Wilson to Back Limits on Unions

Proposal to Restrict Campaign Donations

Gov. Pete Wilson on Saturday threw his weight behind an initiative drive to limit labor unions’ ability to contribute to political campaigns, as members of the California Republican Party and their candidates struggled to find their footing and project an image of a party seeking greater ethnic and gender diversity.

Speaking to the GOP’s statewide convention, Wilson announced he will serve as honorary chairman of the Campaign Reform Initiative, a measure that would prohibit unions from using members’ dues for political purposes without annual written authorization from individuals.

“It’s un-American,” Wilson charged. “We should change the law so that no portion of any union member’s dues can be spent for political purposes without the written consent of that member every year.”

Although Republicans routinely outspend Democrats in California elections, GOP leaders are worried that their candidates could suffer under 1994’sProposition 208, which limits individual campaign contributions but allows unions to make independent expenditures on behalf of candidates and causes.

A spokesman for Wilson said the governor will help raise money for the initiative and is considering a request by backers to propose to the Republican Governors Association meeting in December that it be implemented in other states to reduce the influence of labor-union money flowing to Democratic candidates.

“Every member of a union should not only be free to speak his or her mind; they shouldn’t be forced to have their pockets picked for political causes they don’t support and don’t believe in,” Wilson told cheering Republicans. “How and whether to spend money on politics must be the choice of the worker, not the bosses,” he said.

“It’s the same old tired Pete Wilson who continues to attack workers at the expense of their First Amendment rights,” said California Democratic Party Chairman Art Torres. “And the sad thing is that just as he tried to use the immigrants to run for president, now he’s trying to use the unions as his straw man to run for president.”

Steve Preminger, chairman of the Democratic Party of Santa Clara County and a staff member of the South Bay Labor Council, said the measure is backed by ultra-right conservative businessmen who don’t want competition for their own independent expenditures.

“It’s outrageous that Pete Wilson is trying to silence the voice of union members,” he said. “Unions are democratic organizations. Members elect their leadership just like the voters elect their public officials. And decisions that unions make are subject to approval by the membership, ultimately.

“Pete Wilson is simply trying to eliminate or make very difficult union members’ participation in the political process,” he said.

Meanwhile, the California Republicans, whose conventions in recent years have been tightly scripted, found themselves struggling to maintain their equilibrium and their attempts to appear open to women and minorities.

(box) At Saturday’s “Pride in Diversity” breakfast, the featured speaker was U.S. Rep. Helen Chenoweth, a Republican from Idaho who has vocally supported white, right-wing militias and who once declared the white, Anglo Saxon male to be an “endangered species.”

Chenoweth, who spoke after Republican Assemblyman Rod Pacheco of Riverside and state Treasurer Matt Fong, delivered a rambling tribute to opportunity and freedom punctuated by stories of Civil War battles before an audience that included fewer than half a dozen non-whites.

The breakfast meeting also heard from Elizabeth Rogers of the Seneca Network Inc., which seeks to boost the number of female Republican elected officials. She warned the audience that unless the GOP does a better job of promoting women, the party will never control the state’s politics.

Of 186 state or federal offices, 105 are held by Democrats and 81 by Republicans, she said. Of the Democrats, 36 are women; of the Republicans only four are women.

“If we do not front-load women into the party we will never have a majority,” she said. “All of you men who are running against women who are good solid candidates, help that gal to win because you want a majority. And if we front-load a couple of gals, when you come back in and you’re ready to run, you can be the party with the big offices.”

State Party Chairman Mike Schroeder later told reporters that if Rogers was suggesting that male candidates should take a dive in favor of women, “that’s certainly not our policy.”

(box) Schroeder opened the convention with a news conference telling reporters he was opposing any attempts to bring to the floor a resolution supporting Ron Unz’s “English for the Children” anti-bilingual education initiative.

Instead, he said, he wanted the GOP to call on Assembly Speaker Cruz Bustamante to allow a vote on SB6, a measure sponsored by Dede Alpert and Brooks Firestone, that he said deals with bilingual education in a “reasonable and measured fashion.”

GOP leaders, seeking to bolster their standing among Latino voters, are concerned that if the party supports the Unz initiative, after backing Proposition 187’s attack on illegal immigrants and Proposition 209’s assault on affirmative action, it will undermine its efforts to expand among ethnic minorities.

But after trying to get the party’s initiative’s committee to prevent Unz’s measure from reaching the floor of the convention, Schroeder was overruled by his own resolutions committee, which voted 15-6 to send the initiative to today’s general session.

It was unclear Saturday whether Schroeder and other senior party leaders would be able to prevent the conservative activists who are delegates here >from supporting the measure. “Either he’s losing control or, hopefully, this will steer him in the right direction,” said an elated Sheri Annis, spokeswoman for “English for the Children.”

(box) Meanwhile, Fong, San Diego Mayor Susan Golding, and car-alarm magnate Darrell Issa — all candidates for U.S. Senate — jockeyed for position, courted delegates and tried to handle the assembled California press corps, which was eager for them to hold stand-up news conferences.

Only Fong dared to do so after it became apparent that Issa and Golding — who had chatted with reporters individually and at their hospitality suites — would not formally address reporters.

Fong, whose speeches here have been well received and who is winning high marks for his calm and lucid presentation, was unable at the news conference to clarify his stance on abortion. Issa, who opposes abortion, says Fong is pro-choice, and Golding, who is pro-choice, says Fong is an abortion opponent.

Fong said his view on abortion is shaped by the fact that he was adopted. “The courts have spoken about giving a woman an option to choose life or not in the first trimester. This position of the courts I believe will not change in my lifetime, in my daughter’s lifetime and maybe even her children’s lifetime.

“I’m focused now on ways to limit abortions and protect life in the arenas of parental consent. I promote parental consent. I’m also opposed to partial birth abortions and in favor of abortions in the second or third trimester only in the case of rape, incest or (to protect) the life or health of the mother.”

But despite repeated questions, he would not say whether he supports a woman’s right to choose an abortion in the first trimester of pregnancy. “I’m answering your question with my answer,” he said, refusing to clarify his position further.



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