A Californian’s revisionist immigration history

“Out of the past and into the current controversy dividing the Republican Party came former California Gov. Pete Wilson, charging into Washington this week to argue that he had been right all along in trying to slam the door on illegal immigration.

Far from dooming Republicans to a series of defeats in the most populous state, Wilson argued, his championing in 1994 of Proposition 187, denying health care and educational services to illegal immigrants and their children, anticipated the kind of hard-line policy many Republicans have endorsed this year.
The old Marine, as unyielding now at 72 as he was during his eight years as governor, may not be the spokesman the embattled House Republicans would choose for their fight with the White House and the Senate over the immigration reform bill now headed for a conference committee. Wilson is blamed by many Republicans, including those around President Bush, for so alienating the growing Hispanic vote in California that the state’s hoard of electoral votes have moved permanently into the Democratic column.”

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