nonlatino candidates. there's probably a lot of other candidates that don't reflect the values that you want to see that you could be going after. that's what i'm saying. >> and we are. >> they're doing a tremendous job for our community. to go after them, i just, i don't think it's right. >> i want to get into the issue of immigration now. and, vicki, i want to start with you if you can give us some background. your capacity working with latino decisions, would've been doing some -- you've been doing some, i think, some really excellent polling of the la latino electorate about this issue. and seeing this issue really rose on the agenda of latino voters which is something we haven't seen before. it's been an important issue for the community, but not for the latinos who show up at the polls until more recently. >> yes. >> right? so tell -- talk to us about that, and then we're going to go to our two friends here to see what it all means. >> so immigration, and, arturo, you mentioned this at the very beginning of your comments, is

not the all-encompassing issue for latinos. we care about education, we care about income. however, what immigration has become is a gateway issue for latinos. because what we have seen is that latinos in the middle, moderate conservatives are pushing back against the tenor of the rhetoric toward immigration. so even though it may not tangibly affect them, they're second, third, fourth, fifth generation, they are moving away from those candidates who speak of immigration in such a way. so, you know, my little shortcut for thinking about what's the effect of immigration on politics, it's a gateway issue. and the republican party is split down the middle. there's the george w. bush school of thought that back in the 1990s got it and said, you

know what? immigration is part of this country, and we need to put it nofdz the big tent -- inside of the big tempt, and this is how we are going to court latino voters as part of a larger agenda. the problem with immigration and the republican party is in selling it to the non-hispanic base. and that was one thing that george w. bush was very good at. he was able to sell it to conservative evangelicals and say, hey, this is part of our christian view. i really don't know if the republican party has come to that fork in the road. if they do, in fact, come to that fork in the road and say, you know what? we're going to tone down the tenor and try to figure out a solution, latinos will support them. because one thing we've been finding from our work in latino decisions is latinos don't hold a grudge. we asked in survey after survey if the gop were to turn strategy

and embrace immigration reform and not even necessarily comprehensive but just some sort of substantive immigration reform, latinos say, hey, i'd give the gop a shot. we're talking about 40-50% of latinos. so they're there. the question is in immigration is the gop going to pursue that vote? >> so, daniel, question to you, obviously, here. as a reminder to all of us, also a year ago the chairman of the republican national committee sat on this stage endorsing immigration reform, yet here we are a year later. the senate passed it, in fact, it passed it during the naleo conference last year, but the house has refused to move immigration reform, the house controlled by republican leadership. given vicki's comments, what do you say? ..

it needs to be both a republican and democrat party and a true bipartisan spirit and the difference is while they republican party wants legalization the democratic party is a pure political interests want to gain a path to citizenship because the votes are there. as of this moment i feel if we can inform the hispanic community with conservative principles that we can win those were senate is bad. the point is they need to come to the middle and reconcile with businesses and we want to be a breach of that. hopefully we can make that happen. and do it for our community. >> the reason the right doesn't pass immigration reform is because they don't want us to vote. now when you look at these conservative principles that you espouse. he worked hard and we have up till now the blog pass because the right is not going to let it

pass. >> you are accusing the republican party for not advancing it. >> hold on. here's what we have to do to build political power which is hold these folks accountable. hold them accountable and those are the ones that are running in november. on the right. increase the latino vote and get them out of office and hopefully we can have immigration reform and we can work together to make that happen. now the conservative principle problem though is that it's not just immigration reform and not being able to move that because they don't want to allow latinos in. it's probably other things we hold dear. if you think about the environment we want to have a clean environment that we can leave to our children and grandchildren. when you think about our jobs we want to have protections and regulations that allow us to work and get paid a good living wage. those are things not just on immigration but across-the-board on the conservative right-wing principles.

you will not get latino photos that you have a great organization working within the party to try to move them forward with these things but is not going to work within our community. >> where to begin. [laughter] what has happened with regards to immigration has been, as you two gentlemen pointed out is a stalemate. it's a stalemate that we are seeing at the federal level between the executives and congress and i fear it's not going to budge in the short term mainly the next two to three years. so i want to do train the spotlight on something else which is state and local level politics with regard to immigration. because we are stuck. nothing is happening in d.c. that at the d.c. that at the end of the day people are carrying

out their lives on a day-to-day basis in their neighborhoods, in their cities and in their counties and we see a lot of the effects happening to folks that are getting deported. noncriminals. criminals we understand. they have a criminal record or whatnot but on a day-to-day basis we need to figure out how our state legislators and our county boards and how are school boards can affect the lives of immigrants and latinos more generally. so we can go back and forth to point fingers. president obama, boehner, and mitch mcconnell, harry reid, democrats, republicans. that's not going to get us anywhere. if you hear today are the ones that are going to go back to your communities and get stuff done. i opposed him a big believer that all politics are local so that's a viewpoint i want to leave with you also. >> yes it is and that is what

it's all about. these are elections happening at the local level, 435 state legislative races statewide races. what do you think they have prospect will be for latino politicians in this election? >> obviously i think this election year is, the way things are looking right now if you take a look at the political map across the country is looking more and more viable. they're going to hold the house. i think folks especially hispanics are disillusioned with the obama administration. his favorability has dropped 23 points since january in the hispanic amenity. it's down out of 47%. 59% of colorado hispanics are now in disfavor with obamacare so you are seeing there has been nothing delivered on jobs. the deportation has increased

and there is than an action on immigration reform. so you are seeing a lot of disillusionment and frustration on the part of the american electorate. and i say that because i see it as a window for the republican party. as a window where they need to step in and have great candidates that drive great ideas because i think hispanics are at the crossroads again. we have swung again. we are back in the middle back of the fork in the road and it's not enough for republicans to just stand there and i think generalizations and platitudes. they need to earn our vote. before we solidify with anyone and i don't think the democrats have done that. they had their opportunity and they lost it. >> would typically happens in a midterm election as we have a drop off among latino voters and

the problem with that drop off among latino voters is it allows for those on the right to increase their power and in so doing that means moving on immigration reform is going to be harder to do. moving on a cleaner environment will be harder to do and i hope we can flip the script is here. i think the way we do that, to increase latino turnout over previous midterms and a substantial way is to spotlight the problems we are seeing on the right. they are the ones who held up immigration reform. i think that's a perfect example of a state where if we springboard from a the anti-immigrant position into getting latinos out to vote we can remove an obstacle representative coffman and weekend or someone who's anti-immigrant running for senate from taking position. we are in california and something special happened here with prop 87. for the first time ever as you

recall this is the first anti-immigrant initiative. the hall bar commercial showing latinos running across the screen and they just keep coming. it sparked a revolution per latinos in california. they registered and turned out in record numbers. now you don't see that happen. we can use what has happen right now at the right holding up immigration reform to springboard into success for latino communities across the country. [applause] >> unfortunately we are coming to the close of this opening session but i think it really has put into context what this election means and what the next three days of conversations will be. i'll give you each 30 seconds to make final remarks and thank you all. we let you have the last word. >> let me first thank you again for allowing me to be here at our hallmark conference. i love naleo. what i hope in the future is that this remote extent. we will have to open up the walls because we'll have a record number of latinos coming

into elected office. i will close with this which is demographics are not destiny. what we talked about throughout those on the left on the right about building political power at the end of the day for any latino political power to materialize we have got to make that happen together. i want to leave you with a call to action to please join us. go to latino victory.us join us on twitter and please don't forget to donate because that's how we invest in our own community. >> this election cycle is not going to be a battle of personalities. it's not going to be about who is better or more fluent articulate or whatever. it's about how this country is going to look. it's about our economic system. it's about how we are going to be as a community as a culture, as a nation so i think we should welcome folks who are driving that conversation. let's engage in a debate about the idea for both sides. let's have an honest debate.

no sacred cows and that is what we need to do. >> last word. >> there have been a couple of tense moments sitting here between these gentlemen. but they are right or you are disagreement and feeling uncomfortable that is what mobilizes you and gets you to vote. i want us to keep thinking about the importance of our political maturation from marching in the streets. we are voting more and from voting to giving money to giving money to expanding this room to fill more latino elected officials. >> please join me in thanking our opening panel. [applause] >> more from the national association of latino elected and appointed officials annual conference including remarks by labor secretary tomas perez and former attorney general alberto

gonzalez. next they'll california governor jerry brown and state attorney general harris talk about california's latino community, civil rights and immigration. this is 20 minutes. ♪ [applause] >> thank you very much. [applause] i am very excited to be called the quarterback. i never played football because i was too short. when i was a junior in high school i was only 5 feet 3 inches so that's a real complex. i was on the debate team. [laughter] i had a good mouth. but anyway, california has come back. we are coming back. we are doing lots of important stuff and not the least because of the leadership of senator padilla and others.

i think we have probably got the biggest delegation ever in california and i don't know about the rest of the country but bigger than texas i hope. whatever. but anyway friendly competition. i'm very proud to sign the d.r.e.a.m. act and as soon as i signed it -- [applause] i had to sign the d.r.e.a.m. act twice. the first one was raising tuition for undocumented students and the second was eligibility for scholarships for undocumented students. [applause] and then because we are still waiting for that, whatever you call that washington group of people i signed a bill to lead an undocumented law school graduate who passed the state bar become a lawyer. legalized in california. [applause]

so i think that's pretty good. you can practice law in california even if the law doesn't recognize that you ought to be voting in california. but do you know what, if we keep doing stuff like that across the country congress will get the message. that's what's really important. but we are not waiting. [applause] that's why i signed the driver's license bill and by the way was only 10 years ago that 60% of people were against giving undocumented californians a driver's license. that is flipped around and that's flipped around for one big reason. politicians and really the people, the participation, the sheer power of the latino community in the towns, in cities and counties up and down the state. that decline that is turning the political feelings and philosophies of state government. by the way there's one more bill and that is another till i was able to sign. the legislature actually, i

don't invent most of these things so there was a legislature and when i signed it everybody thinks i did it. that is why the legislature always get jealous of the governor. he gets all the credit and doesn't do all the work. anyway you take the good and the bad. there's another bill that if you have an organizing drive and a group of employees to organize a union and the employer calls that the immigration service to defeat that effort, we have an anti-retaliation law that now says you have to be reinstated. we make that practice illegal so it gives undocumented the right to organize. [applause] and i do want to say something about the school funding formulas that the legislature passed two years ago. i think it's the first time that money is being spent not equally. it used to be very important, equal spending for all school

districts. a lot of places haven't even done that yet. not even close but in california we have unequal spending based on needs like those families that speak a language only english at home they get special consideration in the school district gets more money based on the number of nonenglish-speaking families that have children in our schools. [applause] it's not really justice to treat unequaled equally. you have to do more to be able to create that opportunity and that pathway for those families that are not having the same skill of speaking english as others. anyway we have done that. california has 6 billion students. 2 million are designated english language learning and that means extra money for the school and as well as for low income families.

it's pretty amazing. i don't know what the affluent families are doing. they are not producing or something because the schools, have the kids on the schools are from low-income families. so you know there it is. [applause] but we understand that and we are doing something about it. there are a lot of individual issues. what's important is that the power you represent is growing and it's growing in really important ways. if someone said our connection with mexico is so close. it wasn't all that long ago. 1769 carlos and perez had occupied san diego. you didn't know california started the occupy movement. he said occupy san diego and occupy monterey and came up here

in 1769. that was the spanish mexican -- in 1815 and of course brought the mexicans in 1946, 1848. but the point is you never, you never keep control forever. there are always new waves coming so you have to stay ahead of the wave. [applause] that's what we call brown power. [applause] but anyway so i'm going to mexico next month because we want to forge an agreement. i ran for president three times and didn't quite make it. i won three primaries and unfortunately you have to win 25 primaries. california is like a nation-state with 38 million people, 40% of latino dissent

and we can form our own agreement. mexico china british columbia on trade and joint research on scholarships and climate change. yeah there's a border but there's something bigger and that is the human family and when we focus on the western hemisphere and refocus on baja california we know that we are one greater family that is working together. together i think we can have a better state. when i was governor the last time and by the way i signed the bilingual education bill. [applause] a common market between mexico and the united states. mexico, the united states and canada. we are going to get to that eventually. we are altogether in some big sense so anyway thank you very

much. the state is getting more powerful all the time. stick to it. once you get elected don't get him elected. i can tell you i have been in power and i've been out of power. it's better to be and then to be out. thank you very much. [applause] [applause] >> another historical reference for those californians out there 20 years ago this year the voters of california passed proposition 187. many would argue was a precursor to the arizona law and the utah law of the anti-immigrant laws in recent years. as we look around the room in the year 2014 icy school board

members, councilmembers and mayors and supervisors and legislators and come saturday members of congress. it's true, we keep coming and we have governor brown who embraces the. so thank you governor brown. [applause] our next speaker is the attorney general for the state of california. the honorable harris. are we fortunate to have her serving sms capacity. her already stellar career began in 2003 when she won her first election defeating an incumbent to become the district attorney of the city and county of san francisco. in november 2010 she was elected california's, excuse me 2003. in 2010 she was elected

california's attorney general becoming the first african-american, the first south asian and the first woman ever to hold that post. [applause] it's a powerful job. i think something that speaks volumes of her commitment and her values is her relentless fight against financial institutions to provide justice and restitution for families, latino families impacted by the foreclosure crisis in america. i will let her brag about that. lots of people call her a rising star in california politics. i disagree. she's a rock star for us here in the state of california. please welcome the honorable carla harris. [applause] ♪

♪ >> thank you, thank you. welcome to california and thank you my dear friend alex. i am so proud to support you as you continue in their leadership in our great state. we have an embarrassment of riches to be sure. the latino senate pro tiem in modern history is here as well. [applause] we have an embarrassment of riches and all of us here are elected or appointed so we know how our profession can be that i will tell you that we are very fortunate to have a lot of stars in the state to work together and are truly friends and committed to our collective desire and responsibility to serve the people we represent a thank you for that generous introduction. welcome. there is so much i want to say

that i have been given seven minutes. i'm going to keep it brief. but i think that it's important to recognize everyone here clearly is, the significance of naleo and its reason for being and it is appreciating its reason for being and its purpose and its responsibility and a duty. we know then that all of us in this room have many things in common in spite of the fact that we have diverse interests and priorities in many ways but we have at least two things in common, i think all of us. the one is that for most of us in this round, we are one of the first is if not the first to do what we do and for most of us in this room it's not everyone in this room -- if not everyone in this room we do what we do because we believe truly the magnificence of our country and are committed to fighting for its highest ideals at every step

of the way. and so when i think about the purpose and the reason for being and the commonality that we share i think of it also in the context of something we will commemorate or celebrate next week, which is the 50th anniversary of the civil rights act of 1964. and in thinking about the civil rights act of 1964, 50 years later, we notice it and remember to be a product of a coalition of people who came together to fight for the ideals of our country, or that promise we made in 1776 that we are all and should be treated as equals. we know that in the coalition that came around that movement there were people who fought hard and some who died to make it real and make it true and we know also for many reasons that

document is not just a piece of paper that was signed into law 50 years ago. it is very much still a living breathing document, a document that outlines for our country and reminds unfortunately some folks who may need to be reminded of the great promise which indicates that there are certain fundamental rights that always must be protected. there are fundamental rights that relate to education, that relate to economic opportunity, that relate to giving human beings and the people who live in this country the ability to live a productive life and live with dignity. so when i think about the work we are all here to rededicate ourselves to doing and the 50th anniversary of the civil rights act, can't help but reflect on where we are today. on the issue of education for example, we look at this country

and we know that the graduation rates from high school for communities of color are embarrassing. we look at the graduation rates and we see the white students are 79% and for latino students at 68% and for african-americans its 62% who will graduate from high school in our country. ..