With California gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman still facing questions over whether she hired an undocumented immigrant as a housekeeper, another Republican hopeful is now facing similar allegations.
Channel 2 News in Nevada reported Monday night that a woman has stepped forward saying that the family of Republican Brian Sandoval, who is challenging Democrat Rory Reid for Nevada's governorship, hired her to be a housekeeper while she was undocumented. (She and her family have since obtained citizenship.) The woman, Anna Padilla, said she stopped working for the Sandovals in July 1997.
Padilla said that while she was initially happy to see Sandoval running, she was disappointed to hear his stance on immigration and now no longer supports anyone in the gubernatorial race. "In the time I worked with him, he supported me," said Padilla. "Now he says he does not support Latinos that are already here?"
"Brian and Kathleen do not know this person," said the Sandoval campaign in a statement to Channel 2 News. Obviously, this is another desperate and dishonest attack by Rory Reid's failing campaign. It is further proof that Rory will say anything to get elected." The station wrote that it didn't learn of Padilla's story from the Reid campaign.
Sandoval, a member of the Latino community, has said he is firmly against "amnesty" and supported Arizona's controversial immigration law. Fernando Romero, president of the nonpartisan Hispanics in Politics, Nevada's oldest Hispanic organization, told the Las Vegas Sun that there was "a tremendous backlash" against Sandoval after he made those remarks.
"Hispanics are surprised that Sandoval ... has declared himself in favor of SB1070, a move that will surely diminish Hispanic votes for him," read a scathing editorial a few months ago by Las Vegas' Spanish-language newspaper El Mundo. "On top of that, he isn't in favor of driving privileges for undocumented [immigrants]. That does not speak well for his thinking."
Sandoval has a considerable lead over Reid, with polls showing him leading by nearly 20 points.