Jaime Regalado quoted in the Los Angeles Daily News

García's attempt to oust LAUSD's Brewer: gaffe or gutsy?

Rick Orlov
Staff Writer - Los Angeles Daily News
December 6, 2008

To anyone who knows her, it is no surprise that Mónica García is in the middle of a political firestorm.

As president of the Los Angeles Unified School District Board of Education, García has emerged as the force behind efforts to remove Superintendent David L. Brewer III in the middle of his four-year contract.

Supporters say García is a fierce advocate for the Latino community and the disenfranchised, who has never shied away from a fight. But critics say her political ambitions have made it difficult for her to act independently of Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, a longtime ally.
The Mayor's Office said he had nothing to do with last week's failed attempt to oust Brewer, when Garcí a could not bring together all seven board members to vote on his contract. But some school district watchers say the mayor, who is widely thought to favor hiring a new superintendent, has considerable influence with the current board.

"Had the mayor not been in favor of wanting Brewer to retire, then the board majority, starting with Mónica García, would likely not have moved to oust the superintendent," said Jaime Regalado, executive director of the Edmund G. "Pat" Brown Institute of Public Affairs at California State University, Los Angeles. ...

A lot of times, these endorsements are strategic, but hers are heartfelt and can only help her in the future," Regalado said.

Born and raised in East Los Angeles, Garcia attended Ramona Convent in Alhambra and went on to Berkeley, where she received bachelor of arts degrees in Chicano studies and political science.

Later, she earned a master's in social work from the University of Southern California.
Outside East Los Angeles and its climate of Chicano activism, García said she became aware of privilege, class and culture while a Berkeley student.

At a speech earlier this year to the Studio City Chamber of Commerce, she was quoted as joking that it was at Berkeley that she realized, "I was a person of color, which I had no idea. (I was) shocked that my life was so much in peril" growing up as a Latina in a working-class family in the barrio.

Those experiences, say her advocates, resonate in her work, including the recent attempt to remove Brewer.

Noting that the Daily News and the Los Angeles Times have editorialized for the removal of Brewer, Casillas said García's move should be welcomed by the press. But the timing, many have said off the record, was poor.

With the district facing the most severe fiscal crisis in recent history, the bond committee's Folsom said Brewer is a leader among education officials in fighting budget cuts in Sacramento. To remove him now will only take district attention away from the impending budget crisis.
"I have not seen true leadership from García on the budget and this is a huge diversion from where the board's focus should be," Folsom said. "Real leaders lead from the middle and build consensus. That hasn't happened here."

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Jaime Regalado quoted in the Los Angeles Daily News

Life as Sacramento lawmaker has gotten a lot tougher

Rick Orlov
Staff Writer - Los Angeles Daily News
December 5, 2008

A message to the 36 freshman lawmakers who were sworn in this week at the state Capitol: Don't get too comfortable.

Once the euphoria of being elected to state office and moving into Sacramento wears off, reality will set in: a terrible economy, a massive budget deficit and new rules to redraw district boundaries and make elections more competitive, even for incumbents.

"What I would tell the freshmen is, 'Hold your breath; you're in for a pretty steep ride,'" said Jaime Regalado, director of the Pat Brown Institute at California State University, Los Angeles.

"They will have this exhilarating feeling coming in, but then they will all be deflated by the reality of what they're facing."

So far, anyway, the area's November winners of new-to-them legislative roles appear undaunted.

They include Assemblyman Steve Knight, R-Palmdale; Sen. Fran Pavley, D-Agoura Hills; Assemblyman Bob Blumenfield, D-Van Nuys; Sen. Carol Liu, D-La Cañada Flintridge; and Sen. Tony Strickland, R-Westlake Village.

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Jaime Regalado quoted in the Los Angeles Daily News

Black, Latino voters helped Prop. 8 pass

Tony Castro
Staff Writer - Los Angeles Daily News
November 5, 2008

Latino and black voters whose record turnout helped carry Barack Obama to the presidency proved to be a double-edged sword for liberals in California, where the two groups were credited for the narrow victory of the gay marriage ban.

"Religion trumps politics," said pollster Mark DiCamillo of the Field Research Corp., who said exit polling data show that African-Americans and Latinos abandoned their traditional liberal Democratic coalition to support Proposition 8.

Seven out of 10 African- American voters and more than half of Latinos backed Proposition 8, according to Edison Media Research and Mitofsky International, which conducted the exit polling used by the National Election Pool.

The measure, which constitutionally bans same-sex marriages, was approved by about 52 percent of California voters in Tuesday's election.

Ironically, the record turnout of African-Americans and Latinos helped push Obama to victory in such states as Florida, Colorado, Nevada and New Mexico. Obama opposed Proposition 8, but not very strongly.

"Traditionally the liberal Democratic coalition consists of African-Americans and Latinos, and you see it in all of the initiatives locally ... all of those it passed with two-thirds (vote) requirement," said Fernando Guerra, director of the Center for the Study of Los Angeles at Loyola Marymount University.

The outcome was feared by many opponents of Proposition 8, as polls showed the no votes'
commanding lead was quickly evaporating ahead of the vote.

"The fear of those who were against Proposition 8 that this could be the scenario turned out to come true," said Jaime Regalado, executive director of the Edmund G. "Pat" Brown Institute of Public Affairs at California State University, Los Angeles.

Proposition 8 overturns a May California Supreme Court decision legalizing gay nuptials and rewrites the state constitution to define marriage as a union between a man and a woman.

Jaime Regalado quoted in the Los Angeles Daily News

Voters may face ballot confusion

Rick Orlov
Staff Writer - Los Angeles Daily News
October 26, 2008

For Michael Spitzer-Rubenstein, it's the campaign of Sen. Barack Obama that is driving him to the polls.

"This is my first election and I couldn't be more excited," said Spitzer-Rubenstein, 18, who also made calls for the Obama campaign in Los Angeles.

But, other than a couple of other items, he said he was unsure how to vote on all the ballot propositions.

"I know about (Proposition) 8, but a lot of the other ones are pretty confusing," he said. "There's no way anyone can really know about some of the issues that are on the ballot."

It's a dilemma facing all voters, a record number of whom have registered for the Nov. 4 election. When they get inside that voting booth, the nearly 30 races, measures and propositions could lead to information overload.

Enthusiasm over Obama's historic candidacy has swollen voter registration rolls, where in Los Angeles County, more than 4.1 million people are registered. Of them, 451,000 are new voters, half of them ages 18 to 25.

Democrats already held a 51 percent to 25 percent edge over Republicans in Los Angeles, with an additional 20 percent registered as independents. Among new voters, however, 56percent are signing up as Democrats, county elections officials said.

Political analysts expect a dropoff in interest as voters, especially the new ones, make their way down the ballot.

"As a rule, there is always a drop-off regardless of the election," said Republican strategist Allan Hoffenblum. "What happens is people get excited about voting for president and then they get their ballot and they see elections for state senators or assemblymen or the ballot propositions and judges. They don't know any of these people, so they just pass and go to issues they are familiar with."

Bob Stern of the Los Angeles-based Center for Governmental Studies agreed, saying it is even more difficult for new voters, who often don't even receive campaign mailings because they haven't voted before.

Among the best known statewide ballot measures is Proposition 8, which would ban gay marriage.

"I imagine there will be some people turning out just for that - on both sides," Stern said.

Jaime Regalado of the Edmund G. "Pat" Brown Institute of Public Affairs at California State University, Los Angeles, said it is always a danger that voters pass on certain items.

"At the same time, you get concerned about people voting when they don't know anything about the people or the issue," he said. "With new voters, both parties hope they just vote a straight Democratic or Republican ticket."

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Jaime Regalado quoted in the Los Angeles Daily News

Latinos Driving Growth in U.S.

Tony Castro
Staff Writer - Los Angeles Daily News
October 24, 2008

In a historic change with political and cultural implications for the nation's largest minority group, a baby boom has helped Hispanics account for just over half of the overall population growth in the United States since 2000, according to a report released Thursday.

Different from the past, the nation's Latino population growth in this decade has been more a product of birthrate than immigration, according to the report from the Pew Hispanic Center.

Since 2000, the nation's Latino population has increased by 10.2 million - 6 million from births in the United States and 4.2 million from immigration.

"What we are now seeing is the secondary impacts of Hispanic international migration from the '80s and '90s," said Richard Fry, a senior research associate at the center, a nonpartisan research group based in Washington, D.C. "Now fertility - natural increase - is driving Hispanic growth."

Los Angeles and the San Fernando Valley are a microcosm of the phenomenon, with heavy immigration waves in the 1980s and 1990s leading to more American-born Latino children, Fry said.

Overall, the nation's Latino population has grown by nearly 30 percent, from about 35 million in 2000 to about 45 million in 2007, according to the Pew report. By comparison, the non-Hispanic U.S. population grew just 4 percent over the same period.

Los Angeles County, where the Latino population has increased by about 435,000 so far this decade, ranked first in the nation in Hispanic population, according to the report.
The Latino population growth so far this century is just a small part of the coming population explosion, demographers say.

California Budget Project researchers estimate that the state's Hispanic population will increase by 65 percent in the next 12 years while its non-Hispanic white population will grow by only 2.3 percent.

In California especially, the Latino population growth could change political power in electing more Hispanics and driving changes in public policy.

Already, U.S.-born children of Latino immigrants in the 1980s and 1990s are influencing change.
"There is a very large, young Hispanic second generation, and these are kids who were born to immigrants in the 1980s and '90s," Fry said. "In terms of California politics, now that these kids are all 18 and they can vote, I think about how they are going to influence the outcome in California."

Jaime Regalado, director of the Edmund G. "Pat" Brown Institute at California State University, Los Angeles, agrees.

"What that means is that there is going to be an increasing demand on ramping up for a fair share and a far more level playing field virtually across the board," he said. "We've heard that in politics. We've heard that in higher education (and) in K-12, making the schools more balanced, parallel and equal.

"But we're going to be increasingly hearing that as well in business and economic pursuits, whether it's small business, whether it's hiring by corporations or in foundations, whether it's in the leadership of the labor movement."

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Jaime Regalado quoted in the Los Angeles Daily News

Both won, say supporters, but it was no JFK-Nixon game-changer

Tony Castro
Staff Writer - Los Angeles Daily News
October 16, 2008

The Kennedy-Nixon debates these weren't.

The final presidential debate of the campaign Wednesday night, like its two predecessors, likely won't be remembered as a game-changer.

Oh, the supporters of Democrat Barack Obama and Republican John McCain crowed about their respective candidate winning, especially here in the shadows of the entertainment industry where many San Fernando Valley residents witnessed it at television debate watching parties, which had the feel of mini campaign rallies.

"I thought John McCain won the debate," said Nancy Spero of Tarzana, co-chairwoman of the San Fernando Valley McCain campaign, who had a small get-together at her home. "I thought he scored well in telling Senator Obama that if he wanted to run against George Bush, he should have run four years ago."

"I thought it was the best debate, but all 30 of us here thought Obama won and that nothing will change," said Linda Fidell of Winnetka, a retired professor at California State University, Northridge, who hosted a party at her home. "McCain was just testy and irritable."

But in the end, even Republican Valerie Basham of Mission Hills admitted that she feared that McCain hadn't done enough in this last debate to cut into Obama's lead shown in most national polls.

"I wanted to see him come out with both guns blazing and take him down, but he didn't," said Basham.

Political experts agreed that this debate, like the previous two, had failed to change the dynamics of the campaign - that these debates had not altered the race the way the historic first nationally televised debates between John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon in 1960 had.

"There haven't been many game-changers in the history of presidential debates," said Jaime Regalado, director of the Edmund G. "Pat" Brown Institute of Public Affairs at California State University, Los Angeles. "For there to be a game-changer, somebody needs to hit a home run or commit a balk and neither candidate has done that.

"Everyone talks about JFK-Nixon and that's the mainstay of American politics. Kennedy got it right on the first debate. And even though Nixon did well in the next two debates, nobody remembers them.

"What they remember is a picture of Kennedy straight, unflinching, stoic and in command of issues. Nobody remembers what he said. They remember Nixon looking tired, unshaven with a five o'clock shadow and wearing a gray suit that didn't make him look good."

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