Suit from Meg Whitman’s maid highlights growing Latino disenchantment with GOP

Meg Whitman has set a new campaign spending record in her quest to be California's next governor — but she will likely be spending at least the next several days fending off questions about how she treated a low-wage domestic worker in her own home. Whitman's former housekeeper, Nicandra Diaz-Santillan, is launching a lawsuit against the billionaire former CEO for EBay, saying that Whitman tossed her out like "garbage" when she asked for help in finding legal status in the United States.

Diaz's lawyer, celebrity attorney Gloria Allred, said in a press conference today that Whitman learned from the Social Security administration that Diaz's Social Security number did not match her name, but threw some of the letters in the trash. When Diaz asked for help in becoming legal after nine years of work, Whitman said, according to Diaz: "From now on you don't know me and I don't know you. You never have seen me and I have never seen you. Do you understand me?"

Whitman's camp released a statement saying Allred was manipulating Diaz, whom Whitman considered to be a family friend. Whitman said Diaz provided documentation to prove she was legal when she applied for the job, and that Whitman and her family fired the maid when she informed them she did not have legal status and had used her sister's documents. Whitman also pointed out that Allred donated to her political opponent Democratic Jerry Brown's campaigns in the past.

Tearfully addressing the press, Diaz said she explained her situation to Whitman in June 2009 and expected her employer to help because of Diaz's loyal years of service:

I explained that I was married and our economic situation in Mexico is very bad. We have no jobs, no food, no place to live and for that reason we made a decision to come here. I told her what she knew — that I don't have papers to work here and I need her help. I want her to help me get an immigration attorney. Ms. Whitman just laughed and turn her face to one side. At that moment Dr. Harsh entered. Dr. Harsh was very angry and said, "I told you, I told you she was going to bring us problems!"

Allred says Whitman also implied she might fire Diaz when she became pregnant, and did not pay her for some hours of her work every week. Allred also said her client did not receive reimbursement for gas when she ran errands for Whitman. "It felt like she was throwing me away like a piece of garbage," Diaz said.

In crafting her general-election appeals for a California electorate that includes a large contingent of Latino voters, Whitman has been trying to walk a fine line with her stance on immigration: She supports aggressive raids on employers who hire, and frequently mistreat, undocumented workers, while opposing a path to citizenship for people in the United States illegally. Her response to her former housekeeper's allegations will thus pose a test for her with two key groups: California Latinos and conservative anti-illegal-immigration voters.

Immigration activists have been saying for a while that Republicans are at risk of losing the fastest-growing sector of the electorate by rejecting comprehensive immigration reform as "amnesty" and embracing hard-line measures on illegal immigration such as Arizona's immigration law and stricter border security.

A new L.A. Times poll seemed to bear the prediction out in Whitman's case, though she has actively courted the Latino vote, especially after beating her conservative challenger in the primary. The poll shows that Latinos in California — who make up about 21 percent of registered voters — back Democrat Jerry Brown over Whitman by a 19-point margin. Only about 26 percent of Latino voters said they would vote for Whitman. Democratic Senator Barbara Boxer has a 38-point lead among Latinos over Republican Carly Fiorina, who's pushed an anti-illegal-immigration message more forcefully than Whitman has.

A Field poll in July had Whitman and Brown neck-and-neck among Latinos, and Whitman then launched Spanish-language ads and other aggressive efforts to reach out to Latino voters. She stressed that she was against Arizona's immigration law and Prop. 187, a '90s California ballot initiative — approved by voters but later struck down in court — to deny social services to illegal immigrants.

Whitman spokesman Hector Barajas disputes the poll's methodology, and points out that many Republicans have gotten elected in California with only about 30 percent of the Latino vote, including Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. "If we're getting anywhere between 30 and 35 percent we're doing quite well," he said.

[Related: More drama in Whitman's debate with Jerry Brown ]

"We feel very much we're the only ones reaching out to the Latino community," he said. "It hadn't been until about two weeks ago that Brown hired someone that speaks Spanish on his campaign. We still have yet to see any advertising in Spanish" from the Brown campaign.

But local candidates will likely have a tough time courting Latino voters if the message of the national Republican party focuses on illegal immigration. Latinos around the country have duly noted Republican opposition to the DREAM Act, which would offer a path to legal status for young people who join the army or attend college, according to Arturo Vargas, executive director of the non-partisan National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials.

"We still have some in the Republican Party who are trying to use anti-immigrant sentiment to consolidate their base," Vargas says. "Some of the more moderate Republicans I know are very disappointed. [They] understand that in order for the Republican party to be in the majority you need to have a sector of the Latino population … you don't do that by saying no to immigration reform at every opportunity."

Now, the Service Employees International Union, Mi Familia Vota, and America's Voice are dropping $300,000 on radio ads in Phoenix, Tucson, Denver, Miami, Orlando, Chicago, Houston, and McAllen, Texas, that slam Republicans for blocking the DREAM Act in the Senate.

And Whitman's not the only one with trouble. Gov. Rick Perry in Texas had mostly shied away from the controversy around Arizona's law and did not emphasize border security with the same fervor that some of his fellow border governors do. Under Perry, the state also allows in-state university tuition for illegal immigrants. But Perry's still polling abysmally low with Latinos, at about 24 percent. If he could pull up to the 40 percent range that George W. Bush hit in 2004, he could cruise to victory over his Democratic challenger, Bill White, William McKenzie writes.

The national Republican rhetoric is putting Western governors in an awkward spot.

"In both states, the growing Latino population spells disaster for Republicans," Frank Sharry, director of the immigrant advocacy group America's Voice, tells the Upshot. "It's only a matter of time before Texas goes the way of California. Unless Republicans change their tune dramatically, then soon Texas is going to go from red to purple to blue. That's what's happening."

(Photo: Diaz and her lawyer, Allred/Getty.)

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