Guest Column

California’s Special Election – Serious Issues for Latinos to Ponder

CHISMES DE MI GALLINERO

By Julio C. Calderon

September 28, 2005

            Now that Katrina and Rita have left town, we can concentrate on the politics at hand.  By this, I mean politics in California where we are headed at full speed now toward a Special Election.  This election will define next year’s, and beyond, politics in the state. And as often happens, some of what is settled this November may move east to other states.

            Two propositions that may go forth to other states are Proposition 73, the parental notification initiative; and, Proposition 77, that will hand responsibility for carving the political turkey (Reapportionment) to a panel of retired judges.

            A school nurse in California cannot give a child an aspirin without notifying the child’s parents or legal guardians. They can, however, take you under-aged daughter to an abortion clinic without notifying the parents.

            The opponents argue that this requirement places the child in danger in the case of the child’ fear of an abusive parent or in the case of incest, the perpetrator may also be a parent or sibling. In these cases, the child has legal rights the will help them avoid hardships.

            Right now, there is nothing to keep a frightened child, who would otherwise has good communications with her mother and father, but would panic in this kind of a situation, from making rash decisions.  I would want to know.  I wouldn’t want my girl going through this procedure with nothing but strangers around her.

            These wouldn’t even be the doctor and nurses she knows probing into her body with a machine. She would be terrified, and to not have her mother to hold her hand, or dad, would be a total abandonment of parental responsibilities. I would really want to know…as would my wife.

            While I am, politically, pro choice, I would probably talk the situation out with our girl, and advise and help her through the decision-making process, and support her whatever her decision. To chastise her at that point would be like arguing about a broken egg.

            Proposition 77, the reapportionment initiative is an ambitious one that is taking on the entire political structure. Opponents have declared it a power-grab. Even MALDEF, the legal voice of all Latinos, has declared this initiative bad politics for Latinos. MALDEF totally disregards history.

            In 1970 and 1990 reapportionment was completed in California by panels of retired judges. Not only were they retired judges, it was emphasized by our Latino leaders, that they were also Old-Retired-WHITE-Judges. These judicial reapportionments were needed because Governors Reagan and Wilson rejected the Legislature’s plans.

            What MALDEF and other partisan detractors fail to tell the community is that, unlike the reapportionments of 1960 and 1980 drawn and signed by Democrats, by the end of the decades of 1970 and 1990, Latino numbers increased, while the numbers remained the same by the end of the 1960s and the 1980s. The 1990’s explosion of Latinos and Latinas in the state Legislature and the congressional delegation was also helped by term limits, another proposition that MALDEF and other Latino leaders said would harm Latino political aspirations.

            Latinos are now better educated on ballot issues and candidates. And, as in my gallinero, when MALDEF and other Latino political “experts” denigrate an initiative or candidate, I pay closer attention to these issues, and generally find them favorable to our community.

            The older I get, the clearer politics seems to get. Or maybe it’s because I have gotten to the point where common-sense rules. When told that something is not good for Latinos, I ask the question, why isn’t it so? And, when the answer is “Because” with no supporting proof, then I know these folks are selling me a jackass disguised as a race horse.

            For example, when the movers of the gay political agenda claim that those against same-sex marriage are out of the mainstream…I ask…then why not put the issue on the ballot instead of using the Legislature to circumvent the vote of the mainstream? This doesn’t make me a homophobe, there are too many relatives whom I love dearly, who are gay.

            Politics has always been the art of persuasion, if you tell a lie long enough and get enough people to repeat it…sooner or later, in some folks’ minds, it becomes the truth. I used to operate in the grey areas, but since I retired to my gallinero and together with my wife to raising one of our granddaughters, and taken a step back…politics has become quite clear.

            There is the right of it and the wrong of it, we, as voters, are challenged with every election, to cut through the facades to that which we perceive as the truth of it. On these two issues, Propositions 73 and 77, I am quite clear about them. California needs to take reapportionment out of the hands of Legislators, and as far as Proposition 73 is concerned…yes, I WILL WANT TO KNOW!

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Julio C. Calderon is a former State/National President of the Mexican American Political Association. He has been a television news reporter, documentarian, and anchorman in the San Francisco Bay Area and in Fresno, California. He is a contributor to HispanicVista (www.hispanicvista.com)  under the column “Chismes de Mi Gallinero.”  Comments may directed to Mr. Calderon at latsac2000@aol.com.

  (In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed by HispanicVista.com (www.hispanicvista.com) without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.)