Five candidates are vying for two seats on the Carson City Council in Tuesday's election. For the past few months, that's meant five campaigns -- five sets of election signs, hyperbolic glossy mailers and lots of luncheons, door knocking and claiming ownership of issues ranging from prayer at council meetings to fixing potholes.
Residents got a healthy dose of the ugly side of politics as well. One thing you can count on in hotly contested races is some last-minute mudslinging to disparage candidates in the minds of the voters just before they head to the polls.
On Saturday, the Los Angeles County Democratic Party and Carson Councilwoman Lula Davis-Holmes, who is running for reelection, responded to a mailer from the Mexican American Democratic Club that blasts Davis-Holmes. The mailer claims she supports Arizona Senate Bill 1070, legislation passed last year that makes it a misdemeanor crime for illegal immigrants not to carry certain identification. Opponents viewed the law as a form of racial profiling. Latinos make up the largest voting block in Carson, and all the candidates actively court votes from that group.
Davis-Holmes never opposed SB 1070. On May 18, 2010 she and Councilman Mike Gipson voted against a city resolution opposing that legislation because they wanted stronger language in the opposition argument. Davis-Holmes and Gipson advocated for the city to cancel all business and travel related to the state of Arizona because of the law, but the rest of the council approved a scaled-down resolution.
The Los Angeles County Democratic Party responded to to mailer, which used the party's logo, by saying:
LACDP "does not condone the type of outrageous and misleading attack portrayed in the Mexican American Democratic Club's mailer in the city of Carson. Not only does it mischaracterize the position of the candidate who was attacked, it uses the LACDP logo without authorization."
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