Orange County Board of Supervisors seats first Democratic majority in decades
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Briefing Room
By Scott Pelley, CNN
(CNN) — It seemed like a good idea: take the Orange County Board of Supervisors — the body that oversees the county’s public schools, planning department, county jails and several other public agencies — and give it 100 percent Democratic allegiance to take control of the county through November 2018. And then, in a dramatic upset, turn out the majority Republicans.
The board also gets to turn Orange County into a sanctuary for illegal immigration if it so chooses. That would be a monumental change from what’s seen today, at least in some ways.
The board had a divided history: most Republicans, and a few holdouts, joined in 2012 to create the supervisorial body. Then only four voters, a few years from now, could change the demographics.
This time, there were no holdouts, no division or no drama.
The five members on Tuesday all said yes to turning into a sanctuary, to the delight of many in their party, a term that means to protect those illegally in the United States from deportation.
Some in the room even wondered if the board would have to make it a rule that no one could speak Spanish at the meetings.
The result was historic, with the body of two Democrats, the board’s only Republican and two Hispanics becoming the first majority-minority board majority since the 1960s.
Orange County is California’s second largest and its largest county, behind Los Angeles.
Of all the questions, two were about whether the board would take the first step to become a sanctuary for illegal immigrants.
In a joint statement with three other supervisorial candidates and their surrogates, four Democrats said the county “must take the first step in strengthening our immigration laws and protecting our community from the threat of unlawful immigration.”
Each candidate said the county would change from ”a place of acceptance to a place of safety and support” as soon as the board takes up a resolution supporting such a step.
The candidates — and the county — are already preparing for a November 2018 showdown with the new California sanctuary law
