GARDEN GROVE, Calif. (AP) -- Orange County Republican leaders on Thursday called for the withdrawal of a GOP congressional candidate they believe sent a letter threatening Hispanic immigrant voters with arrest.
Tan D. Nguyen denied knowing anything about the letter in an interview Thursday with The Associated Press but said he fired a campaign staffer who may have been responsible for it.
County Republican Chairman Scott Baugh, however, said that after speaking with state investigators and the company that distributed the mailer, he believes Nguyen had direct knowledge of ''obnoxious and reprehensible'' letter. He told the AP that the party's executive committee voted unanimously to urge Nguyen to drop out of the race against Democratic U.S. Rep. Loretta Sanchez.
''I learned information that allows me to draw the conclusion that not only was Mr. Nguyen's campaign involved in this, but that Mr. Nguyen was personally involved in expediting the mailer,'' Baugh said in a telephone interview.
State and federal officials were investigating the letter, which was written in Spanish and mailed to an estimated 14,000 Democratic voters in central Orange County. It warns, ''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.''
Immigrants who are adult naturalized citizens are eligible to vote.
Nguyen, a Vietnamese immigrant whose opposition to illegal immigration has figured heavily in his underdog campaign, was not immediately available to react to the committee's vote. A staffer at his campaign headquarters said he was meeting with investigators.
Earlier Thursday, he said in an interview, ''I did not do this. I did not approve of any letter.''
Nguyen said he has fired an employee in his office who he believes might have used his campaign's voter data base to send the letter without his knowledge. He said he was cooperating with authorities and planned to continue his campaign.
Orange County is an immigration battleground. One founder of the Minuteman civilian border patrol group ran for Congress here and cities have debated issues such as the value of public centers for day laborers and the use of local police to arrest illegal immigrants.
Complaints about the letters this week prompted a state probe, and a spokesman for California's attorney general said investigators had been questioning people in Orange County. U.S. Justice Department spokeswoman Cynthia Magnuson said the department's civil rights division was investigating in coordination with the state attorney general's office.
A couple things about this story. First, the damage has already been done once these emails have been sent out to the Democratic households. This is an obvious suppress the vote scheme by the Nguyen campaign headquarters to try to keep Hispanic Democratic voters away from the polls. What is even more important is that these voters were specifically targeted in a battleground district, where immigration is at the forefront of the issues. Second, Nguyen has pretty much gotten away with this vote suppression, so far. Yes, Nguyen has denied knowing of this suppression. And he has fired a campaign staffer as a result of this revelation. But Nguyen is still in the race. We've got plausible deniability on Nguyen's part. Third is the GOP's reaction as a result of the scandal. Yes, Orange County Republican officials are calling for Nguyen to exit from the race. But do you really expect Nguyen to withdrawal? This is pretty much spin control on the Republicans part to limit the political damage as a result of another scandal being exposed. So we get some big-name Republicans, such as the Governator, expressing shock and disgust at Nguyen--but nothing will be done about it until after the elections, when the state and U.S. Justice Department investigations get underway.
Of course, the bad news for the Republicans is that this vote suppression scandal came out just over two weeks before the congressional midterm elections. This revelation just reinforces the notion of the GOP's "culture of corruption" within its own political party.
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