The California Assembly is due to vote on COPA in the next 3 weeks. COPA would provide a “safe harbor” to up to 2 million undocumented California residents.  www.calopportunity.org

We are urging the Latino Legislative Caucus to adopt COPA/ACA 27 as a unifying cause for Latino legislatures and their constituents for 2012.  Help us by calling 14 Latino Legislatures Today!

Here’s how:

1. Dial their capitol office and ask to speak with their legislative director or contact person.  If they are not available leave a message with the secretary.

2. When you speak you should say something like:

For Assemblymembers:

“Hi my name is __________, I am calling on behalf of [your organization] part of the COPA/ACA 27 Community Coalition.  I’m calling to ask the Assemblymember to vote yes on ACA 27 – COPA.”

For Senators:

“Hi my name is __________, I am calling on behalf of [your organization] part of the COPA/ACA 27 Community Coalition.  I’mcalling to ask the Senator to support ACA 27 – COPA.  This is an important piece of legislation for our community.”

3. That is it!  Make 14 of these calls and share with your membership network.

Here is the list to call:

Assemblymember Chuck Calderon

• 58th Assembly District
• Capitol Office: (916) 319-2058
• Contact: Tom White (Chief of Staff)

Assemblymember Henry Perea

• 31st Assembly District
• Capitol Office: (916) 319-2031
• Contact: Celia Mata (legislative director)

Assemblymember Jose Solorio

• 69th Assembly District
• Capitol Office: (916) 319-2069
• Contact: Sandra DeBourelando (legislative director)

Assemblymember Luis Alejo

• 28th Assembly District
• Capitol Office: (916) 319-2028
• Contact: Teresa Acuna (legislative director)

Assemblymember Nora Campos

• 23rd Assembly District
• Capitol Office: (916) 319-2023
• Contact: Christina Romero (legislative director)

Assemblymember Norma Torres

• 61st Assembly District
• Capitol Office: (916) 319-2061
• Contact: Roy Sianez (legislative director)

Assemblymember Tony Mendoza

• 56th Assembly District
• Capitol Office: (916) 319-2056
• Contact: Hayley Myers (legislative director)

Senator Alex Padilla

• 20th Senate District
• Capitol Office: (916) 651-4020
• Contact: Khaim Morton (legislative director)

Senator Ed Hernandez

• 24th Senate District
• Capitol Office: (916) 651-4024
• Contact: Anabelle Snyder (legislative director)

Senator Gloria Negrete-McLeod

• 32nd Senate District
• Capitol Office: (916) 651-4032
• Contact: Luiz Tapia (legislative director)

Senator Juan Vargas 

• 40th Senate District
• Capitol Office: (916) 651-4040
• Contact: Victoria Harris (legislative aide)

Senator Kevin de Leon

• 22nd Senate District
• Capitol Office: (916) 651-4022
• Contact: Norma Zendajas (scheduler)

Senator Lou Correa

• 34th Senate District
• Capitol Office: (916) 651-4034
• Contact: ask for legislative director

Senator Michael Rubio

• 16th Senate District
• Capitol Office: (916) 651-4016
• Contact: Sunny Romer (legislative director)

RSVP to join the COPA Lobby Group Bus traveling to Sacramento-Wed, June 13-CLICK to RSVP

—

Diego E. Janacua Cortez

Field Organizer

SVREP

Djanacua@svrep.org

Office: (323) 343-9299

Learn about COPA:

www.calopportunity.org

The Southwest Voter Registration Education Project (SVREP), founded in 1974, is the largest and oldest non-partisan Latino voter participation organization in the US.

Many people do not know that there is a barrio in Claremont and that it has a long history of survival. The community organized to ensure that Barrio Park was not gentrified and now has a sign, a basketball court, and restrooms.

There will be a 40th Anniversary celebration of Barrio Park in Claremont on Saturday, June 16th from 10 A. M. – 6 P. M. There is already some controversy as is described by the link to this article that came out last week:

The article “Claremont Council Ponders Church/State Separation”

Good News — the California State Assembly, by a vote of 46 -24, just passed the Inequitable Impounds Bill (AB 1993).

AB 1993 (Ma) Inequitable Impounds, will allow local governments to impound a car for less than 30 days for certain traffic infractions where the offense involves a person who has never been driven a driver’s license.

AB 1993 would end the unfair and unnecessary car impoundment policies which are resulting in severe financial hardship for low-income individuals and families in California.

This bill will prevent car impoundments by allowing unlicensed drivers “reasonable time” to call a licensed driver to show up at the scene and drive the vehicle away.

AB 1993, the Inequitable Impounds bill, is moving forward. The Assembly will vote on the bill this week (as early as tomorrow).

Please call your Assembly member today to express your support for the bill. (If you aren’t sure who your representative is, this Find Your State Representatives link may be helpful.)

AB 1993 (Ma) Inequitable Impounds, will allow local governments to impound a car for less than 30 days for certain traffic infractions where the offense involves a person who has never been given a driver’s license.

AB 1993 would end the unfair and unnecessary car impoundment policies which are resulting in severe financial hardship for low-income individuals and families in California.

This bill will prevent car impoundments by allowing unlicensed drivers “reasonable time” to call a licensed driver to show up at the scene and drive the vehicle away.

Thank you for your continued support!

Gabriela Villareal
Policy Analyst
California Immigrant Policy Center

Jose Zapata Calderon
Created: 05/29/2012 01:21:26 PM PDT

In reference to the May 22 article “Torres’ bill creates ruckus in Assembly,” I am in full support of Assemblywoman Norma Torres’ bill AB 1282 that would create a new state law treating the act of carrying a loaded firearm into an airport as a serious offense.

Assemblyman Tim Donnelly should have been charged with a felony rather than with two misdemeanors for carrying a loaded 45-caliber Colt Mark IV handgun with four rounds of ammunition in the magazine and a separate magazine with five additional rounds in his carry-on luggage.

The offense can be considered a felony if the armed person is a gang member and if the armed person is legally prohibited from carrying a firearm. The Minuteman group that Donnelly has professed to belong to certainly falls in the category of a violent gang. Minuteman members have been known to harbor and carry loaded weapons. Former President George Bush identified them as “armed, self-appointed vigilantes.”

In 2011, the leader of a Minuteman group in Arizona, Shawna Forde, was given the death sentence for the killings of Raul Flores and his 9-year-old daughter Brisenia. According to police reports on the incident, Forde and members of her “posse” mistakenly raided the Flores home dressed as law enforcement officers “looking for money and drugs to finance her border-watch group.”

If this is not enough to categorize a Minuteman group as a “gang,” I don’t know what is. Hence, it is no coincidence that the Southern Poverty Law Center, in addition to listing the Minuteman group as a “hard-line nativist and racial extremist hate group” in the past, has now also included Donnelly as a former founder of the largest anti-immigrant Minuteman chapter in California and named Donnelly as a “right-wing radical” in its Spring 2011 Intelligence Report.

In addition to the grounds of being able to charge Donnelly for being part of a gang, there was the second possibility of his being charged with a felony for carrying a loaded gun. Donnelly, we now know, did not have a permit for carrying a loaded gun. That is why the circumstances in this case warrant the calling of our state representatives in support of AB 1282.

Torres’s bill will ensure that, in cases such as this one, the perpetrator will be arrested and simultaneously be banned from the designated airport. Although Donnelly got off with a slap on the hand, Assemblywoman Torres’s bill will hopefully be passed so that there are no “double standards” in how the law is interpreted and implemented in the future.