By Christian Berthelsen, Mai Tran & Christopher Goffard, 7:10 PM PDT, October 19, 2006
Los Angeles Times
SANTA ANA, Calif. -- Orange County Republican leaders urged their own congressional candidate to withdraw from the race Thursday after he acknowledged his campaign was involved in sending out a letter intended to scare off Hispanic voters.Tan Nguyen, a Vietnamese immigrant facing an uphill battle against a longtime Democratic incumbent in central Orange County, faced a battery of questions from state attorney general investigators and potential civil and criminal liability for voting rights violations.
With a political firestorm growing just weeks before the Nov. 7 election, Nguyen said Thursday that he had fired the campaign's office manager he claimed produced the letter, but that he had no prior knowledge of it.
But his comments were contradicted by the chairman of Orange County's Republican Party, who said he had been told by the mail house that sent the letter that Nguyen was personally involved in its development.
To some, the episode seemed a jarring reminder of what they call Orange County's history of xenophobia and voter intimidation, an ugly distinction that Republican leaders say they've tried hard to bury.
Just days ago, Nguyen had been viewed as a quixotic but ultimately hopeless challenger to U.S. Rep. Loretta Sanchez, running a largely self-funded campaign that had little support from the Republican Party apparatus.
But the racially charged letter sent to an estimated 14,000 registered voters in Santa Ana, Garden Grove and Anaheim brought sweeping, national condemnation from both political parties.
Written in Spanish, one paragraph of the missive read: "You are advised that if your residence in this country is illegal or you are an immigrant, voting in a federal election is a crime that could result in jail time."
The letter awoke memories of the 1988 race for the 71st Assembly District in Orange County, when the local GOP hired uniformed guards to stand in Latino neighborhoods with signs that said, "Non-Citizens Can't Vote." Even when it paid to settle a lawsuit for an undisclosed sum, the GOP doggedly denied wrongdoing.
That is not the case here, as Republicans rush to condemn the letter. With the election just 19 days away, politicians from the U.S. Senate to the state Senate on both sides of the aisle emerged to denounce the mailing, and several advocacy groups said they would hold rallies Friday and Saturday urging authorities to fully investigate the matter and prosecute anyone involved.
At the same time, Republican officials on Thursday quickly sought to distance themselves from Nguyen, with several calling for him to bow out of his underdog campaign to unseat Rep. Loretta Sanchez, D-Garden Grove. Nguyen has hired a lawyer and met with investigators from the state Attorney General's office Thursday.
Addressing questions about the letter for the first time, Nguyen said his office manager "took it upon herself to allow our database to be used to send out the letter. It was disseminated without my authorization or approval."
The office manager, whose name was not made public, had been working for Nguyen since he opened his campaign office. He said the employee had access to a database of Democrat voters, which he purchased to send mailers to 73,000 households.
"People are pointing fingers saying that I did it and that's going to get cleared," he said. "I want to get the truth out so people can vote for candidates for the right reasons."
The office manager could not be reached for comment.
Times staff writer Jennifer Delson contributed to this report.
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/politics/socal/la-me-letter20oct20,0,86835 3.story?coll=la-home-headlines
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