After losing the battle Sunday to keep the state GOP from endorsing an anti-bilingual education initiative, Hispanic Republicans vowed to work with the measure’s proponents to ensure their party’s position is not distorted.

Conservative delegates to the state Republican convention in Anaheim bucked GOP leaders Sunday and overwhelmingly endorsed the so-called English for the Children initiative.

Hispanic delegates and state party chairman Michael Schroeder had warned that the move could be used by Democrats, teachers and liberal minority activists to portray the GOP as anti-Hispanic in the wake of two other party-sponsored initiatives that attem pted to deny benefits to immigrants and other minorities.

“We have to be careful our support for this initiative is interpreted as a concern for children and that it not be framed . . . as bashing any particular group or any particular culture,” said Schroeder, who spent the weekend throwing roadblock s in the initiative’s path to endorsement.

“This is good news for us,” said Bob Mulholland, campaign adviser for the California Democratic Party. “The Republicans have been going down the path of alienating Latin voters. This is just another example of the party using minorities to appeal to conservative white voters.”

Backers of the measure argued the GOP should not shun its beliefs out of fear they might be misunderstood.

“Today we put aside politics and did what was right for the kids,” said John Courtney of Rancho Cucamonga, president of the conservative California Republican Assembly, the state’s largest GOP volunteer group.

The initiative, created and bankrolled by Silicon Valley computer magnate Ron Unz, would eliminate mandatory bilingual education in public schools, making it available only when parents can prove to school officials their children need the special instru ction. Those students then might have to be bused to schools that still offer programs in their native tongue.

Supporters maintain the 20-year-old program is a failure and that children would learn English more quickly by being immersed in the language in the classroom. They claim the initiative has tremendous support in the Hispanic community.

Riverside County Republican Central Committee chairwoman Kathy Walker told the convention he had been contacted by a Riverside woman looking to sign a petition to get the initiative on the ballot because her children weren’t learning English in public sc hools.

“If we don’t stand up for these kids, then who will? The Democrats?” said Assemblyman Tom McClintock, R-Thousand Oaks. “These programs are a cash cow for the teachers union, and the teachers union is a cash cow for the Democratic Party. ot;

Party leaders spent much of the weekend convention reaching out to minority voters, who they feel are conservative by nature.

Ernest Feliciano, chairman of the state chapter of the Republican National Hispanic Assembly, vowed to help deflect any misunderstanding of the party’s endorsement, which he opposed.

“We know the bilingual education system is failing us,” Feliciano said. “We’re willing to assist with developing a plan to present this to the Hispanic community.”

Convention delegates also overwhelmingly supported suspending its longstanding policy of not endorsing candidates in primary elections so it could assist lone GOP gubernatorial candidate Dan Lungren, the state attorney general.

If two-thirds of the delegates at the party’s next convention in February vote to endorse Lungren, the party could spend an unlimited amount of money promoting his campaign.

Lungren is bound by campaign contribution limits imposed by voters last year, but Democratic candidate Al Checchi, a multi-millionaire former airline executive, is using his own money, and new rules do not limit spending.

Opponents of the bylaws change said it could open up divisions in the party if leaders used the authority to make endorsements in contested primaries.



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