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 News from Around the Americas | August 2005 
Speaker Hopes to Help Image of Schwarzenegger
 Ed Mendel - Union-Tribune
| | Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez, D-Los Angeles, left, laughs at a joke made by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger at the beginning of his State of the State address made before a joint session of the Legislature at the Capitol in Sacramento, CA. |
Sacramento – Assembly Speaker Fabian Núñez, who plans to meet with Mexican President Vicente Fox and other officials in Mexico City this week, said he wants to change the perception that Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is "anti-Mexican."
In a wide-ranging news conference yesterday, the Los Angeles Democrat also suggested that former Republican Gov. Pete Wilson worked to undermine talks that failed to produce a bipartisan compromise that would have avoided an all-out war over the governor's initiatives on the Nov. 8 ballot.
The speaker, who is scheduled to fly to Mexico City tomorrow and return Saturday, said he is leaving during the busy final weeks of a legislative session that ends Sept. 9 because Fox found time this week for his long-standing request for a meeting.
Núñez said he learned firsthand from Mexican governors and mayors who attended the swearing-in of Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa last month that relations with Mexico have been damaged by Schwarzenegger's support for volunteer "Minuteman" border-watchers and remarks about "closing" the border, later corrected to "securing" the border.
"The Mexican government and the Mexican people are not happy with California because they feel we don't appreciate the contributions of Mexican immigrants in this country, and particularly undocumented immigrants, and that we lack the respect for that country that it deserves," he said.
"That's how they feel about it. I don't necessarily think that that's the case. I don't think the governor is anti-Mexican – in no way, shape or form. But that's the perception in Mexico that we want to change."
Schwarzenegger, who has not yet met with Fox, made his first trip to Mexico last month to attend a border governors conference in Terreon, Coahuila. He flew in by private jet and was there for only a few hours in the evening to attend a private banquet with the governors.
"This governor has had good relations with Mexican governors," said Vince Sollito, a Schwarzenegger spokesman. "He hopes to meet with President Fox himself at some point in the future when their schedules are convenient. But there is nothing to mend here. We are doing great."
Núñez again urged Schwarzenegger to join the governors of Arizona and New Mexico in declaring a border emergency, which he said would focus attention on the need for more federal funding to increase the number of Border Patrol agents.
Schwarzenegger said during an interview with a radio talk-show host in Los Angeles yesterday that it's a "misconception" that calling an emergency would produce more federal money for the border.
The governor said two of his top aides on homeland security and emergency services are in Washington, D.C., to seek more federal money for California for costs such as imprisoning undocumented immigrants convicted of various crimes. The state expects to spend $734 million on more than 18,000 such prisoners this year, while receiving $112 million from the federal government.
Asked about a proposed initiative for a state-funded border patrol, Schwarzenegger said the federal government, not California taxpayers, should pay for patrolling the border. Instead, he advocated a guest-worker program.
Núñez said it was "tragic" that people outside the Capitol worked to undermine negotiations that might have produced a bipartisan compromise on the governor's initiatives for a state spending limit, new legislative and congressional districts and a longer time for teachers to earn tenure.
"I didn't realize that former governors still played a role in Sacramento politics," Núñez said, apparently referring to Wilson.
Schwarzenegger's press secretary, Margita Thompson, said any conversations between the current and former governors are private. She said talks failed because Democrats didn't begin negotiating until near the deadline for placing compromise measures on the ballot.
"It was their inability to engage in a debate," Thompson said. "It wasn't some outside player. They need to take responsibility for their own actions." |
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