DRUG LAW FOES MAKE THEIR CASE IN SPANISH ADS, AND PATAKI AIDES RAISE OBJECTIONS

The city's largest Spanish-language television station pulled a
commercial yesterday that had featured family members of imprisoned
drug offenders and asked the governor for "real reform" on the
Rockefeller drug laws. The ads were taken off the air at the request
of Gov. George E. Pataki's senior aides, who called them inaccurate.

The incident, coming just as the legislative session was threatening
to close without resolving how the drug laws should be changed,
illustrates how important Hispanics have become in the re-election
campaign of Governor Pataki, who often mentions his fight to reduce
the mandatory, lengthy prison sentences in the laws when he addresses
a Spanish-speaking audience.

That is not the only difference in emphasis in what might be called a
parallel campaign: a Pataki spokeswoman, Mercedes Padilla, has told
Spanish newspapers that he supports a state minimum wage increase,
even as lawmakers say he has tried to prevent the issue from coming to
a vote in the Senate.

Focusing on specific voter groups is nothing new, nor is saying things
those groups want to hear. But Governor Pataki's appeals to Latinos
have not gone unchallenged. Disappointed in his Rockefeller proposals,
those who want to change the laws have funneled virtually their entire
ad budgets, about $110,000, into Spanish ads that call the drug laws
racist and demand "more action and fewer words" from "Senor Pataki."
In a nod to the religious beliefs of many Hispanics, the ads quote
officials of the Roman Catholic Church saying the drug laws are unjust.

The idea, advocates say, is to call the governor's bluff, to prevent
him from winning what they call a rhetorical victory without
delivering substantive reform.

Spanish-language newspapers and news programs have responded,
editorializing in favor of changing the laws. Hoy, New York City's
largest Spanish paper, wrote an editorial in May telling the governor
that "we were going to keep his feet to the fire, and not just let him
have a P.R. thing," said Louis Sito, the publisher.

The politics of race have abruptly upended the conventional wisdom
that Rockefeller revision is too controversial for an election year,
said Robert Gangi, director of the Correctional Association of New
York, an advocacy group for prisoners. Now, he said, the perception is
that "you're only going to get it this year, because of the Latino
vote and a little bit of the black vote, and after the election
there's no way."

The ad that was pulled from Univision, the Spanish-language station,
said: "Thousands of New Yorkers have a family member serving
obligatory minimum sentences of 30 years, under the Rockefeller laws.
The reforms proposed by Governor Pataki will not reunite these
families. We need real reforms."

The highest current mandatory minimum sentence under the Rockefeller
laws is 25 years to life, not 30 years. Michael McKeon, the governor's
chief spokesman, said that it was also not true that the governor's
plan would not reunite families.

But Deborah Small, the director of public policy for the group that
ran the ad, the Drug Policy Alliance, disagreed, saying reunion under
the governor's plan is by no means certain. She said that the mistake
in the sentence length came from a translation error. A spokesman for
Univision said the station's lawyers would review the ads.

The strategy of both sides in the debate has depended on the
presumption that the issue is of vital importance to Hispanics.

Yet there are more blacks than Hispanics in state prison for drug
offenses, about 9,700 compared with 7,800 (there are 1,200 whites),
according to Mr. Gangi. And Latinos are not necessarily liberal on law
and order.

"To the surprise of many, our community may be even more conservative
when it comes to these kinds of issues, because they're more exposed,"
said Gerson Borrero, the editor in chief of El Diario/La Prensa, which
has editorialized in favor of major changes to the Rockefeller laws.

Polls generally show that Rockefeller revision is popular among all
ethnic groups. Still, in a 1999 poll taken by Zogby International,
Hispanics were far more likely (49 percent, compared with 29 percent
for whites and 32 percent for blacks) to think that someone who voted
to reduce prison terms for drug offenders was "soft on drugs."

"To me it's a little strange to see that as an election issue," said
Esteban Creste, a reporter and acting managing director for
Telemundo's New York news division. "Maybe it's a good thing, but it's
not such an easy thing as Vieques."

Others note that the issue is not a new one to Hispanics, whose
leaders have long worked to change the drug laws. "It's easier for
those advocates to target the Latino community," said Luis Miranda, a
political consultant in the Bronx and former president of the Hispanic
Federation. "You don't have to import leaders. You don't have to
create leaders. They exist."