
Anaheim City Council District 5 candidate Mark Lopez stood before a largely pro-Latino immigrant crowd at Monday’s Anaheim City Council Forum and proudly declared his support for steps that kept families together and urged law enforcement not to enforce federal immigration laws. This is an awesome stance coming from a Republican, but Lopez wants to have his cake and eat it too.
He offered a Robocall denying support for making Anaheim a sanctuary city and left a phone number to call. Unfortunately, WordPress won’t allow me to post a copy of the RoboCall but Lopez identifies himself as a Republican and clearly states he is against making Anaheim a sanctuary city.
So I called the number he left.
“Mark, I watched your debate answer and then listened to your RoboCall. Its sounds like you want to have yoru cake and eat it too. Where do you stand on this issue,” I said.
“I can’t talk to you now,” said Lopez. “I’m busy talking to voters.”
“So you won’t answer my question?,” I replied.
“No,” said Lopez. Who then hung up.
The OC GOP has suspended support for Lopez’s candidacy over his mixed messages. This from OC Daily.net:
Republican Party of Orange County Chairman Fred Whitaker sent out an e-mail this morning noting the calls for a special meeting to rescind Lopez’s endorsement (and that of an Irvine school board candidate for unrelated reasons) but said that “If the allegations are true, I do not condone them. Yet, I also believe that calling a Special Meeting this close to the election takes us away from our focus on winning our targeted races.” Rather than call a special meeting, Whitaker opted to “suspend aid” to Lopez and the other candidate.
That is a serious step in an of itself because it deprives the Lopez campaign of the ability to conduct “member communications” to GOP voters via the county party.
Lopez has been denying he supports sanctuary city status for Anaheim. Here’s the complete text of his answer to the question:
“I have a similar situation that many of you in this room probably have. My father was undocumented. I helped him-I sponsored him to get citizenship a few years ago. Probably three or four years ago. So most of you in this room probably are undocumented or you know someone, you have a family member who is undocumented.
I’m against deportations that would separate these families. You have two young children — families — this is the only country you’ve ever known – I’m completely against that.
I feel like we need to have our local law enforcement do local law enforcement issues – they shouldn’t be enforcing federal laws. They shouldn’t be going out, sort of doing these immigration checks and that sort of thing. I would be opposed to that.”
As mentioned, Lopez avoided using the phrase “sanctuary city.” However, it’s fair to say he elucidated support for the elements of sanctuary city status. Put another way: if a candidate said they supported the individual health care mandate, supported the state and federal health care exchanges, the accompanying subsidies and taxes and coverage mandates – it would be fair to say they supported ObamaCare even if they never used the term “ObamaCare.”
Just when you think Republicans are coming around on common sense ideas that would help the very residents they want to represent, Lopez reveals his true colors. Say anything to get elected.
Lopez is playing footsie with Anaheim Democrats; since he changes positioni based on who’s in the room, how can any Anaheim Democrat trust this guy?
Well stated, Mr. Chmielewski.
While walking District 5 precincts, I met several voters that related to me what may have been several of Mr. Lopez’s false claims.
We heard from some neighbors that he called himself a ‘Ron Paul’ Republican.
We heard from others that he claimed to have fought against the Power plant that was going to be built near the Santa Ana river.
We heard that he was dodging the truth on how long he lived in Anaheim and specifically District 5.
Finally, he trapped himself.
You’d think Mr. Lopez would be happy to clarify his position. It’s awesome when a Republican supports Democratic values. But he’s busy explaining to Republicans “what are you going to believe? What I said or what I’m telling you?”
This dude is the biggest liar to run for Anaheim Council since Lucille Kring. Tom just doesn’t pick Republicans well. I’ve heard the robocall (thanks Bartash) and Mark starts by claiming to be “the only candidate who … stands against the [hotel] giveaways.” Donna was speaking out against these giveaways when Mark was still living in Westminster. Sandra Angel as well. Nothing that comes out of Lopez’ mouth can be trusted. Bad choice, Tom.
Tom still backing “what’s Aleppo?” Johnson for president or is it Trump all the way Vern?