California Still Struggling to Remain American

It would be easy to count out the broke and bedraggled Golden State, given its decades-long descent into Mexifornia, despite early and passionate efforts to end open borders. Citizens here were among the first to organize against the illegal alien assault, such as the 1989 movement to Light Up the Border in San Diego and 1994's Prop 187 to end benefits for illegals, which passed by nearly 60 percent. But these efforts were not enough to thwart the powerful forces—the "Slave Power"—that want cheap labor. So the unlawful foreigners keep coming to this day.

The friends of American sovereignty have not given up, however. That's clear Monday, April 4 rally in Sacramento to support the introduction of Assembly Member Tim Donnelly's Arizona-style immigration enforcement bill, AB 26.

The crowd gathered near the Capitol steps was not large, perhaps 100 or so, but it was enthusiastic about the strong legislation offered despite its slim-to-none chance of passage in the uber-blue Sacramento. (Photo slideshow here.)

Tim Donnelly is a freshman member from San Bernardino County in southern California. A small manufacturer, he founded a Minuteman chapter there in 2005. He won initially among several primary candidates and later in the general election, with the motto "Send a Minuteman to Sacramento".

Excellent! You don't expect to see the real deal in Sacramexico City.

It was also good to see the emphasis given throughout the rally to the victims of illegal alien crime. During Donnolly's introductory remarks, he specifically mentioned the murder of the three members of the Bologna family of San Francisco—a self-proclaimed "sanctuary city" for illegal alien criminals—by a known foreign gangster with previous arrests for violent crime.

"When that widow Danielle Bologna sued, her lawsuit was thrown out—justice denied. When Kris Kobach, who is now the Secretary of State of Kansas, wrote a provision that is now in the bill SB 1070 and is now in my bill AB 26, and that provision allows the citizens to sue their government", the Assemblyman told the crowd.[Tea Party rallies for Arizona-style immigration law at the Capitol, by Wyatt Buchanan, SF Chronicle Blog, April 4, 2011]

Interestingly, the lawsuit provision of Arizona bill SB 1070, where crime victims can sue when sanctuary policies harm them, was not challenged in court.

Jamiel Shaw, an African American from Los Angeles. spoke movingly about the loss of his son Jamiel Jr., shot and killed just three doors from home by an illegal alien gangster released from Los Angeles jail without being deported. Jamiel Jr. was a star athlete in high school and was being recruited by top colleges for an athletic scholarship. But his promising young life was snuffed out by a Hispanic thug looking to kill a black kid in the gangs' ethnic cleansing campaign for turf and race dominance in LA. (In 2006 several Latino gangsters were convicted of an anti-black conspiracy to drive African-Americans out of the Highland Park neighborhood.)

"Here we are giving you a chance for the American dream, and you're giving us the American nightmare", said Shaw, reflecting on his family's pain caused by non-enforcement of immigration laws. [Rally held for AZ-style immigration bill, April 4, 2011]

Donnelly's staff placed a California map on an easel near the speaker's podium. It was covered with arrows and notes of illegal alien crimes all over the state, including drug crimes and marijuana growers.

Several Assembly Members spoke to the assembled group in support the Donnelly bill. They included Brian Jones (District 77, Santee), Shannon Grove (District 32, Bakersfield), Don Wagner (District 70, Orange County), Alan Mansoor (Costa Mesa, the former mayor of that community when it declared itself a "rule of law city"), Diane Harkey (District 73, Oceanside) and Steve Knight (District 36, Palmdale).

Speaking of Arizona, State Senator Russell Pearce appeared and delivered a clear message of law enforcement: "Illegal is not a race; it's a crime, and it effects every one of our families".

He further refuted the claim of the Main Stream Media that Arizona's law was somehow "controversial" or "divisive"—"Controversial with whom? Those who support the laws versus those who don't?"

Senator Pearce also observed the loss of friends murdered by illegal aliens, like rancher Rob Krentz, as well as police officers killed in the line of duty protecting Americans. His own son, Deputy Sean Pearce, was shot by an alien in 2004 while executing a search warrant for homicide suspects, fortunately recovering.

Speaker Rick Oltman, now associated with 9/11 Families for a Secure America, disputed the idea that borders and immigration are a Washington-only issue. Rick told the crowd:

"Immigration problems and immigration enforcement has become a states' rights issue.

"If the federal government isn't going to enforce the law, and they aren't, then the states must enforce the law if we are to preserve our communities and protect our states from immigration anarchy.

"The people of Arizona knew this when they passed Proposition 200 with 56% of the vote in 2004, and the people of California knew this when the passed Proposition 187 with almost 60% of the vote in 1994.

"To solve this problem and save our country it is going to the courage of men like Tim Donnelly and Russell Pearce and the others here today."

All in all, the rally was a fine effort with excellent speeches and a nice crowd—a number of whom drove from southern California. The event got a good amount of media coverage.

Of course, some of the reporting seemed to be on the lookout for another noisy citizen movement against immigration anarchy, full of the conflict that the MSM enjoys, like the San Francisco Chronicle's "Tea Party rallies for Arizona-style immigration law at the Capitol."  A Sacramento Bee columnist opined that Republicans were blowing off the new demographic tribe in town (as if the Rs could out-pander the Dems): "Dan Morain: Stuck in silo, one party writes off Latino vote."  Of course, the real prize in California is the white a.k.a. American vote, which neither John McCain nor Meg Whitman carried.(Meg Whitman got exactly 50 percent of the white vote, which is no way to win elections.)

But the true nature of Sacramento—all Democrat, all the time—kicked in the next day when AB 26 went to committee and failed on a party-line vote.

Still, defeat in committee does not necessarily mean eternal damnation for a worthy piece of legislation in California. California is a state that does propositions. A series of reform-oriented propositions over the last couple decades allowed California voters to launch reforms in areas where professional pols feared to tread. Those initiatives included Prop 209 to end affirmative action in public institutions, Prop 227 to end bilingual education and Prop 187 to end benefits to illegal aliens.

So if Tim Donnelly's legislation were to be resurrected into a voter choice in a future election, it wouldn't be the first time that the people had the opportunity to voice their will about vital issues. We voters like to have something we really want on the ballot—rather than having to vote against increasingly awful choices.

A red-blooded proposition in defense of American sovereignty would certainly encourage patriot voters to come out on election day—something the conflicted Republican Party of California should be thinking about.

Brenda Walker (email her) lives in Northern California and publishes two websites, LimitsToGrowth.org and ImmigrationsHumanCost.org. On the way home from Sacramento, she and her friends stopped to eat at an In-N-Out Burger, where the cheerful teen-aged workers all spoke English as they cooked up delicious chow. You would think the place used E-verify or something.