Kemp Now Backs Immigrant Curbs, End to Preferences

SAN DIEGO — Reversing strongly stated earlier positions that had clashed with Bob Dole and party conservatives, presumed vice presidential nominee Jack Kemp said Tuesday in an interview with The Times that he now supports expelling the children of illegal immigrants from public schools and backs the California ballot initiative to repeal state affirmative action programs.

Kemp also denounced a provision in the party platform that calls for a constitutional amendment to deny citizenship to children born in the United States to illegal immigrants--an idea that Gov. Pete Wilson of California advocated during his 1994 reelection campaign.

On Monday, Bob Dole said he “would want to think long and hard” before accepting such an amendment; in the interview, Kemp denounced it unreservedly. “I’ve never agreed with that constitutional amendment,” Kemp said. “Born in America, you’re an American.”

Kemp’s comments on these explosive issues continued a rapid ideological repositioning since his selection as Dole’s running mate last week and demonstrate the tightrope he is walking as he balances loyalty to Dole with fidelity to his pleas for a more inclusive party.

Although Dole campaign officials hope Kemp will broaden the party’s appeal to moderates, they are also concerned that he remain acceptable to conservatives.

On both affirmative action and immigration, Kemp’s remarks Tuesday carried him sharply toward conservative positions he had earlier criticized. In 1994, he publicly opposed Proposition 187, warning that removing the children of illegal immigrants from schools--a step called for in California’s successful Proposition 187 that year--could lead to discrimination. Now, Kemp said, “I think it is achievable in such a way [that] we don’t turn America into a police state.”

And, though he had argued in the past that it was premature to repeal affirmative action, Kemp said Tuesday, “I am now convinced with Bob Dole that we can go beyond . . . race-based quotas, or race-based set-asides” and instead rely on economic and educational incentives to provide more opportunity for the poor.

In other interviews earlier this week, Kemp indicated sympathy for the balanced-budget amendment--another Dole priority he has long opposed.

‘Blocking Back’

In the interview with The Times, Kemp insisted that he would continue to privately press any differences he has on issues with Dole; but he added that in public he would serve as the nominee’s “blocking back” and support his decisions.

“He did not pick me to be a puppet,” Kemp said. “He wants me to be Jack Kemp--and I will be Jack Kemp. But I will do it in private. In public, I will support the leader of our ticket.”

Democrats immediately argued that by reversing his earlier positions on affirmative action and immigration, Kemp was undermining his promise to open the party to minority voters. “So much for Colin Powell’s advice to the party Monday night” to reach out to all voters, said White House advisor Rahm Emanuel, who deals with affirmative action and immigration.

But Kemp said that Dole had given him a firm commitment that the fall campaign would not be “divisive.” And he said he was committed to pursuing means other than affirmative action for providing greater opportunity to minorities and the poor.

“With enterprise zones and educational opportunity and access to credit and capital and housing, I think we can say we have a better civil rights initiative [than liberals],” Kemp argued.

Over the last 18 months, Kemp has publicly expressed frustration with the Republican Congress, accusing it of overemphasizing budget cuts and not offering a sufficiently positive alternative to the social welfare programs the GOP leadership sought to retrench.

But he argued that Dole, by calling for an across-the-board 15% cut in income tax rates while still promising to balance the budget by 2002, had unified the party across its most important divide--between those who place principal emphasis on cutting taxes and those most concerned about reducing the deficit.

“With his certificate of approval of the fiscal conservative wing of the party, and hopefully mine on the growth side, there is a marriage of the balancing the budget [camp] and the growth-cutting taxes [school], with the ultimate goal of doubling the size of the U.S. economy early in the 21st century,” Kemp said.

In the Times interview, Kemp only obliquely echoed his earlier criticisms of the Republican Congress’ direction since taking office in January 1995. Asked if his selection as Dole’s running mate could be interpreted as an admission the party had steered off course, he said carefully: “That’s an assumption that might be made by some.”

“For a while there, I think the party got on defense: We were kind of the antithesis to the era of big government and the welfare state,” Kemp added. “In effect what Bob Dole did in unifying the party [behind the tax-cut proposal] is he put the party on offense.”

Battle of California

Promising to be spending “a lot of time” campaigning in his native state of California, Kemp said: “Whatever we do in California, I promise you Bob Dole and Jack Kemp are not going to be divisive, we are not going to use wedge issues. We are going to draw differences; we are going to show the juxtaposition of the Clinton economic agenda for California vs. the Dole economic and social and educational agenda.”

But in the interview, Kemp made clear that he would no longer publicly differ from Dole on illegal immigration and affirmative action, two issues that party strategists in California have been planning to use as the sort of “wedge issues” Kemp had earlier criticized as potentially divisive.

Particularly on immigration, Kemp’s new remarks constitute a sharp turnabout. In October 1994, Kemp, along with former Education Secretary William J. Bennett, stunned California conservatives and Wilson by opposing Proposition 187, the ballot initiative to deny virtually all public services to illegal immigrants.

Kemp and Bennett were especially critical of the provisions to remove the children of illegal immigrants from public schools, saying it would impose “a highly intrusive Big Brother” obligation on teachers to inform on students they suspected of being illegal and provide “a mandate for ethnic discrimination.”

“This is not a road we should head down,” the two men wrote.

Dole has endorsed the idea of allowing states to bar the children of illegal immigrants from public schools. In Tuesday’s interview, Kemp said he “did have a number of questions” about such removals, but after speaking with California Atty. Gen. Dan Lungren, he had become convinced it could be implemented fairly.

“I’m always concerned about that, and so is Bob Dole,” he said. “[But] according to Dan Lungren, it can be implemented in such a way so as not to cause that type of--I’m not going to say police-state tactic, because I don’t think 187 was a police-state effort.”

On affirmative action, Kemp again cited conversations with Lungren as one factor in his change of heart. “I asked [Lungren] what happens to the University of California system--how do you protect diversity? And Dan says it can be implemented, you don’t need quotas for that. That’s where they went astray.”

Supporters of affirmative action sharply dispute that assertion.

Lungren said Tuesday that he had frequently discussed these issues with Kemp, most recently in a Sacramento meeting about three weeks ago.

Kemp’s shift on affirmative action wasn’t nearly as abrupt as on schooling illegal immigrants, since he had criticized quotas, though he argued it was premature to end affirmative action without implementing alternatives.

In Tuesday’s interview, Kemp said he had Dole’s commitment to pursue an “urban capitalism” agenda--a program of tax breaks and subsidies meant to encourage homeownership among the poor and job-creating investment in inner cities.

Times staff writer Dave Lesher contributed to this story.

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