The Issues

We are involved on local, state and national legislative issues

For more information or opinions contact Rita Acoba at

maui36@comcast.net

Before you cast your vote in November, read and understand the amendments on the ballot. Below are the amendments we strongly support.

Amendment #1 Relating to Property Rights/Ineligible Aliens

Summary: Proposing an amendment to the State Constituion to delete provision authorizing the Legislator to regulate or prohibit the ownership, inheritance, dispositoin, and possession of real proerty by aliens ineligible for citizenship.

We are voting YES on amedment 1 to remove the discriminatory language from our Florida State Constitution. This resolution to amend article 1, s, 2 of the Florida Constitution will delete obsolete language that would prohibit regulating an alien’s right to own, inherit, and dispose and posses real property who are ineligible to become citizens. In 1923, the United States Supreme Court determined that citizenship is limited to “Generally speaking, the natives of European Countries are eligible, Japanese, Chinese and Malays are not, limiting naturalizations to whites and persons of African nativity or decent.”

Using the same language, many states concerned with the influx of Asians enacted a Property Rights/Ineligible Aliens law prohibiting Asians from owning property by a discriminatory language stating that aliens ineligible to citizenship cannot own property.

The United States Congress has since given right to naturalization for all Aliens regardless of nativity or decent. Many of the states who enacted a similar Property Rights/Ineligible Aliens law have since amended their state constitution to delete the now discriminatory language from their state constitution. Only two states still have this discriminatory language in their constitution, Florida and New Mexico. Both states will have an amendment relating to Property Rights/Ineligible Aliens on the November ballot. Before you cast you ballot, read and understand the amemdment. Your YES vote will remove outdated and discriminatory language from our Florida Declaration of Rights.

Amendment #2: Florida Marrigage Protection Amemdment

Summary: This amemdment protects marriage as the legal union of only one man and one woman as husband and wife and provides that no other legal union that is treated as marriage or the substanial equivalent thereof shall be valid or recognized.

We are voting YES on this amendment that would protect children by ensuring that only one form of marriage between a man and a woman would ever be celebrated in Florida and to assure that the Florida statue that already exist for a single form of marriage would not be overturned by a court on contstituitonal grounds.

This Associated Press Article was released to all Florida's Newspaper. The article was much longer and was edited to reflect remarks from Senator Geller, Winnie Tang and Rita Acoba.

Amendment 1 targets Florida's anti-Asian land law

By RASHA MADKOUR

Associated Press Writer

MIAMI -- Asians can be barred from owning property in Florida - or so it says in the state constitution.

Amendment 1 on the Nov. 4 ballot would repeal a 1926 amendment that allowed the Legislature to ban "aliens ineligible for citizenship" - an old code word for Asian immigrants - from buying and owning real estate. Although the provision was never enforced and was invalidated by subsequent federal court rulings, backers of Amendment 1 believe the words should still be removed from the constitution.

"It's just not right to have institutionalized racism remain in our constitution even if it's not enforceable," said state Sen. Steve Geller, D-Cooper City, who sponsored the ballot measure.

Lawmakers in Kansas and Wyoming quickly repealed the statues. New Mexico and Florida, however, had the provisions in their constitutions, which require voter approval to change.

The challenge in Florida will be reaching the 60 percent threshold of "yes" votes without a well-funded campaign to explain the measure, backers say - especially because the mention of "aliens" could lead voters to believe it's connected to the illegal immigration debate.

So far, publicity for the amendment has consisted mostly of letters and columns sent to newspapers, and a word-of-mouth effort among minority and civil rights groups like the NAACP, League of Women Voters and Florida Minority Community Reinvestment Coalition.

Winnie Tang of South Florida's Organization of Chinese Americans is optimistic that the grassroots campaign will work, even if it's an uphill battle educating voters about the measure. She noted that only 2.2 percent of Floridians are of Asian decent, and even many of them aren't informed about it.

The spate of alien land laws, as they're known, began in 1913 in California, where residents felt threatened by the farming prowess of Japanese immigrants. At the time, people from Asia were not allowed to become U.S. citizens, so laws barring them from land ownership indirectly targeted them using "aliens ineligible for citizenship" phrasing.

That obscure wording complicates the effort to get Amendment 1 passed. Asian-American activist Rita Acoba is afraid that voters will see the word "alien" and assume it's related to illegal immigration or a tool to keep terrorists from buying land.

"This has nothing to do with illegal aliens, it has nothing to do with terrorism," said Acoba, who lives in Panama City. "This is pure discriminatory and obsolete language ... and we need to remove it."

House Passage of the Filipino Veterans Equity Act HR 6897

Voting 391-23, the house passed this bill that would award payments to some 13,000 Filipino WWII veterans who fought along side our US soldiers under US Command. The bill should provide a one time payments of $15,000 to Filipinos of U. S. citizens, and $9,000 to those who are not U.S. citizens. This bill restores promised benefits to WWII Philippine veterans. Rep. Neil Abercombie made a statement that, "it is only through the hard work and commitment of the Filipino Community that prospects for a full restoration of the original Filipino veterans are assured of at least some benefits they were promised 67 years ago. And, I continue to do everything I can to see that the US Government lives up to its obligations to a gallant group of soldiers who answered the call." Representative Miller & Boyd voted YES on this bill.