GOP Leader Under Fire for Alleged Remark on Contested Latino Votes

SACRAMENTO — California GOP Chairman Michael Schroeder came under fire Monday from state and national Democratic leaders for reportedly saying that noncitizen immigrants who voted illegally in a key congressional race in Orange County last year were “stupid” and “dummies.”

Schroeder, an Irvine attorney, denied making the comments during a dinner speech over the weekend to a group of conservatives in Napa, saying a local newspaper reporter misconstrued what he said.

“I didn’t say they were dumb,” said Schroeder, who refused to apologize for the Saturday night speech to about 100 GOP supporters. “I said that what they did was either innocent or dumb. I never used the words ‘stupid’ or ‘immigrants’ or ‘Hispanics’ the entire evening.”

Despite pleas of innocence, Schroeder was blasted by Democrats, who suggested he was at best irresponsible and at worst bigoted. None of those complaining were at the meeting.

“I am saddened and shocked by Mike’s comments,” said Art Torres, state Democratic Party chairman. “If insulting immigrants is the GOP’s idea of outreach, they have lost a whole generation of Latino voters.”

The broadside against the state Republican leader comes as Democrats continue to mount a full-court press on Capitol Hill to derail a House investigation into last year’s election of Rep. Loretta Sanchez, the Garden Grove Democrat who defeated longtime Republican Rep. Robert K. Dornan in a race marked by charges of voter fraud by noncitizen immigrants.

Schroeder’s problems ignited after the Napa Register published an article Sunday, saying that the state GOP chairman called immigrants “stupid” and “dummies.” The article said that Schroeder, who has represented Dornan in the voter fraud case, talked about efforts to uncover noncitizens who voted illegally in the race between Dornan and Sanchez. “I’m just trying to get the real dummies, which at this point is most of them,” Schroeder is quoted as saying in the newspaper story.

Those statements, Schroeder said, were either quoted out of context or never said at all. Schroeder said his statements referred to noncitizens who listed their original birthplace, making it easy for investigators to track down immigration files that revealed they were not citizens when they registered to vote, as required by law.

“The closest I came to any of that was to use the word ‘dumb,’ ” Schroeder said. “But that was to describe what they did, not the people themselves.”

Mark Luce, a Napa County supervisor and chairman of the county’s GOP central committee, attended the speech and said that Schroeder was quoted out of context by the newspaper. But he did recall that Schroeder used the words “dummies” and “stupid.”

“It was never ever a broad statement about immigrants, racial or otherwise,” Luce said. “It was said in reference to the voter fraud. He was talking about how easy it was to detect the voter fraud.”

Doug Ernst, Napa Register editor, said that the paper stood by the story. But he said that the story should have clarified that Schroeder was not labeling all immigrants as stupid, only those noncitizens who might have voted illegally in the Orange County race.

Democratic leaders, meanwhile, took an opportunity to try to embarrass the Republican Party. It comes at a politically opportune time, with GOP leaders in the House eyeing the Sanchez-Dornan race and the Republican Party in California making a serious effort to build bridges to Latino immigrants and other newcomers to the nation’s most populous state.

“It is amazing how consistently out of touch with the American people the Republican Party continues to be,” Democratic National Chairman Steve Grossman said of Schroeder’s reported comments. “We are a nation proud to be comprised mainly of immigrants.”

Torres said Schroeder’s reported statements are particularly irksome in light of last week’s news that the Orange County Grand Jury apparently won’t issue criminal indictments against leaders of a Latino group suspected of helping register noncitizens to vote.

He also suggested that Schroeder, who has served as Dornan’s attorney in the fraud investigation while wearing the GOP chairman’s hat, has a job conflict “that is obviously affecting his judgment.”

Rep. Lucille Roybal-Allard (D-Los Angeles) said Schroeder is wrong even if given the benefit of the doubt.

“It’s still irresponsible,” she said. “It implies that here are a group of people who are unintelligent. They may be in fact uninformed about our election process, but they certainly are not dumb.”

The Napa Register also reported that Schroeder claimed he had established an “information-sharing pact” with the Los Angeles Times to fan media exposure of Dornan’s claims. Schroeder is quoted as saying he gave the paper a three-month exclusive and full access to his files on the matter in exchange for putting two reporters on the story full time.

Schroeder denied he ever said he had a formal agreement with the paper. “I was talking to a very far-right crowd,” he said. “They believe media relations means not talking to the press. I tried to explain that this is an example of how the press can work for you rather than against you.

William Nottingham, editor of the Los Angeles Times Orange County Edition, said the newspaper never had any pact with Schroeder.

“I don’t know what Mr. Schroeder actually said, but we’ve made no agreements with anyone. We’ve reported right down the middle, letting the chips fall as they may,” Nottingham said. “Lots of people give us information, and if it checks out we put it in the newspaper; if it doesn’t, we don’t. On this story we were especially careful to gather information from a variety of sources representing as many perspectives as possible.”