiative, or SDI, developed, this vision encompassed three big ideas. First, technological advances would make it possible to "hit a bullet with a bullet.

Thanks to Speakes, Reagan will no longer be referred to as the Teflon President. Henceforth he will be known as the ersatz President. JAKE MAXFIELD Camarillo

WASHINGTON - Certain law partners no longer call Theodore B. Olson for lunch. Old friends no longer come to dinner at his sprawling house in the woods near the Potomac. One of his best friends died in December, somewhat estranged. All since Olson - the conservative legal hero, crusader against Bill and Hillary Rodham Clinton, defender of George W. Bush - signed on to fight for same-sex marriage in California, a battle that he will take to the U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday when he challenges Proposition 8, the state measure that banned gay marriage.

SACRAMENTO - State Sen. Jerry Hill grew up in San Francisco and vividly remembers the rare suffocating days of late summer when the fog fled and people sweltered. The city's natural air conditioner clicked off, temperatures soared into the 90s and - back then - the skies boiled into a toxic soup. "There'd be four or five hot days, around 1963 and 1964, when I was playing high school football and the smog was so thick I couldn't run 10 yards without stopping and choking to get air," remembers Hill, 65, new chairman of the Senate Environmental Quality Committee.