Transcript excerpts from Fernando Guerra, Ph.D. Loyola Marymount University & Senator Dick Mountjoy

Topic:

CARDINAL ROGER MAHONEY & LATINO POLITICAL POWER (Partial transcripts)

LESLIE DUTTON: Welcome back to Full Disclosure. We’re talking about Latino political power, the Catholic Church and Cardinal Roger Mahony.

Fernando Guerra. You are the expert about Latino politics and ethnic politics. I’d like you to share with us today: What are the components that are coming together to make this power base happen? There are certain elements that are coming together, a convergence, if you will. Would you please tell us what those elements are.

GUERRA: Well, first and foremost, and the most powerful is just a demographic shift. The number of Latinos. Second is that it’s not just population, but actual voters that count. And so there’s obviously a disparity there. But the tremendous increase in the number of Latino registered voters and the number of registered voters that are actually turning out. That’s the greatest impact. Number two is a convergence of forces that include the emergence of Spanish-language television that we just talked about, the fact that labor unions are increasing in Los Angeles, and they’re highly dependent on Latino workers. The Catholic church has really changed its tone from 20 years ago, where it sees itself as having a preferential option for the poor, the immigrant, the other, and has become advocate – strongly advocating under Cardinal Mahoney, a Latino agenda, almost.

DUTTON: Now, that’s – I want to stop you right there because that’s fascinating, ‘cause I know you had referred to it as “The Latino Catholic Church.” Is it just the population that’s doing this, or is this just a phenomenon in the church?

GUERRA: It’s an incredible phenomena in Los Angeles. Any good institution, business or what have you, has to respond to its customer base, its community, et cetera. The church – those who are Catholic in Los Angeles have changed dramatically. And the role of the Catholic church has changed dramatically. Number one, Los Angeles has always been a protestant town, believe it or not, up until about the 1960s. Riordan is the first Catholic mayor of this century. And so the Catholic church has emerged as a number of Catholics have taken on prominent roles, and Latinos. What should the church do in terms of its social, political responsibility? And so it has to change. And every institution has to say, there’s a tremendous demographic shift. What – how do we respond to that?

DUTTON: You have made the observation that Cardinal Mahoney and the church played a significant role in Proposition 187 in terms of money that they spent. Is that something we can expect in the future, for the churches to play a role in the political expenditure of influence?

GUERRA: I just want to make something very perfectly clear. The Catholic church and the Archdiocese never directly spent money in the campaign for or against 187. However, they do utilize their resources to try to mobilize Catholics in general, the community in general, and Latinos specifically, to get out and do their civic participation, which is to vote. The Cardinal feels a responsibility, as do most of the church hierarchy, that they have to educate their parishioners on what they believe are important issues, whether it has to do with abortion, divorce, or the treatment of immigrants. They feel it strongly that they need to articulate that.

FULL TRANSCRIPT AVAILABLE for above PROGRAM #306 videotaped on July 20, 2001

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LESLIE DUTTON: Now, Dr.Guerra really sees the emerging Latino power under the auspices of the Catholic church here with Cardinal Mahoney. Yet so often we hear that church and state should be separated. Do you see this as a potential opposition for what you’re doing?

SENATOR DICK MOUNTJOY: Well, it may be opposition. But I hate to pop his bubble. He creates the illusion that just because you’re of Hispanic descent that you all of a sudden become mindless robots that follow this leadership. They’re as independent voters as any. We found in 187, those that were American citizens didn’t want somebody cheating to get into the country. They work very hard. My grandparents worked very hard to come here. Their grandparents worked very hard to come here. And they don’t like illegal entry, no matter what, from where, or who. And so for him to take the assumption that just because they are Hispanic that somehow they’re going to follow lock step with his liberal ideology isn’t true. I hate to pop his bubble and tell him that. Now, the Catholic church, he believes that he’s grown in power in the Catholic church. Well, you know, I think the Catholic church is smart enough to know that their duty is to create more power for God Almighty. Their mission in life is to create a worship for the God that we all bow to. And so I think he may get a few here and there that are out to lunch, you know, but I don’t believe that he can persuade the Catholic population to follow blindly his liberal bent. That isn’t going to happen.

DUTTON: And with Cardinal Mahoney and the Latino agenda, you think that’s just wishful thinking on his part?

MOUNTJOY: He can have all the agendas he chooses to have, but there again, people are individual thinkers. They don’t blindly follow today. There is more education out there about these issues today. He talked about Hispanic television and Hispanic-speaking radio programs and the Hispanic newspapers, but there is the internet. There is talk radio. There is mainstream media. So he’s believing that everyone that is of Hispanic descent is just going to blindly follow their liberal dictates, and I can tell you, I have met some rank and file Hispanic people that make me look like a left winger. They are so conservative. They are patriotic Americans, and they’re not going to follow this kind of nut case.

DUTTON: Well, it’s interesting that he, because he’s the leader of this Center for the Study of Los Angeles, predicting that this is such an emerging power, so I guess maybe this will be an interesting test. As you get going with your campaign, we’ll see whether they participate or not. Right?

SENATOR DICK MOUNTJOY: We’ll see how well he does. He is an elitist. And, you know, when you’re an elitist, you can’t believe that anybody disagrees with you. I mean, “My goodness, I’ve got a Ph.D. and I’ve got all this stuff, and how could you disagree with me? You must follow me.”

FULL TRANSCRIPT AVAILABLE for above PROGRAM #412 videotaped Nov. 3, 2004

Transcript excerpts from Interview of Xavier Reyes

Xavier Reyes Program #376, October 23, 2003

Check our website for full details and access to our Streaming Video, FREE for thirty days.

DUTTON:

What benefits will there be, giving licenses to illegal aliens?

REYES:

There’s a lot of benefits. One of them is, obviously, the public safety issue. I mean, that, in itself, is a huge issue. You know, like it was said earlier, 10 percent of the folks that are driving out on the roads don’t have insurance. They don’t have driver’s licenses. So that’s one of the main issues. Public safety. The other issue is insurance, itself. I’m not an economist, but I can tell you. Economy is scaled. More people are out on the road; more insurance. Premiums going down. So there’s huge economic benefits. More people on the road, obviously there’s a lot of folks are working, people that could be driving out on the road, I mean, there’s a geometric expansion of benefits from that, alone.

Transcript excerpts from Interview of Nativo Lopez

Nativo Lopez, Program #375, October 23, 2003

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DUTTON:

Aren’t we talking about illegal aliens?

LOPEZ:

No, we’re not. We’re really talking about highway safety, and that was the issue. It’s always been the issue. Nevertheless, these individuals have made it an immigration issue, and it’s not an immigration issue. We have close to 2.2 million unlicensed, uninsured drivers in California. There’s over 22 million licensed drivers in California. What is the alternative? That we’re going to wait until there’s five, six, eight million unlicensed, uninsured drivers in California? Who’s going to be burdened by that? Mrs. Jones, Mr. Smith, who’s licensed, who’s insured, and is going to bear the brunt of increased premiums, hit-and-runs, et cetera.

Transcript excerpts from Interview of Larry Flynt

Larry Flynt Program #373, September 19, 2003

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LARRY FLYNT:

Well, look. What Gray Davis did in terms of authorizing those driver’s licenses was really embarrassing to anybody who lives in California. Illegal immigration has been a huge drain on this State forever. And each administration gives it lip service, but nobody does anything about it. You know, I’ talking about not just regular benefits, but Medicare and other services, you know, that are provided to the illegals. So I’m not opposed to immigration because we’re a nation of immigrants. But we have to have orderly immigration. And we have not made any effort to close the border. It’s wide open. Cars drive through in the thousands, you know. So the Federal government has to get in and close that border.

DUTTON:

Tell me, what do you think about the California State Legislature that passes a bill, and it’s signed into law by the governor, saying that they’re going to give illegal aliens free tuition at the California colleges?

LARRY FLYNT:

We have many children in this State that live in poverty, that are underprivileged, but are also citizens of this country. Now, those people, I think, deserve preferential treatment over illegal aliens. Now, I don’t want to make this sound like that I’m against immigration, I’m against aliens coming into the country. I’m not. You know. But –

DUTTON:

But what they’re doing is actually sending a signal for more people to come here, isn’t it?

LARRY FLYNT:

Yeah. Because they’re offering more. They want to give them a driver’s license, they want to pay their tuition, they want to give them benefits that take care of their medical expenses. You know, there’s every reason why they come.

DUTTON:

Okay. Give us your wisdom here. Why do you think the legislature and the governor are doing this? If it’s hurting the State, how are they benefiting?

LARRY FLYNT:

I’ll tell you exactly why. They’re all paranoid about the Latino vote because it’s 60 percent of the electorate in California. And not only do they want to pander to this vote, but they want to do some of these things that we just discussed which, you know, are unethical and improper, to try and entice the vote.

Transcript Excerpts From : Phony Sample Ballots & Paid Endorsements Confuse the Voters

HOLMAN:

I’d like to bring up another example of what I consider a new wave of deceptive advertising with slate mailers, and that is the slate mailer that Maxine Waters just came out with in the last election. I believe you will see an example of it on the screen. What it is, Maxine Waters actually duplicated the official sample ballot – duplicated the picture, duplicated the printing, made it look exactly like a government publication that we all get called the Official Sample Ballot. And it called itself the Official Sample Ballot. If viewers are looking at this example on the screen, I’d like you to identify which one is slate mail and which one is actually a government publication. And this is a whole new twist of slate mailer operators trying to really deceive the voters, and we need some sort of disclosure requirements that flag what’s going on here. We’ve got to know that this is not the real official sample ballot.

LOWENSTEIN:

Individual voters already have that right to go to court if there’s a violation. The fact is: There usually aren’t violations. If you think that imitating the Official Sample Ballot is a problem, then maybe there should be a law that prevents that.

HOLMAN:

That’s right. What we’re talking about here are the for-profit slate mailers. I just want to rehash this a little bit. We’re not talking about the party slate mailers in which the party is trying to let voters know who they endorse. Candidates do not pay for access to those. We’re talking about the for-profit slate mailers in which it’s run by a private company, and that private company charges access to candidates to buy a slot on the mailer. Currently, there is a very weak disclosure law, and that is, when a candidate buys access onto one of these for-profit mailers, there is a little asterisk put next to the candidate’s name. There is rarely any identification of real party I.D., for instance, of the candidate. Just as asterisk. And then the asterisk goes down into a footnote that’s buried away in a little tiny box that says this candidate paid for access to the slate mailer. Many voters, including myself, have been deceived by that, not realizing that that’s what the little footnote meant. So on Proposition 208, we had one significant clarification to that, and that is, instead of using a little footnote and an asterisk, we put three dollar signs next to each candidate who paid for access onto that slate mailer. That did help notify voters that money was involved and that they should read the slate mailer a little closer than what they’ve normally done. So what we’re talking about here and trying to reform slate mailers, primarily is disclosure. Let slate operators, let private companies endorse whoever they want, but let the voters know that money exchanged hands for that endorsement.

DUTTON:

Okay. Now, do you go along with that?

MOUNTJOY:

Yes. I think that it’s fine to sell advertising space, but the voters deserve to know that that is paid advertising space. There’s a placard that came out – this is not in color, but it was in color at the time. This is a senior card. Seniors take this card to the poll. My name is on there, and yet they endorse two people that I don’t endorse. They happen to be Democrats; I’m a Republican, and they endorsed over here, using my popularity in the district to hopefully get the voters to vote for their two Democrat candidates against some people that I did endorse. The point here is: I can’t even refuse to allow them to print my name on this disclosure. Even if I said to them, “Don’t put me on your slate mailer,” they can use my name on there

DUTTON:

Senator Mountjoy, what can the voters do to verify the accuracy of the information on a slate card when they have to make up their minds?

MOUNTJOY:

Well, it would help if they got a magnifying glass, and then went down and looked at the asterisks and then read the disclaimer. That might give them a hint. The other thing they can do, Leslie, if they want to see a change in this disclaimer, and I think that’s where you have to go. We need to make it very clear that these slate cards are paid political ads, and no more and no less, unless they’re coming from a State party or they’re coming from a legitimate organization that’s sending it out free of charge, without charging candidates. But when you charge a candidate, the people have a right to know, very clearly, that this is a paid political ad. That’s all we’re saying. And if that’s done, the people then have an opportunity to judge the merits of the card. That’s all we’re saying. What is wrong with full disclosure? Nothing. That’s the name of your program.