Commentary:
By Raoul Lowery Contreras

Howls of laughter bounce off the walls in California’s capitol, Sacramento with the revelation of an exciting new criminal defense that follows the creative “Twinkie Defense” in San Francisco a generation ago that justified murder.

The “tumor” defense of Democratic legislator Mary Hayashi bamboozled a judge enough to lower her felony charges of shoplifting to misdemeanors. It is “Laugh Out Loud” funny, and stupid.

Face it Mary, you stole $2500 from the San Francisco Neiman Marcus Department store, including a pair of sexy leather pants, very tight pants. Oh, what a sex kitten the East Bay legislator is; but, a free sex kitten. The judge gave her no jail time after she pleaded “no contest” to the lowered charges.

More alarming, however, is that a Republican legislator is walking around free, unindicted for a crime of immense seriousness compared to Hayashi’s theft of sexy leather pants. Assemblyman Tom Donnelly of a High Desert-based Assembly district has committed one of the worst crimes ever by a California public official.

He was busted for attempting to enter an airplane at the Ontario airport with a loaded pistol in his carry-on bag complete with an extra bullet-filled magazine. Yes, that’s a loaded pistol. The pistol and magazine were confiscated; he was referred to the San Bernardino District Attorney for potential prosecution.

Question, why wasn’t he arrested, handcuffed, booked and jailed? Hayashi was, why not Donnelly?

While we await the District Attorney’s pleasure, we need to discuss an even greater crime Donnelly is committing by introducing Assembly Bill 26 in the Legislature. It mirrors word for word, the infamous Arizona and Alabama anti-illegal alien laws that federal courts have stopped cold.

The three laws are eerily familiar in wording. Could it be they were written by the country’s infamous Yale-educated racist, Kris Kobach, whose daytime job is Kansas Secretary of State?

Here are two provisions of AB 26 that pistol-packing Donnelly has introduced which are onerous and probably unconstitutional (from the official Legislative Counsel’s Digest of AB 26):

(1) “This bill would prohibit public officials and agencies from adopting a policy that limits or restricts the enforcement of federal immigration laws or that restricts the sharing of a person’s immigration status, as specified. The bill would allow any person to bring an action against an entity to enforce these provisions.”

(2) “This bill would prohibit an employer from knowingly or intentionally employing an unauthorized alien, as specified. The bill would establish a process for persons to file complaints of violations of these provisions with the Attorney General or a district attorney. The bill would make it a misdemeanor to make a false and frivolous complaint…”

Notice one glaring word – PERSON, PERSONS in these two provisions, not California Resident or citizen or even adult. In other words, a 17-year-old “person” in Georgia may file a complaint in California under either provision. Sneaky!

Like thieves in the night, the bill’s authors and Donnelly have hidden legal elements in the bill that would permit individuals like Donnelly, who founded the California Minutemen and who is close to national Minuteman founder Jim Gilchrist, to file complaints with the California Attorney General about employers who hire Mexican-looking people resulting in expensive investigations and to punish government employees from doing their jobs by opting in or out of federal programs as permitted.

When a blogger wrote a critical piece about Donnelly’s airport gun, someone – probably Donnelly — from his website wrote the following note that reflects Donnelly’s lack of education, class and political acumen. This California Minuteman founder is famous for his profound hate and racism towards Mexicans.

Sent from Donnelly’s Web Site: “If your (blog) were not so full of inaccuracies, untruths, and outright misinformation, it would be worthy of a true response. You know nothing about me, but don’t let that get in the way of your career in writing fiction. Funny thing is the truth is almost always stranger and more interesting than fiction, but blowhards like you who think they know it all never find that out.”

The Blogger wrote about Donnelly’s airport pistol bust. It pointed out that Donnelly does not have a concealed weapon carry permit. It also questions Donnelly’s truthfulness; he says he forgot the weapon in his bag. Donnelly claims he carried it because of threats of harm rooted in his efforts to rescind the recently enacted California Dream Act that allows state financial aid for certain college students brought illegally into the USA as children, of, say, six months of age.

There is no record in Sacramento or anywhere that he reported threats to any law enforcement agency. Is pistol-packing Minuteman Donnelly telling the truth?