Former Calif. State Democratic Pol's Son Arrested in Connection to Murder, No Party ID Mentioned

December 3rd, 2008 5:38 PM

In another edition of, "where in the world is that Democrat party identification?" Pauline Repard of The San Diego Union Tribune made no mention what so ever that former State Assembly Speaker Fabian Nuñez is a California Democrat in an article about his son's recent arrest. The L.A. Times was no better either in identifying Nuñez's party affiliation. The Associated Press mentions Nuñez's party in the third paragraph from the bottom of the story.

Nuñez's son, Esteban,19, was arrested Tuesday with three other men, in connection with the stabbing death of a young collegian.

According to the article:

Nuñez's father was born in San Diego and graduated from San Diego High School. He served in the Assembly for six years and as speaker for the past four years. He represented the 46th District in Los Angeles until term limits prevented him from running for re-election this fall.

This was the extent of the political background on Fabian Nuñez.

Nuñez is no wall flower either. His record of activism in the illegal immigration movement is very well known. According to a 2004 article from La Voz de Aztlan, he was "declaring war on Schwarzenegger" if he continued with "his anti-immigrant ways."

The rest of Repard's article talks about the crime itself:

Also arrested Tuesday were Ryan Jett, Rafael Garcia and Leshanor Thomas, all 19, of the Sacramento area, Collins said.
The four are suspected in a fight on Oct. 4 in the College Area that left Luis Santos, 22, dead and three of his friends injured. Santos and two of the victims were stabbed.
The suspects will be brought to San Diego to face charges of murder and three counts of assault with a deadly weapon.
The four had come to San Diego the weekend of the fight to party with friends, Collins said.
He said witness statements after the fight led police to one suspect, who led them to the others. A week after the slaying, detectives searched the homes of all four suspects and collected evidence.

The article wraps up with the former speaker's current occupation:

Fabian Nuñez, 41, has been appointed to the board of directors of Zenith National Insurance Corp., the company announced Monday. Also, Mercury Public Affairs, which runs public-policy campaigns, named Nuñez last week as legal counsel for its California operations.

If the press seems so intent on doing so much research on Nuñez's current job at Zenith National Insurance Corp., would it be so hard to place a "D" after his name in the beginning of their stories? After all, they would do it for a Republican in Nuñez's place.

***Update- It looks like the L.A. Times yanked the article I originally posted.  I replaced the link with another L.A. Times story about the murder case, which, yet again, does not identify Fabian Nuñez's party affiliation.  The mobile web link of the orginal is available here.  The Associated Press also made some changes to their article.  Nuñez's party identification was moved up some, so it is now located seven paragraphs into the story as opposed to three paragraphs up from the bottom.