300 Protest at Times Offices Over Coverage of Sanchez-Dornan Race

About 300 people demonstrated Saturday in front of Los Angeles Times offices in Costa Mesa and Los Angeles, calling for a boycott of the newspaper over recent articles that reported voting by noncitizens.

Both demonstrations were organized by Hermandad Mexicana Nacional, a Latino rights organization with offices in North Hollywood and Santa Ana.

The group is at the center of the controversy over a Times report that 19 noncitizens registered to vote in central Orange County before completing the naturalization process and later cast ballots in last fall’s election. All but one said they registered to vote with the aid of Hermandad.

Nativo Lopez, executive director of the organization’s Orange County office, commented for the first time since the controversy began. He denounced the stories and said his agency has done nothing improper.

Lopez spoke at the demonstration outside The Times’ Orange County office, which drew about 200 people, according to Costa Mesa Police Lt. Jerry Holloway. About 100 people picketed the Times office in Los Angeles.

“After full internal reviews, we have found the Hermandad Mexicana Nacional has done nothing unethical, nothing illegal, nothing irregular, and this is merely a witch hunt perpetuated by citizen, ex-congressman Bob Dornan and the Los Angeles Times,” Lopez said.

Dornan, who lost his congressional seat in the heavily Latino 46th district to Democrat Loretta Sanchez last fall, has raised charges of a variety of voting irregularities, including voting by noncitizens. The Orange County district attorney’s office is investigating his allegations.

A Times spokesperson responded that “one of the key functions of a newspaper is to examine society’s institutions. A key social institution is the electoral process. As we have in years past, we examined many aspects of that process in the California elections of 1996.

“The paper worked on those issues,” the spokesperson continued, “without favoritism and with a strong regard for the truth and the context of the issues raised. We understand, given the intensity of politics, that one faction or another may not always be pleased with the results, but a newspaper cannot disregard its important obligation to monitor the political process.”

Lopez, who won a seat on the Santa Ana school board this fall, said the stories unfairly attacked his organization and failed to look into whether other organizations have violated campaign regulations. Until the newspaper runs a retraction, Lopez said, “Our answer . . . is to launch a national boycott against The Times and its subsidiaries.”