Doubts, meanwhile, are mounting about the administration's competence to manage the complexity of a reformed immigration system, given the problems with the healthcare law. "There's a loss of confidence in the government's ability," former Los Angeles Major Antonio Villaraigosa, a Democrat and proponent of the immigration reform bill, said at an event this month.
"Clearly, the last few months, our experience with [the] Affordable Care Act does not help when you look at other big things like immigration reform."
Also, his added focus on graduating students helped the district reverse its drop out rate, he said. "In 2005, there were only 48 percent of kids graduating," Villaraigosa said. "Last year, it was 64 percent. Almost two-thirds of the students."
A diversity program in place since 2001 has had little impact because it's rarely enforced, according to critics and city officials. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, elected in 2005, has called it "absolutely insufficient." A compliance scorecard for 2012 detailed how the second-most populous U.S. city fell short of its own goals for bringing female and minority contractors to 22 percent.
The struggle to shake up the status quo in Los Angeles--which has the second-highest share of minority residents of the 10 largest cities, at about 71%--underscores the power of prohibitions against preferences for women and traditional minority groups.
The proposals include requirements for licenses and background checks for those buying ammunition. They also would close loopholes on the possession of assault weapons with large-capacity magazines. "We have seen too many children killed or living in the aftermath of horrific violence," Villaraigosa told a packed hearing of the Senate Public Safety Committee. "You have before you the opportunity to make our laws stronger, an opportunity to make California a leader again on the issue of gun violence," he added.
The NRA said the legislation violates their constitutional rights and punishes law-abiding gun owners.
"We have an obligation to rein in our national debt," Villaraigosa said yesterday. "Entitlement reform must be at the forefront of the solution. The cost of entitlements will only drive the national debt upward if we do not stop spending from spinning out of control."
Villaraigosa said he supports the package presented by Obama, adding he will seek to have the city's three pension funds divest themselves of any money invested with arms or ammunition manufacturers. "I don't want to see the city make one quarter, not one dime, from the manufacturers of these weapons of war," Villaraigosa said. The mayor said he was asking for a report on the extent of the investments and what would be involved in any divestment strategy.
VILLARAIGOSA: Well, in L.A., we are patrolling every school. We have officers coming to every school in our city.
Q: Every day?
VILLARAIGOSA: Every day. Not all day, but at various parts of the day while school is open, they are visiting the campuses to make sure things are going well. I don't agree with the NRA that we should be arming our teachers. But we should have discussions in our classrooms about bullying and violence and resolving conflict without violence. And we've got to do a lot more around mental health, and we do need sensible gun safety laws in the United States of America. You know, the Republicans in the House and Senate have blocked the approval of director of the ATF for the last seven or eight years. We've got to beef up and really move away from the kinds of things we've done in the past.
VILLARAIGOSA: You know, after Newtown, the massacre of 22 children in an elementary school, we can find a middle ground here. I do believe that we need an assault weapons ban. In California, I was one of the authors of the assault weapons ban. It's important. I think we need to ban high-capacity magazines. We need universal background checks. Right now 40% of all the sales of guns and assault weapons are done privately. And you don't need a background check for that. We need to repeal the Tiahrt amendments which say that you have to throw away a background check after 24 hours and really limits the ability of the federal, state, and local governments to work together to get guns out of the hands of criminals and people that shouldn't have them, the mentally ill. We've got to do a lot more to provide mental health services, and fortify our mental health registries.
VILLARAIGOSA: The time is now. We can't wait another political season to pass comprehensive immigration reform. This isn't just a moral, it's an economic imperative. If we bring these people, 11 million people from out of the dark and into the light, it's about a $1.5 trillion impact to the U.S. economy. The "dreamers" alone, a $329 billion impact. We can't do this piecemeal and we can't have second class citizenship. This has to be a pathway to full citizenship.
Q: Who are the first people that ought of get citizenship? You're talking about the kids in the DREAM Act?
VILLARAIGOSA: Obviously the people who become citizens first are the people who have been in line, after they've had a full background check, paid their back taxes. We've got to do this in a way that gives all of these people an opportunity to be full citizens of the United States of America.
"I don't want to describe either Gov. Mitt Romney or the Republicans as stupid, but I will say if you look at their platform, the 2012 platform, it looks like it is from another century and maybe even two. It looks like the platform of 1812," Villaraigosa said.
"When you see that they want to repeal the Affordable Care Act, providing 32 million people with health care with no alternative plan of their own, they call for the deportation of 11 million people. No country in the world has ever done that. They don't believe in abortion in the case of rape and incest. It is it a platform that's from another century."
"It's time to bring our investments back home," Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa of Los Angeles said as he assumed the presidency of the mayors conference at its annual gathering, held in Baltimore. "We can't be building roads and bridges in Baghdad and Kandahar, and not in Baltimore and Kansas City."
The resolution could hardly be considered flamingly radical, not with its call to end the wars "as soon as strategically possible" and to withdraw American forces "in a measured way that does not destabilize the region." That's a far cry from, "Out--now!"
Indeed, "it reflects in large part what the president believes," Villaraigosa said.
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The above quotations are from 2014 California Gubernatorial debates and race coverage.
Click here for other excerpts from 2014 California Gubernatorial debates and race coverage. Click here for other excerpts by Antonio Villaraigosa. Click here for other excerpts by other Governors.
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