CALIFORHIA GOVEROR GAVIN NEWSOM SIGNS LAW TO PUT ILLEGALS ON STATE BOARDS
Monica Showalter
Talk about disenfranchisement. In California, seems it's not enough that foreign nationals who've just spilled over the U.S. border from the south can get free education, free health care, free housing, and all that — now it looks as though locals may just find themselves lorded over by foreign nationals with zero loyalty to the United States making policy, now that Gov. Gavin Newsom has signed SB225, a bill to allow illegals to "serve" 9and be paid) on state boards that make policy in California. If your interests conflict with theirs, too bad about yours:
According to the San Francisco Chronicle:
SACRAMENTO — Undocumented immigrants [sic] and other non-citizens will be allowed to serve on state boards and commissions after Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a package of bills Saturday intended to integrate immigrants further into society.
SB225 by Sen. Maria Elena Durazo, D-Los Angeles, expands eligibility for state appointments to any California resident over the age of 18.
In a signing message, Newsom said applicants deserved to be considered on their merits, rather than their immigration status.
"Building a more representative government requires an assessment of barriers that prevent talented and qualified Californians from consideration for public service," he said. "California doesn't succeed in spite of our diversity — our state succeeds because of it."
The idea is so bad it was vetoed in 2018 by the state's previous governor, Jerry Brown, who rejected it on the grounds that citizenship for this form of public service "is the better path." The bill's sponsor, Sen. Maria Elena Durazo, is a far-left activist who accompanied Newsom on his first trip as governor to El Salvador on a junket to find out how to make illegals in California happier.
It's a shocking encroachment to the "consent of the governed" idea now that anyone, citizen or not, legally here or not, loyal to the U.S. or not, can get himself a sinecure as part of the state's ruling class. Think the Chinese government might just want to take advantage, sending someone over to defend their interests with a national loyal to them? All they'd have to do is talk left-wing, which is not hard for a hardcore Chicom to do, and they could get on. Think the Mexican government might just do the same? It's an astonishing open-borders move to put illegals in ruling positions now, as if consent of the citizens no longer mattered. The U.S. fought a war over this problem — in 1776.
It also could create some interesting foreign policy problems — think the government of El Salvador or Honduras might just find it useful to have some of its nationals on some California board next time there's a clash of interests between California and Washington around the issue of illegal immigration? You can bet some of these places are doing the calculations.
Those boards and commissions, by the way, are numerous. Some have the power to recommend the issuance and amounts of bonds. Some are minor bodies devoted to goals like beautifying parks, but others are quite powerful, such as the California Coastal Commission, which works to ensure that no new housing gets built based on all its environmental considerations. Sounds like a great opportunity for a Rosarito Beach property developer to send in an agent to get on one of those boards...to keep it that way.
Worse still, there are the court boards. Think an illegal on the California courts boards might just be an intimidating factor to ensure that judges always ruled in illegals' favor? And cripes, why would an open lawbreaker be welcome on a body that is supposedly devoted to ensuring rule of law? Judges are supposed to be pristine and non-political and independent and above reproach in the state, and already an overseeing board known as the Judicial Council interferes with that. That that body even should exist is very questionable, but it does — and now an illegal, loyal to the laws of China or El Salvador, might just be telling (or hinting broadly to) the state's judges how they're supposed to act.
Illegals running prison policy on one of those boards? What could go wrong? Lawbreakers in that kind of a position is pretty much turning prison policy over to people who should be in prison (and, in other countries, certainly are).
How about some illegals on voting boards? Now it can happen.
What's more, there's nothing in the law passed that says the entire board can't be made up of illegals. Some districts of the state are almost entirely composed of illegal aliens, so in the interest of "representation" as Newsom states, some on these boards might just be all illegals.
The move to erase citizenship as any criterion for participating as a full citizen in a representative democracy has already gotten a camel's nose under the tent - when, a few years ago, Huntington Park put a couple of illegals on some innocuous-sounding boards such as parks. They were illegals who, despite the state's 90%-plus acceptance rate for DACA applicants, somehow didn't qualify for DACA. The locals reacted extremely negatively in public meetings and the illegals refused to answer questions but nevertheless kept their public offices. Back when I was at Investor's Business Daily, I wrote this:
What the appointments of Julian Zatarain, 21, to Huntington Park's parks and recreation commission, and Francisco Medina, 29, to its health and education commission, represent is the political normalization of illegal immigration, regardless of what citizens want.
Corrupt political machines are making illegals our new rulers, issuing decisions, rules and, potentially, taxes, without concern that they are Mexican nationals.
Gone unnoticed in the press are the strange unanswered questions in these appointments.
The city councilman who appointed them, Jhonny Pineda, on his website billed the two illegals as educational overachievers with big dreams who were community-minded, civic-spirited people interested in giving back to the community.
What's more, he said, their role would be only advisory and they would be willing to work for free, even though the other commissioners would get $75 stipends. (Other reports suggest that officials in the area often find ways to pay large fees to themselves from these token-pay jobs.)
Pineda also blandly said that neither had qualified for President Obama's Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals amnesty program, with no explanation.
Well, now we've got it on the state level, meaning illegals have more power than ever, the power of foreign nationals who can't (legally) vote to cancel out the will of the citizens. Someone from Washington ought to be challenging this in courts.