Immigration looms as key issue

Political scientists, candidates say topic is likely to play large role in future races. The race to replace state Sen. John Campbell, who is expected to win a seat in the House of Representatives, is starting to get crowded, and one issue is already dominating the debate: illegal immigration.

Huntington Beach Republican Assemblyman Tom Harman and other potential candidates for Campbell’s state Senate seat, which includes Huntington Beach, almost unanimously say they expect to discuss the immigration issue as part of their campaigns.

“As I travel around my district and the Senate district and the state for that matter, it seems to be an issue that is of great importance to the electorate in California,” said Harman, who in late June became the first declared candidate in the tentative Senate race.

Other possible candidates for the 35th District Senate seat are Orange County Board of Education President Alexandria Coronado, Dana Point City Councilwoman Diane Harkey and Irvine City Councilwoman Christina Shea. All are Republicans, as is Campbell.

The U.S. House seat opened up in August, when former Rep. Chris Cox was appointed chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission. Campbell is the leading candidate, but much of the campaign’s focus has been on Minuteman founder Jim Gilchrist and his campaign against illegal immigration.

Coronado said when she was on the Anaheim Union High School District board in 1999, the board wrote a resolution asking for federal reimbursement for educating illegal immigrants.

“We took a lot of heat for it, but we brought national attention to the issue,” she said.

Coronado, Harman and Harkey all said they support a plan for a state border police force, a statewide initiative backed by Campbell that could appear on the 2006 ballot.

“We saw that private citizens under the Minutemen could control the borders,” Harkey said. “We don’t have either the capacity or the will to do it at the federal level.”

Shea said she thinks immigration should be a concern for anyone serving the state, but she disagreed that it’s a big factor in the potential Senate race.

“Clearly it’s a federal issue,” she said. “The funding for patrolling our borders is based at the federal level.... I don’t see that as a major focus in our campaign.”

As a candidate, Shea said her top issues would be education, living within the state’s budget and preserving open space.

In the congressional race, some were looking at voters’ response to illegal immigration as a barometer of how important the issue is to core GOP voters. Some politicos don’t think immigration is a critical issue in Orange County, but it’s still expected to crop up in future elections.

UC Irvine political scientist Louis DeSipio said what happens in the Dec. 6 congressional general election -- when Campbell faces Gilchrist and three other candidates -- will indicate how important immigration will be in a subsequent state Senate race.

“I think the statewide electorate is a little more concerned about unauthorized migration generally than this particular population” in Orange County, DeSipio said.

Regardless of how big an issue immigration proves to be in a potential Senate race, DeSipio said, “I think we’ll see more of it in 2006.”

* ALICIA ROBINSON covers government and politics. She may be reached at (714) 966-4626.