Governor's recorded comments denounced, described as "racial"

By Michael R. Blood
The Collegian

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s taped remarks that Cubans and Puerto Ricans are particularly feisty because of their mixed black and Latino “blood” may have set the blood of some of his political opponents to boiling, but others say it’s no big deal.

Rep. Barbara Lee, D-Oakland and a member of the Congressional Black Caucus, denounced the Republican governor’s words as “racist” and “disgusting.” But a spokesman for state Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez, a Latino Democrat, dismissed them as insignificant.

“These are hardly Nixon’s Watergate tapes,” said Nunez aide Richard Stapler.

State Sen. Martha Escutia, a Democrat who chairs the California Legislative Latino Caucus, said Schwarzenegger “has never been disrespectful to the Latino community.”

The governor’s remarks were recorded during a March 3 speechwriting session with his aides. They were revealed in a story in Friday’s Los Angeles Times.

At one point during the session, Schwarzenegger and his chief of staff, Susan Kennedy, speak warmly about a Republican assemblywoman and speculate about whether she is Cuban or Puerto Rican.

“They are all very hot,” the governor says on the recording. “They have the, you know, part of the black blood in them and part of the Latino blood in them that together makes it.”

The remarks were revealed in the midst of Schwarzenegger’s Nov. 7 re-election campaign, and his Democratic opponent, state Treasurer Phil Angelides, accused him of using “language that is deeply offensive to all Californians.”

But Assemblyman Mervyn Dymally, a Democrat who chairs the state Legislative Black Caucus, said the only thing unusual about what Schwarzenegger said was the fact it became public.

“This is usual political banter. We do this all the time,” Dymally said. “In this case, it just happened to be taped.”

The Times didn’t reveal how it obtained the tape.

Dymally said Schwarzenegger called him personally to offer an apology, but he told the governor none was needed.

“I said, ‘Look, if in fact this were a crime, Willie Brown would be in jail right now,’” Dymally laughed,

referring to the sharp-tongued former San Francisco mayor and state Assembly speaker.

The governor did apologize at a news conference outside a Santa Monica hotel on Friday.

Although Schwarzenegger said his remarks were not meant to be negative, he acknowledged he cringed when he read them in the newspaper, adding had he heard his children speaking that way he would have been unhappy.

“Anyone out there that feels offended by those comments, I just want to say I’m sorry, I apologize,” he told reporters.

Joining him was Assemblywoman Bonnie Garcia, the target of speculation about her ethnic background.

Garcia, who is Puerto Rican and the Legislature’s only female Hispanic Republican, said she wasn’t offended. She told the Times she sometimes refers to herself as a hot-blooded Latina.

On the recording, the governor also makes pointed remarks about some legislators.

He wonders aloud if the Republican Assembly leader, George Plescia, can “control that wild bunch upstairs,” referring to the Assembly’s Republicans as an “unruly bunch of guys and girls.”

Kennedy, a Democrat who also worked in the administration of former Gov. Gray Davis, said Plescia looks like a startled deer, a remark that Schwarzenegger finds amusing.

The governor also refers to Plescia’s predecessor, Assemblyman Kevin McCarthy, as “Bakersfield boy,” apparently a reference to his hometown.

McCarthy did not return a call from The Associated Press. Plescia said the governor had apologized and added, “We look forward to continued civility from all sides as we move toward the November elections.”

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