Immigrant Bashing Blamed in Bond Defeat in Calif.

A widely distributed leaflet that blamed illegal immigrants for school crowding may have been decisive in last week's narrow defeat of a $57 million bond initiative in Oxnard, Calif., school officials and others said.

The nearby Hueneme and Fillmore districts both won school bond votes. All three districts are in Southern California's Ventura County.

"It was close enough that I believe [the leaflet] did make a difference," Sandra Herrera, the assistant superintendent of the Oxnard elementary schools, said. "It just needed to draw...