HispanicVista Columnists

A Republican responsibility: Exposing GOP wrongdoing
By Raoul Lowery Contreras

Until the San Francisco Chronicle’s Carla Marinucci and Lance Williams uncovered the hiring of two foreigners to run the California Republican Party, new State Chairman Ron Nehring was flying high.

Few remembered that he had been fired as Executive Director of the rock solid San Diego Republican Party in 1997 for “poor judgment” and “excessive” expense account spending. Fewer remembered that after he was fired he engineered a coup in the San Diego Party to dump Roxanna Fox as Chairman and the staff she hired because they were too “moderate.” The new majority installed Nehring as Chairman of the very County Committee that had previously fired him.

Heavy hitter San Diego Republican money people abandoned Nehring’s “Party” and focused on the Lincoln Club, a pragmatic money machine that pours hundreds of thousands of dollars into local campaigns. It tells members to leave their social considerations at the door, because “we” are pro-business and free market enthusiasts unencumbered by emotional ideologically baggage.

As of this writing, California heavy hitter Republican money men, Good Government Republicans, are grumbling that they won’t give a dime to the State Republican Party even though it has a $3-million loan repayment due to contributor Larry Dodge this Saturday, the 30th, according to the Chronicle. So, why is this happening?

The first foreigner Nehring hired -- chief operations officer (COO) Michael Kamburowski -- “resigned” from his post after Marinucci and Williams broke the story that Kamburowski was, in fact, an immigration absconder who had been ordered deported by an immigration judge. He had been arrested and imprisoned by immigration authorities. Apparently, no one in the State Party executive infrastructure was aware of his immigration problems, except, maybe, for his fellow employee at Grover Norquist’s Americans for Tax Reform ten years ago, Ron Nehring.

Nehring hired Kamburowski as chief operating officer of the Party, a Party that raises and spends millions of dollars during election cycles. What did Nehring know about Kamburowski’s business skills that led him to believe the man was qualified for the COO job?

Michael Kamburowski went to the Dominican Republic to sell real estate after several years in the USA. Marinucci and Williams found his employer in the Dominican, Rico Pester, who owns Re/Max Island Realty. Pester says that Kamburowski came to him in 2006.

The firm’s web site stated: “Having sharpened his skills in the hyper-competitive real estate market of Manhattan, Michael is ready to serve your investment and residential needs here in the relaxed, beautiful and enchanting Punta Cana. With his attention to detail, laid-back yet professional approach, and sense of humor, Michael will smoothen (sic) the road to your dream property in Punta Cana. Languages: English, Polish”

Pester told the Chronicle: “He was so successful that he couldn’t sell anything the whole time he was here – and we provided him with clients. He didn’t rent anything and he didn’t sell anything…I have no idea what he was doing.” So much for business experience.

Pester: “I couldn’t understand how somebody like him could become a (Republican Party) COO.”

So, no viable business experience, jail time for immigration violations and two American wives he “married” (shams?) that filed papers to “legalize” him. It appears that only one person in the entire California Republican Party hierarchy knew about his jail time, lack of business experience and immigration problems and that was the man who hired him, Ron Nehring. Nehring had worked with Kamburowski ten years ago and through 2000, so how could he not have known?

We don’t know how Kamburowski was hired by Grover Norquist’s Americans for Tax Reform and the Reagan Legacy Project or how he was paid or what kind of work visa he had between 1995 and 2000. We don’t know how he scored a green card without waiting for years like everyone else. Nehring had to know.

Despite all we don’t know, we know he was collecting a hefty paycheck far larger than the average paycheck of the average California Republican Party contributor. We don’t know the details of his employment contract. Did he have a “Golden Parachute” to cover a quick getaway as his resignation turns out to be? Why, wasn’t he fired? Why did Nehring allow him to “resign?” Why didn’t Nehring call a news conference so reporters could ask these questions? What is Nehring hiding?

Then there is the case of Chris Mathews, a 35-year-old Canadian citizen. He worked for Ron Nehring, according to Nehring, at the San Diego Republican Party just a month after arriving in country, and is now consulting for the state Party and will go to work full-time in October when his new H-1B work visa goes into effect.

He currently is working on a NAFTA visa (TN), which takes time to apply for and receive. Question: How did Nehring put Mathews on the San Diego Party payroll just a month after he arrived in country when it normally takes months for such a visa to be applied for and approved? The Nehring story is that Mathews just showed up in San Diego and volunteered for a month, motivated by the Recall of Gray Davis. According to Nehring, he wanted to be part of the Recall, so an impressed Nehring hired him.

Fact: The Recall election was less than 90-days duration with the voting in October (I was an official paid spokesman for the Recall Committee, it did the heavy lifting in the campaign, not Nehring’s or Mathews’ San Diego efforts). The question is how did Mathews secure a legal TN work visa in a matter of days or weeks? With the entire state to visit, how did Mathews wind up in San Diego and not in better known San Francisco or Los Angeles?

Mathews has been approved for an H-1B visa so he can work legally for the Party starting in November as a “deputy party director” (that’s the job title on the application to the Federal Department of Labor).

Given that, California Republicans must demand the following: All paperwork on the Party’s application for an H-1B visa for Mathews. That means the original application and all declarations or certifications required by the United States Department of Labor. We need to know how the Party advertised for the position, and how it is that it couldn’t find a qualified United States citizen to fill the position being filled by Mathews. We need to know when the application was made and who approved it.

This is not a question of hiring “legal immigrants” or U.S. citizens; the question is how could the Party not find a U.S. citizen to do either job. There is also a question as to whether or not Mathews was legal to work for Nehring in the Recall Election in 2003.

Grover Norquist seems to be a key to the foreigner outsourcing the California Republican Party. He is a discredited Washington lobbyist associate of convicted criminal Jack Abramoff, who pays State Republican Chairman Ron Nehring money income. Canadian citizen Chris Mathews, who under Nehring’s sponsorship miraculously receives hard to get work visas. Australian Michael Kamburowski is a failed Dominican Republic real estate salesman who was a Norquist-sponsored member of the Reagan Legacy Project and fellow employee of Ron Nehring. These men are all connected, sharing funds and management of the California Republican Party.

As this writer has been a registered California Republican for almost five decades and has served in party positions, the machinations these men are involved in are unacceptable.

State Republican Party Chairman Ron Nehring must resign or be fired.

Reasons: Malfeasance, the squandering of funds on Kamburowski that facts tell us was patently illegally in the country and illegally working so much so that he was ordered deported. Plus, the hiring of Canadian Chris Mathews who also appears to have worked in the country illegally and who is simply unqualified to be anything but a receptionist at the largest state political party in the country.

This California Republican is not alone in denying funds to the Nehring Party, real heavy hitters are closing their wallets and won’t give a dime until Nerhing leaves his post as State Republican Chairman voluntarily or, is fired like he was in San Diego a decade ago.

Contreras’ books, THE ILLEGAL ALIEN: A DAGGER INTO THE HEART OF AMERICA?? and, A HISPANIC VIEW OF AMERICAN POLITICS AND THE POLITICS OF IMMIGRATION are available at www.amazon.com and www.barnesandnoble.com