State GOP girds for floor fight

A proposal to end bilingual education is a key issue at the party's convention, which begins today.

ANAHEIM—State political party conventions held during off-election years are usually calm affairs, local Republican leaders say.

But when California Republican officials arrive in Anaheim today to launch a three-day gathering, they will find themselves struggling over the message the party will take into the 1998 elections. Will the party overtly reach out to minorities or will it risk alienating them with a controversial ballot initiative on bilingual education?

The convention schedule also boasts a parade of potential presidential candidates, including Gov. Wilson, former Vice President Dan Quayle, and U.S. Sens. Fred Thompson of Tennessee, John Ashcroft of Missouri and John McCain of Arizona.

“That shows how important California is,” said Kathy Walker, chairwoman of the Riverside County Republican Central Committee.

But party leaders and delegates in recent days have had their minds focused on something that isn’t on the schedule – a brewing convention floor fight over a proposed ballot initiative to wipe out bilingual education for all students except those whose parents request it.

The party’s top leaders, from party Chairman Mike Schroeder to Assembly Republican Leader Bill Leonard of Rancho Cucamonga, oppose the measure and don’t want it considered for endorsement at the convention.

They’ve said it’s bad public policy and could stymie the party’s efforts to attract the state’s growing minority population.

The convention’s opening events today and Saturday are aimed at minority outreach.

“The tenor of the whole thing creates a sink-or-swim atmosphere for our children. I don’t understand why anyone would want to hurt children,” said Assemblyman Rod Pacheco of Riverside, the Legislature’s only Hispanic Republican.

He didn’t want to discuss the politics of the matter on Thursday.

But he has previously expressed worry that the issue could be used to portray Republicans as insensitive to Hispanics.

But backers of the “English for the Children” initiative, computer magnate Ron Unz and Assemblyman Tom McClintock of Thousand Oaks, believe they have the support of Hispanics in both parties and rank-and-file Republicans.

McClintock has vowed to bring the issue up during the convention floor session Sunday even though he expects it to fail in a party committee hearing slated for this afternoon.

“The leadership has concocted a strategy to take it before a stacked committee,” McClintock said. “We want these kids to succeed in an English-speaking world, and if the Republican Party doesn’t stand up for those kids, who will? “

Riverside County’s Walker and San Bernardino County GOP Chairman Chuck Williams are strong supporters of the initiative and plan to buck the party leadership if they get the chance to vote on the measure this weekend.

“Bilingual education has been a failure in the state because kids are not learning how to speak English,” Williams said.

If nearly 434,000 signatures can be obtained by Dec. 1 to qualify the initiative for the June ballot, it likely would be the third measure in four years to anger minority activists, following 1994’s Prop. 187 targeting benefits for undocumented immigrants and last year’s Prop. 209 aimed at affirmative action.

If the state Republican Party endorses the initiative this weekend, it would continue to raise questions about the GOP’s ability to remain viable in a state that is growing more Hispanic with each census, said Sherry Bebitch Jeffe, an expert on state politics and senior associate at the Center for Politics and Economics at Claremont Graduate University.

“I think the party leaders who are nervous have a right to be nervous,” Jeffe said. “To win they have to convince people they are not a mean-spirited, anti-immigrant, white-male, gray-suited party.

And that will be a Herculean task. “



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