Longtime Latino activist Nativo Lopez, of Hermandad Mexicana Nacional and president of the Mexican American Political Association, pled guilty in Orange County to one count of felony voter registration fraud. He ran for a seat on the Green Party of Los Angeles County Council (GPLACC) in 2008 while not a resident of L.A. County. He had been charged with multiple felonies and was sentenced to ten days in jail, 3 years probation, and 400 hours of community service. (The jail time was waived based on time served and time credited.)
I was Co-cordinator and Treasurer of GPLACC in 2003. Something I did then set in motion a chain of events that eventually led to Lopez running for the position. It’s a tangled tale indeed, which I blogged about last year when Lopez got arrested.
I said then and still believe:
Did Lopez probably do something stupid? Yes. But the number of felonies he’s facing seem way disproportionate to what he allegedly did. So something else must be going on too.
I had brief contact with Lopez prior to his arrest at a couple of immigration rights rallies but otherwise no contact with him and none with GPLACC since 2005.
Our New Anahuac has some thoughts on this too.
I believe there are people in power that must be very afraid of what Nativo Lopez can do & what a difference he can make. It’s clear they would not be working so hard to get him out of the way. Nobody gets these kind of charges for something like this & then to tack on so many felony counts – Please. It’s time people start to get behind him. I watched the O’Reilly interview – I completely agree with him.