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From: Wayne Mayo [email him]
Re: The Economic Impact of Immigration: Paying for the Privilege, by Peter Brimelow
The Time Magazine story by journalist Nathan Thornburgh was just that. A story. It was fair, but as you pointed out it was biased towards the "political class" and their reluctance to offend the growing liberal voting bloc that illegal immigrants are supposed to be.
Recently I heard the reporter for Fox News covering the Tea Party Convention say that "...as long as the Tea Party movement stays away from illegal immigration/abortion (social issues) and concentrates on fiscal policy and limited government, they're going play a huge part in November."
Note: I am not quoting written sources but from memory.
But the point remains. I don't believe it.
I personally collected 80% of the signatures to get my measures on the ballot while my employees worked. One day I did over 560 signatures. [VDARE.com note: This was Columbia County, Oregon's Measure 5-190, which would have penalized employers of illegals. Voters passed it—a judge knocked it down.] I had people driving their oxygen-tanked 90 year old mother down so she could sign the petition. I talked with literally hundreds of my neighbors coming at the subject from every conceivable direction. Legal Canadian immigrants with their stories of cost and oversight, displaced native workers, people who remember "Operation Wetback"; Hispanics here legally who had paid the encumbering price of that legality. Mothers, wives, guys that wanted to fight me (I was a bit interested in this at the time. It had been a long, hot day). The anecdotal content alone is substantial.
Voter turnout in Columbia County was the largest ever in history. I think it was close to 85%. For quiet Columbia County, this was huge.
As the Time magazine article reported, the other side raised and spent over $70 K. For both the signature collecting PAC and then the campaign PAC combined, the total was either $430.07 or $420.07. I'd have to look. But it was the combined donations of two PACs, not one.
I had no committee. But I wrote prolifically, buttressing my initiatives with every conceivable argument. My favorite was a report that came out from the World Bank on the subject of "Intangible Wealth". It held that the rule of law, private property rights, contracts and incorruptible judiciaries were more responsible for the wealth of a nation then education levels."According to their regression analyses, for example, the rule of law explains 57 percent of countries' intangible capital. Education accounts for 36 percent."." (The Secrets of Intangible Wealth by Ronald Bailey. In Reason, October 2007)
I used this to leverage the argument against lawlessness.
When I push for further measures within the local towns, I should get them on the ballot again quite easily and this time better suited to an ACLU onslaught.
Mayo was the author of 2008's Measure 5-191 in Columbia County Oregon, which would have required E-Verify and fined construction employers $10000 if one illegal hire was found on a construction site. It was thrown out by a judge after winning approval 57-42%; Mayo spent $430.00, and the other side in excess of $70, 000.
