California pushes to expand illegal alien health care

Marxist Political Whores

• Democrats choose to seize the wealth of American citizens of all races and re-distribute that wealth to the citizens of foreign nations.
• And the mouth-breathing Sheeple American citizen voters keep re-electing Socialists.

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (Associated Press)  —  President Barack Obama's executive order to spare some immigrants from deportation has galvanized Democrats, immigration groups and health care advocates in California to push for expanding health coverage to a segment of the population that remains uninsured.

The president's action excludes immigrants who came to the country illegally from qualifying for federal health benefits. But California has its own policy of providing health coverage with state money to low-income immigrants with so-called "deferred action" that allow them to avoid deportation. Immigrant and health care advocates say that means Obama's executive order will enable hundreds of thousands of low-income immigrants in California to apply for Medi-Cal, California's version of Medicaid.

Anthony Wright, executive director of Health Access California, said allowing this expanded group of immigrants to participate in the Medicaid program will enable people to get primary and preventive care, "rather than just at the emergency room."

The California Department of Health Care Services, however, has yet to receive formal guidance. A state official said it's too early to tell how the immigration program will impact the overall Medi-Cal program, which is consuming an increasing share of state funds.

Medi-Cal is a health program for the poor paid for by the federal government and the state. It has grown by about 3 million people in California under federal health care reform and now covers more than 11 million Californians, about 30 percent of the state's population. The federal government is paying for the expansion, but the state will eventually pay 10 percent of additional costs to cover low-income adults, many of whom are childless.

The state is expected to spend more than $17 billion of its own money on the program this year, up 3.5 percent a year ago, according to the Legislative Analyst's Office.

"We are assessing what some of the potential impacts could be, but it would be premature for us to comment until we have more specific information available," said Norman Williams, a spokesman for the Department of Health Care Services.

The president's action has also emboldened a Democratic lawmaker to revive a bill that would provide health coverage to all Californians, regardless of their immigration status.

Sen. Ricardo Lara, D-Bell Gardens, plans to reintroduce his Health4All bill on Monday to open Medi-Cal to immigrants, as well as extending subsidized health benefits in a new insurance marketplace for those without legal status. The proposal, which previously carried a cost as high as $1.3 billion a year, stalled in a legislative committee last cycle and Republicans had criticized the cost of the expansion.

"The president's action covers almost half of California's undocumented population, but that still leaves over a million people with no access to health care. We can do better. The bill will cover those remaining uninsured that will not benefit from Obama's action," Lara said.

According to the Center for American Progress, a progressive think tank in Washington, D.C., the president's action lifts the threat of deportation to as many as 1.2 million immigrants living illegally in California. There are an estimated 2.6 million people living illegally in the state.

The issue of benefits for immigrants who are illegally in the United States is a sensitive one.

Joe Guzzardi a spokesman for Californians for Population Stabilization, a Santa Barbara, California-based group that advocates for lower population, said the state is already more generous toward immigrants than most states and adding health coverage may attract more people to cross into California illegally.

"There are millions of Californians who don't have health care insurance or have to pay for their health care insurance out of their own pockets. So it seems unfair to have legislation that provides for people who came to the United States unlawfully to be rewarded with a health care plan," Guzzardi said.

Democrat bill would require retailers, restaurants to pay their employees double on holidays

Actually a good idea.

- - - It is not a "holiday" when you are forced to work.  Consumerism and money worship has taken over society.

Californians working through the holidays could get heftier paychecks under legislation that would mandate double pay for Thanksgiving and Christmas shifts.

As more and more retailers and restaurants remain open on what have historically been off days, said Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez, D-San Diego, workers deserve to earn extra. She plans to unveil a bill that would require additional pay, a policy she settled on in lieu of seeking to bar stores outright from opening on the holidays.

“I’ve watched how the retailers and restaurateurs continue to expand their hours and open up on these holidays that are traditionally family holidays,” Gonzalez said. “What people are being called in to do now is a real slap in the face of family values, frankly,” reports the Sacramento Bee.

Certain industries require some employees to work 365 days a year, Gonzalez noted, recounting how her mother worked as a nurse and would sometimes be called in on holidays. But she draws a distinction between indispensable services like police departments or hospitals and other businesses.

“This is not life and death,” Gonzalez said. “This is consumerism.”

It won’t be Gonzalez’s first foray into expanding workers’ benefits. Last year she successfully pushed through landmark legislation guaranteeing California workers up to three days a year of paid sick leave, garnering enough votes despite a carve-out exempting some workers that angered a prominent union and threatened to split the Democratic caucus.

The California Chamber of Commerce opposed the paid sick-leave bill, although the influential business group did remove a “job killer” tag it had affixed to the legislation. The chamber declined to comment on the forthcoming holiday pay bill since no legislation has not been introduced.

One large retailer that would be affected, Wal-Mart Stores Inc., closes its stores on Christmas but has stayed open on Thanksgiving for more than two decades, according to spokeswoman Brooke Buchanan. She said employees who work on Thanksgiving essentially receive double pay already.

“It equals out to be an extra day’s pay,” Buchanan said.

Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/capitol-alert/article4146801.html#storylink=cpy

The National Republican Congressional Committee's Epic Failure in California

Bakersfield Congressman Kevin McCarthy

Is it Kevin McCarthy's Fault?

• In the biggest GOP landslide in decades, California’s Democratic delegation to the House will actually increase by one seat.
• Personal Note  -  I live in one of the highly targeted seats.  There were 10 Democrat TV ads for every one GOP ad.

Capitol Weekly, one of Sacramento’s most credible news sources that reports on political and policy goings-on in the Golden State, has bestowed their “Singin’ Those Golden State Blues” award for the worst week in California politics to House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, tagging him with the ultimate responsibility for the failure to pick up even one of nine Congressional seats in California that were competitive. 

National Republicans played in only four of those races, losing them all. And Republican candidates in five others seats who narrowly lost received no meaningful financial support from the NRCC whatsoever.

Capitol Weekly, in bestowing the dubious honors on McCarthy, said, "And, it’s Friday, meaning that we look back to see who had the worst week in California politics – who is Singin’ Those Golden State Blues. Our pick: Bakersfield congressman and House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy. After two hotly-contested California congressional races were decided this week, California’s Democratic delegation to the House will actually increase by one seat,” reports Breitbart News.

Their analysis concludes, saying, "So, depending on how you spin it, McCarthy either A) wasted good money trying to pick up seats that were predictably blue; or B) didn’t spend enough to pick up seats that could have been had with a bit more support. Neither option is good, and we’re guessing that the results are giving Mr. McCarthy plenty of heartburn.”

In an earlier analysis of the NRCC’s terrible performance in California this election cycle, Breitbart News Network noted the close losses in nine different seats.

To recap:

CA-3 – Incumbent Democrat John Garamendi, former Lt. Governor of California, beat back a strong challenge from termed-out conservative Assemblyman Dan Logue in this district north and west of Sacramento. Logue got 47.4% of the vote.

CA-7— Incumbent Democrat Ami Bera, who narrowly defeated GOPer Dan Lungren two years ago, was narrowly re-elected over former Republican Congressman Doug Ose, who ended up with around 49.6% of the total vote. The NRCC played big here.

CA-9 — Former U.S. Marshall Tony Amador gave incumbent Democrat Jerry McNerney a run for his money in this northwestern Central Valley seat, garnering 47.9% of the vote with zero help from the NRCC.

CA-16 — Five-term incumbent Democrat Jim Costa won re-election to his Central Valley seat by significantly less than a thousand votes: Another race where virtually any assistance from national Republicans would have flipped the outcome. GOP dairyman Johnny Techerra ended up with 49.3%.

CA-24 — Congresswoman Lois Capps stopped the surge of her GOP opponent, Chris Mitchum (son of famous actor Robert Mitchum). Mitchum got 48.4% of the vote, without any appreciable support from Capitol Hill.

CA-26 — Freshman Democrat Julia Brownley narrowly defeated GOP Assemblyman, former prosecutor, and war veteran Jeff Gorrell in a razor-close race (51%-49). The NRCC engaged here, though not as much as in some other seats.

CA-31 — Out the gate, the “spin” was that the GOP couldn’t hold the seat of retiring Rep. Gary Miller. Turns out it was a self-fulfilling prophesy. Republican Paul Chabot was beat out by Democrat Pete Aguilar by only two and a half points, as the NRCC took a complete pass on this race.

CA-36 — GOP Assemblyman Brian Nestande carried the GOP torch against freshman Democrat Raul Ruiz. The NRCC played modestly in this seat, where Nestande ended up with 46.2% of the final vote.

CA-52 — One could argue that electing Republican Carl DeMaio to replace freshman Democratic Rep. Scott Peters was the NRCC’s top priority in California. The national committee dumped millions into this high-profile race, but fell short with DeMaio garnering 48.4% of the vote.

No doubt many folks were responsible for the targeting decisions made in all of these California races — but McCarthy, who is extremely engaged in such political matters and is the highest ranking national GOP figure in California — was singled out for Capitol Weekly’s top honors.

UC expands legal services for illegal aliens

And the moronic Sheeple of California keep electing this bald bastard.

Dems: "Fuck American Citizens"

• The Democrat run university estimates it had 2,000 undergraduates and 1,100 graduate students enrolled last year who are in the U.S. illegally.
• Democrats screw over American citizens with massive tuition hikes while giving free servives and "grants" to illegal aliens.

SAN FRANCISCO (CBS / AP) — The University of California is planning to offer legal services at six campuses to students who are living in the U.S. illegally or have parents who might be eligible for deportation relief under President Barack Obama’s new immigration order, UC President Janet Napolitano announced Friday.

The pilot program designed to make legal advice available to "immigrant" students at UC campuses without law schools will be staffed by recent law school graduates working under the guidance of an experienced immigration attorney and faculty at the University of California, 

Davis, which has operated an immigration law clinic since the 1980s, said Kevin Johnson, the dean of the law school at Davis.

The idea came out of an advisory committee Napolitano named after she became UC president last year and her previous role as homeland security secretary sparked protests among immigrant rights activists who opposed the increase in deportations under her watch. 

University spokeswoman Brooke Converse said the project has been in the works for several months and that Napolitano’s office is providing $577,860 to fund it.

“We want to create a model for other UC campuses and universities across the nation to provide legal representation for undocumented students on their campuses,” Napolitano said in a statement.

The university estimates it had 2,000 undergraduates and 1,100 graduate students enrolled last year who are in the U.S. illegally, Converse said.

The center also will be well-positioned to help students apply for the grants and loans the state of California is making available to students who are ineligible for federal financial aid because of their immigration status, he said.

California Senate Cutting 90 Jobs, Citing Budget Woes

.

Boo Hoo

• I'm all broken up that the hacks in Sacramento might have to get jobs back in the real world with the rest of us.

(Capital Public Radio)  -  The California Senate is laying off dozens of employees Friday, saying the staff reductions are necessary to meet next year's payroll.

The Senate is reducing its workforce by 90 positions – 40 through layoffs and 50 through normal attrition. The layoffs are in offices widely considered to have cushy jobs with little work. Additionally, Senate employees will pay an extra $30 each month in health care premiums starting in January.

The layoffs come after the retirements this year of longtime Senate Secretary Greg Schmidt and Human Resources chief Dina Hidalgo.

The layoff proposal by new Senate Secretary Danny Alvarez was approved by new Senate President pro Tem Kevin de León (D-Los Angeles).

“Today, the Senate made some difficult but fiscally necessary staff reductions affecting a number of steadfast public servants,” De León said in a statement. “These were all agonizing decisions, but they were unavoidable and made in the public interest.  This Senate bears an ultimate responsibility to our constituents and to California taxpayers to live within our fiscal means, even when it means doing more with less.”

The laid-off employees are being given severance pay and two months notice.

California State Senate

Democrats approve UC Tuition Hikes While Spending Billions on High-Speed Rail

Janet Napolitano - Corrupt Whore

• California, a state of idiots.  They put Leftist Democrats in charge to spend countless billions on bullshit like high-speed rail while screwing over the parents of college students.
• Lining your pockets  -  "The University of California has leased an Oakland residence for incoming system president Janet Napolitano for $9,950 a month, officials said Monday. Napolitano, the former U.S. secretary of Homeland Security and former governor of Arizona, will be provided the housing plus an annual $570,000 salary, $8,916 a year for car expenses and $142,500 for one-time relocation costs."  - - - Los Angeles Times.

A committee of the University of California's governing board voted Wednesday for a tuition increase during each of the next five years over the protests of Gov. Jerry Brown, legislative leaders and students.

After running a gauntlet of protesters, the committee voted 7-2 to approve the plan recommended by UC President Janet Napolitano that would raise tuition as much as 5 percent annually.

Napolitano has said the increase was contingent on the state not giving the 10-campus system more money than currently budgeted.

The full Board of Regents is expected to consider the plan on Thursday, with a majority already indicating they support it reports ABC News.

Under the plan, the average annual cost of a UC education for California residents would go up $612 to $12,804 next fall and to $15,564 by fall 2019. Tuition rates at the 10 schools have been frozen for three years.

The meeting got testy after Brown, a member of the committee. insisted the system's finances have improved under his watch, and that Napolitano and the regents should be able to make do without raising tuition.

He took particular aim at the contention by several regents that the system needs to increase the salaries of administrators and faculty so it can compete with elite private universities for talent.

"We are not talking about a scarcity (of funding) here that is impossible to live with," the governor said.

Napolitano shot back that the money Brown has budgeted for the campuses next year still leaves it below 2008 funding levels. With the budgeted amount, "we will never catch up to where we were then, never mind to when your mother attended," she said.

Before the vote, several members of the board who won't vote until Thursday also put the blame on Sacramento.

Regent Bonnie Reiss, a former adviser to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, noted that the state has managed to find money for high-speed rail and a multi-million dollar rainy fund while giving the university short-shrift.

"What we are saying is the experience of the last decade is the state is an inherently unreliable partner in investing in state public higher education," Reiss said.

UC Executive Vice President Nathan Brostrom, who oversees the system's budget, told the committee that only students with annual family incomes above $175,000 would pay all of the increases, and more than half of all UC students would continue paying no tuition thanks to financial aid.

Students from families that earn between $100,000 and $150,000 a year are likely to see their tuition costs go down over the next four years because of a middle-class scholarship program approved by the state, Brostrom added.

The dissenting votes on Wednesday came from the governor and Student Regent Sadia Saifuddin, who urged UC leaders and state officials to work with students.

"Six hundred dollars may not seem like a lot but that is almost an entire month's rent for some students who are barely making it by as it is, and I was one of those students," Saifuddin said.

The committee had to shout their vote over students who were chanting loudly as they tried to delay the action.

Before the vote, the governor outlined his plan to create a task force to look into various ways of making the UC budget go further by educating more students in less time.

Life in prison for recording music?

Anti-Black Racism

• Freedom of speech has no meaning to the growing police state.  If you are a Black man you are not allowed to sign about crime or try to make money with an album on the subject.

Notes from the Police State  -  San Diego rapper Brandon Duncan, aka Tiny Doo, is facing a lifetime prison sentence for simply putting out an album.

As ABC 10 reports, he and about 14 other gang members are currently facing attempted murder charges stemming from nine local shootings since April 2013. Although the MC hasn’t been officially tied to the murders, prosecutors are looking to charge Duncan by linking his latest album, No Safety, to an obscure 2000 California law that states gang members can be prosecuted if they somehow “benefit” from crimes committed by other gang members.

Prosecutors claim that No Safety makes Duncan’s gang affiliations clear, and that Duncan has “benefited from the shootings because his gang gained in status, allowing him to sell more albums.” The case marks the first time the law has actually ever been enforced.

Oh The Horror!
An "evil" album cover that dares to show a picture of a gun.

Deputy District Attorney Anthony Campagna pointed to the album’s cover as one piece of evidence against Duncan. “We’re not just talking about a CD of anything, of love songs. We’re talking about a CD (cover) … there is a revolver with bullets,” he noted.

Duncan’s attorney, Brian Watkins, has called the charges “a reach,” saying: “It’s shocking. He has no criminal record. Nothing in his lyrics say go out and commit a crime. Nothing in his lyrics reference these shootings, yet they are holding him liable for conspiracy. There are huge constitutional issues.”

Alex Kreit, a professor at the Thomas Jefferson School of Law, weighed in on the case and whether the charges were constitutionally sound. “Where does that end if that’s the definition of criminal liability?” he told ABC 10. “Is Martin Scorsese going to be prosecuted if he meets with mafia members for a movie for his next film? The Constitution says it can’t be a crime to simply make gangster rap songs and hang out with people that are committing crimes. You have to have more involvement than that.”

The hearing is set to resume this week, when the judge will decide whether it will go to trial.

From (consequenceofsound.net)

Eric Clapton - "I shot the sheriff"

WARNING TO BLACKS:  Do not sign this song.

When a white man sings about crime he makes millions of dollars.  So the moral of the story is if you are black don't sing.

How almonds are sucking California dry

Growing Crops in a Desert

• From Central Valley orchards to the mega-urban complexes, Californians live a water sucking lifestyle with no clue that they live in a desert.  

By David WillisBBC News, Los Angeles
California's worst drought for more than a century is causing huge problems for farmers, who need a trillion gallons of water per year for their almond orchards alone. But it also leaves homeowners facing difficult choices about what to do with their lawn.
I have a neighbour, Deborah, and ever since I've lived here, her front lawn has been luxuriant and green.

But wandering by the other day I did a double take. Mounds of earth were piled up where the grass had once been, and an army of workmen had set about installing succulent plants and ground cover, and the kind of prickly cactus you normally see in children's cartoons.

By the time Deborah had finished explaining why she was doing it, I could hardly believe I hadn't done the same thing myself.

Aside from the satisfaction of knowing you are planting something that is actually meant to grow in these desert-like conditions - as opposed to grass, which sucks up water with the zeal of an inebriate who has stumbled upon the keys to the drinks cabinet - she also stands to save a fortune on her water bill.

She even avoids having to confront a sorry, burned-out apology-for-a-front-lawn every time she leaves the house.

Added to which, the city of Los Angeles actually paid her to do it - generously too, by all accounts.

And if paying people to rip up their lawns and replace them with drought-tolerant plants strikes you as an odd use of government resources, then all I can say to you is that desperate times call for desperate measures - and these are desperate times.

California is now in its third year of drought. The reservoirs are running dry and so too are the ground water supplies.

While comedians joke that it's so dry in California these days that the longest lines at Disneyland are for the water fountains - or ponder replacing the bear on the California state flag with a camel - what this place is witnessing is a dust bowl of truly Steinbeckian proportions.

It's so dry, in fact, that officials were reportedly thinking of adding a fifth level to the current four-tiered drought scale, which currently rates 99% of the state as "abnormally dry".

California Almond Orchard

But while replacing your lawn with plants does help save water, the vast majority of the water used here goes not to households but to support California's economic mainstay - agriculture.

So water-intensive is the industry that the benefits of planting the odd cactus here or there start to seem a little modest in comparison.

Take almonds. In recent recent years the little nut with the hard brown shell has been touted as the holy grail of healthy snacks. Whether you're seeking a slimmer body, or a smoother skin, or you just want to spend a little longer on the planet, almonds are for you.

They've been touted as a remedy for cancer, arthritis, heart disease and even Alzheimer's. Not surprisingly, perhaps, given their growing fan base, the farmers of California's Central Valley have been planting them like there's no tomorrow.

Getting on for a million acres are now given over to almond trees, and such is the nurturing nature of California's Mediterranean climate that this state now accounts for more than 80% of the global supply.

The problem is that California's entire almond crop commands a stunning 1.1 trillion gallons of water every single year.

That's twice as much as it takes to grow cotton or tomatoes, and enough - I am reliably informed - for you or me to take a 10-minute shower every day for the next 86 million years.

Added to which, it's not as if this nutty elixir is being produced to satisfy local demand. Nearly 70% of the almonds produced in California are for export. And where do most of them end up? China.

This does little to quell criticism that the Chinese - with their booming economy - may soon, quite literally, be sucking this place dry.

Predictably perhaps, there have been calls to scale back on almond farming - at least until the rains return.

Water Sucking Los Angeles
Welcome to Los Angeles. It is not just agriculture that sucks water.  Since 1849 politicians from both parties eagerly imported millions and millions of water sucking people and businesses into a state that is mostly a desert.

Los Angeles back when the state was Golden.
Our limited water supplies were fine in 1900 when
our population was small.

Ventura Blvd. in Sherman Oaks, c. 1910-1920

A water sucking Ventura Blvd. today.

The Continuing Collapse of the California GOP

California voters gather around to see
a rare site - the nearly extinct Republican elephant.

Should the GOP dissolve itself?

• If the California Republican Party cannot win in a giant, historic landslide GOP wave election then maybe it should shutter the party HQ and dissolve the party.

By Gary;

The so-called "small government" California Republican Party is in a state of near total collapse.

Voters are increasingly refusing to even check off the GOP box on the voter registration forms.  Republicans are now down to only 28%.  Independent voters and 3rd parties now outnumber the GOP at 29%.

In this year of massive discontent with Democratic policies we saw California voters reject Republicans statewide.

Statewide Races

A total defeat for Republicans.  Every office was lost and most GOP candidates didn't even bother to put up a campaign.

State Legislature

In a landslide GOP year there were a a few minor pick-ups of seats in the legislature.  Democrats were denied a two-thirds majority.  But that is not saying much.  The Leftists have a massive majority and can pretty well do what ever they want.

Congress

This is where it gets interesting.  There were quite a few contested Congressional races around our Golden Red State.

Bottom line.  In a landslide GOP year the Democrats won every single contested seat.

Sacramento/South
In the 3rd Congressional, Dem incumbent John Garamendi beat down his GOP challenger 52.6% to 47.4%.

Sacramento/East
In the hotly contested 7th district Dem Congressman Bera pulled off a 50.2% win over former GOP Congressman Doug Ose.

Stockton
In the 9th district incumbent McNerney won 52.1% to 47.9%

Fresno
In the Central Valley's 16th district Dem incumbent Jim Costa is ahead by 75 votes in a tight 50% - 50% race with GOp dairy farmer Johnny Tacherra.

Santa Barbara/San Luis Obispo
In the Central Coast's 24th district 76 year old Dem Lois Capps hangs on 51.6% to Chris Mitchum's 48.4%

Ventura County
The solid middle class 26th district saw incumbent Dem Julia Brownley hold on with 50.8% against GOP Assemblyman Jeff Gorell's 49.2%.

San Bernardino
In the open 31st district the Dem wins with 51.6% to 48.4%.

Palm Springs
One term incumbent Dem Raul Ruiz wins 53.8% in the 36th. An area that was solid GOP for decades.

San Diego
In San Diego's 52nd district one term Dem Scott Peters won 51.6% to the GOP Carl DeMaio's 48.4%.

A New Party For California

It is obvious that in the People's Republic of California the Republican Party is dead and sinking lower with every passing election.  For whatever reasons the GOP "brand" has little appeal to California voters.

Non-Democrats need to band together and form a new, California-only political party not affiliated with any existing national party.  A new and truly independent party like UK Independence Party in Britain to deal exclusively with California issues: pro-jobs, no new taxes, tough on crime and pro-civil liberties. 

What is left of the California GOP could make this process easier by just abolishing their increasingly powerless party.

It is obvious that California voters have little to no interest in the GOP.  Non-Democrats need to act to create a new party without the GOP baggage or prepare to live in a one-party authoritarian People's Republic.

Formerly Republican Palm Springs
.
The Middle Class Abandons the GOP
Middle class Congressional districts around California have abandoned the Republican Party.  Formerly GOP districts from Sacramento to Santa Barbara to Ventura to Palm Springs and San Diego rejected the GOP in last week's elections and sent Democrats to Washington.

Federal Court Upholds 2nd Amendment

Feds back right to bear arms

A procedural decision in a landmark Second Amendment case could spell the end for California laws restricting the issuance of permits to carry concealed handguns. 

The decision by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals would bar other law enforcement officials, including state Attorney General Kamala Harris, from gaining "intervener status" to join in further challenges of its ruling in a case originally brought by an independent journalist who sued the San Diego County Sheriff’s Department over its policy of requiring a specific reason for being allowed to carry a concealed weapon in public reports Fox News.

San Diego County Sheriff Bill Gore has said he will not fight the ruling, meaning there is no one with standing left to challenge the decision made in February.

“Since becoming Sheriff, I have always maintained that it is the legislature’s responsibility to make the laws, and the judiciary’s responsibility to interpret them and their constitutionality,” Gore wrote in a letter to the county board of supervisors earlier this year, in which he said the court’s decision gave him clarity on the issuance of licenses. “Law enforcement’s role is to uphold and enforce the law.”

Edward Peruta sued Gore’s department over its policy of requiring a specific reason for being allowed to carry a concealed weapon in public, restrictions other counties around the state also had in place.

In its bombshell ruling earlier this year, the 9th Circuit found those policies to be unconstitutional and held that law-abiding citizens have a right to bear arms under the Constitution’s Second Amendment and could not be required to justify their reasons for carrying concealed weapons. 

The panel simultaneously ruled on a similar case brought in Yolo County, and that county's sheriff, Edward Prieto, has not indicated he will drop further appeals, which could be heard en banc by all of the 9th Circuit judges or by the U.S. Supreme Court. Harris could try to join Prieto's case, although Wednesday's ruling appears to make it unlikely she would be allowed.

Asian Americans Give New Face to County GOP

Republican Ling-Ling Chan
Chinese-American Chan pulled a massive 64% of the vote to win a 
Los Angeles County area seat in the California State Assembly.
Ling 4 Assembly.com

The GOP Wakes Up to Reality

"You can live in a world where you pretend people don’t have histories. And you can pretend people don’t speak different languages, [but] that's delusional thinking. The old Republican, twentieth century attitude -- they don’t understand that California is dynamic and changing. If you don’t expand, you die.”

Former state GOP chairman Shawn Steel

By THY VO

(Voice of Orange County)  -  Once known as a bastion of white establishment conservatives, Orange County’s Republican Party says there’s a new face to the GOP: Asian American women.

Five high-profile Asian women -- all Republicans -- dominated Orange County races Tuesday night, with three candidates elected to state office and two to the county Board of Supervisors.

Supervisor Janet Nguyen, whose family fled Vietnam as refugees, won a seat in the State Senate. Former Congressional aide Young Kim, a South Korean immigrant, and Diamond Bar councilwoman Ling-Ling Chang, a Taiwanese American, were both elected to the State Assembly.

Korean-born Board of Equalization member Michelle Park Steel and Dana Point Mayor Lisa Bartlett, a Japanese-American, also won seats on the Board of Supervisors.

In Orange County and nationwide, party leaders are co-opting Democrats’ strategy of identity politics with hopes of changing perceptions of the GOP as anti-immigrant and unwelcoming to women and minority voters.

“We’re changing the face of the party. When you say Republican Party, people think, middle-aged white male,” said Michelle Steel, who sits on the California Republican Party Board of Directors. “People always portray Asian women as quiet and obedient."

“We just proved that we are fighters.”

(Left to Right) Young Kim, Michelle Steel, Janet Nguyen and
Ling-Ling Chang at a dinner gathering. 
Photo courtesy of Shawn Steel.

In the lead-up to the election, Steel’s husband, former state GOP chairman Shawn Steel, penned several newspaper editorials making the pitch that his wife, Chang, Nguyen and Kim are a testament to how the party is evolving to incorporate Asian voters with local candidates -- all legal immigrants -- who look like voters and speak their language.

Statewide, Republicans have failed to have a long-term presence in Hispanic and Asian communities, Shawn Steel said.

"The party needs messengers in these emerging communities - the fact that Michelle, like Young Kim, is in the Korean papers virtually every day is having a profound impact on those voters. And it'll balance out the monopoly that the Dems have had,” Shawn Steel said.

Michael Schroeder, who served as the state party chairman from late 1997 to 1999, said that while the GOP has tried to build up grassroots minority leaders and candidates, past party leaders haven’t always put the time and funding behind it.

“Everyone has realized that you can’t be disrespectful and you have to be there. If you show up five days before the election with a mariachi band, you look like an idiot,” Schroeder said.

Schroeder says the emergence of Asian candidates in Orange County isn’t a new trend, but the result of demographic changes where successful candidates have naturally emerged.

“The Republicans in Orange County have had, for the last twenty years, numerous Asian American politicians that gave a face to the Republican party,” Schroeder said, pointing to politicians like former Vietnamese American State Assemblyman Van Tran.

Vietnamese Americans, who number more than 183,000 in Orange County, have historically favored the Republican Party. Nearly all of the county’s Vietnamese American elected officials are Republican.

Republican Young Kim
Korean-American Kim won 55% of the vote to take an Orange County,
California State assembly seat.
Young Kim 2014.com

On the other hand, OC Republicans have failed to successfully support and elect Hispanic candidates, he said.

“Lou Correa was originally a Republican as was Loretta Sanchez - but they didn’t get a lot of support in the Republican side,” Schroeder said of the two Democrats. “People who looked like they had real potential turned out really badly, like Carlos Bustamante.”

Bartlett, whose election makes her the first Japanese American to serve on the Board of Supervisors, says she is skeptical of the party’s message of inclusion. She was not among the Asian candidates endorsed by the county GOP.

“When it came time to endorse, we had requested that the party stay neutral, but they went ahead and endorsed my opponent,” Bartlett said, referring to her close race with Republican and former Laguna Niguel mayor Robert Ming.

“So they’re saying we need to diversify the party, and include more women, but...[there’s] a contradiction,” she said.

This isn’t the first time California Republicans have heard a pitch for supporting more minority candidates.

In 1997, political strategist Stuart Spencer, who ran Ronald Reagan’s gubernatorial campaign in 1966, wrote a memo to state GOP leaders urging them to embrace Latino candidates, or else commit “political suicide.”

Writing in support of a Latino candidate for state treasurer, Ruben Barrales, who was a San Mateo county supervisor at the time, Spencer warned that the party would “doom itself to a permanent minority” in California politics if it didn’t reach out to Latinos, a rapidly growing population at the time.

“1998 is a time of decision for our party. The choices we will make will impact California and the country easily for the next 10 to 20 years,” Spencer wrote.

But Spencer’s memo was poorly timed.

Republican Janet Nguyen
A Vietnamese-American, 
Nguyen won 60% of the vote for 
a California State Senate seat.
Janet 2014.com

In 1994, California passed Prop. 187, an initiative to prohibit undocumented immigrants from obtaining health care, public education and other social services. Although it never went into effect and was later ruled unconstitutional, it signaled to many Latinos that the Republican Party would back policies hostile to immigrants.

It did, however, work to stimulate the GOP base over the past two decades, driving voter turnout especially in Orange County where most GOP candidates focused on immigration issues throughout ensuing elections, many times securing an immediate electoral advantage.

Fast-forward two decades, Republicans trail Democrats in favorability among Hispanic voters nationwide by nearly 28 percentage points, according to the Washington Post.

Among Asian voters, 50 percent are Democrats while only 28 percent identify with the GOP. In the 2012 election, three-quarters of Asian Americans voted for President Barack Obama.

In response to the party’s poor performance in the 2012 election, Republican National Committee chairman Reince Priebus has called on the party to embrace comprehensive immigration reform and pour $10 million into outreach efforts to minority voters.

Last year, the RNC hired two Asian Americans field directors to spearhead grassroots outreach efforts among Asian voters.

Shawn Steel says Republicans need to make a more compelling pitch to Asian voters on issues like immigration and affirmative action.

“Four million people are waiting in line to come to the United States, to come properly and legally, and they can't get in because of the border jumpers...and Republicans haven't been able to weave that [issue] and put it together,” Shawn Steel said.

"I don’t know an Asian family that doesn’t have a hassle with immigration and this kind of unfairness. It's endemic, and I think Republicans can make a powerful argument to streamline immigration policy for the legals.”

He pointed to a recent bill by Democratic lawmakers to reverse a 16-year ban on affirmative action at public colleges, which drew sharp backlash among some Asian American communities.

An opposition campaign by activists who said the measure would hurt Asian American children’s chances of getting into competitive colleges threatened to campaign against Asian legislators backing the measure and urged voters to register as Republicans.

Still, while Republicans are hoping candidates can be an entry point into Asian communities, it’s hard to say whether this will translate into a long-term strategy.

Orange County’s Asian community is in of itself diverse, with many different languages and cultures. While known for its large Chinese, Vietnamese, Filipino and Korean populations, the county is also home to growing number of Bangladeshi, Sri Lankan and Pakistani Americans, according to a recent report. 

Asian Americans as a whole are more likely to lean Democrat than Republican, and are also less likely than the general electorate to identify with a political party, with 35 percent of Asian American voters in California having no party affiliation.

Partisan affiliation also varies by subgroup, with Indian Americans the most heavily Democratic Asian subgroup at 65 percent, while Filipino Americans and Vietnamese Americans are the most evenly split between the two parties.

Young Asian Americans are also both more likely to lean Democrat and register as independent. According to the Pew Survey, among those 18 to 34 years old, 42 percent identify as independents, 31 percent as Democrats and 14 percent as Republicans.

With more than 600,000 Asian Americans in Orange County, a number that continues to grow, both Republicans and Democrats are facing an increasingly diverse constituency.

"You can live in a world where you pretend people don’t have histories. And you can pretend people don’t speak different languages, [but] that's delusional thinking,” Shawn Steel said. “The old Republican, twentieth century attitude -- they don’t understand that California is dynamic and changing. If you don’t expand, you die.”

Voice of OC Senior Writer Tracy Wood contributed to this report. 

U.S. Senator S.I. Hayakawa
Japanese-American Dr. Hayakawa (left) with Armand Vaquer from the Young Republicans. The California GOP got Hayakawa elected to the U.S. Senate in 1976.  Hayakawa has been one of the few minorities elected the the Senate.