csua.org/u/g2g -> www.signonsandiego.com/news/politics/50thdistrict/20060603-9999-1mi3busby.html
By Dani Dodge UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER June 3, 2006 If an election can turn on a sentence, this could be the one: "You don't need papers for voting." On Thursday night, Francine Busby, the Democratic candidate for the 50th Congressional District, was speaking before a largely Latino crowd in Escondido when she uttered those words. But someone taped it and a recording began circulating yesterday. After she made that statement at the meeting, Busby immediately said: "You don't need to be a registered voter to help (the campaign)." She said that subsequent statement was to clarify what she meant. The recording, which was played yesterday on Roger Hedgecock's radio talk show, jolted the campaign. Busby, a Cardiff school board member, is in a tight race with Republican Brian Bilbray, a congressman-turned-lobbyist, who has based his campaign on a tough anti-illegal-immigration stance. The two are vying to replace Randy "Duke" Cunningham, who was jailed after pleading guilty to taking bribes. Busby said she was invited to the forum at the Jocelyn Senior Center in Escondido by the leader of a local soccer league. Many of the 50 or so people there were Spanish speakers. Toward the end, a man in the audience asked in Spanish: "I want to help, but I don't have papers." It was translated and Busby replied: "Everybody can help, yeah, absolutely, you can all help. You don't need papers for voting, you don't need to be a registered voter to help." Bilbray said at worst, Busby was encouraging someone to vote illegally. At best, she was encouraging someone who is illegally in the country to work on her campaign. "She's soliciting illegal aliens to campaign for her and it's on tape - this isn't exactly what you call the pinnacle of ethical campaign strategy," Bilbray said. Earlier, San Diego Minutemen volunteer Anthony Porrello said he got the tape from an an anonymous Minuteman and passed it on to the news media and talk radio. News of the gathering had circulated among local Minutemen before the meeting, according to William Griffith, the independent candidate in the race who has been endorsed by the San Diego Minutemen. "I heard what I expected to hear from a Democrat who supports amnesty," he said. Busby says she doesn't support amnesty, but backs the comprehensive plan pushed by US Sen. She does not in any way support or advocate that illegal immigrants vote, she said. "I was clarifying the question that was being asked in Spanish and then stated that you do not have to be a registered voter to help the campaign because there were many people who appeared to be to be under 18 in the group who wanted to volunteer," she said in a statement. "I'm not surprised that the Republican Party is making this last-minute, desperate ploy and it is absolutely false."
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