Assemblyman Apologizes in Poem Uproar : Politics: Knight says he is ‘not a bigot.’ Latino lawmakers said many were offended by doggerel mocking illegal immigrants.

At the urging of a leading Latino lawmaker, Republican Assemblyman William J. (Pete) Knight on Thursday issued a public apology on the Assembly floor for his distribution of a poem disparaging illegal immigrants.

Knight made his apology during an emotion-tinged session at which Assemblyman Richard Polanco (D-Los Angeles), chairman of the legislative Latino caucus, said that the racist verse had “offended an entire community.”

Polanco said that although he had accepted a private apology given Wednesday by Knight, “this incident was bigger than me and the Latino caucus.”

The controversy surfaced Tuesday after The Times obtained a copy of the poem distributed by Knight, a freshman lawmaker from Palmdale, at a private meeting of GOP Assembly members.

Knight has described the doggerel, which mocks illegal immigrants for “breeding” as a hobby and driving out “the white man race,” as interesting, clever and funny.

But on Thursday, with the chamber as hushed as a church on a holy day, a subdued and contrite Knight, a veteran Air Force pilot, stood and apologized to his colleagues.

In soft-spoken words, Knight told them: “I am not a bigot. I have spent too many years in the military to serve my country and I come here to continue to serve my country. . . . I do apologize.”

Knight appealed to lawmakers to put the incident behind them so “we can now get on with the business of the day.”

Phil Perry, a spokesman for Assembly Republicans, said Knight’s public mea culpa should put the issue to rest because the lawmaker acknowledged “he made a mistake.”

But Assemblywoman Hilda L. Solis (D-El Monte) said that Knight had failed to resolve the matter to her satisfaction, even though he personally apologized to Latino lawmakers. She maintained that the entire Assembly Republican caucus and Gov. Pete Wilson should express regret, too.

In an interview, Solis, whose parents were immigrants from Mexico and Nicaragua, said the poem underscored divisions in the state. She said that she has received hate mail “insinuating that I be one of the first to get on the truck back to Mexico City.”

In interviews, other Latino lawmakers said those divisions have been strained by Republican-backed measures to limit the ability of illegal immigrants to receive state benefits.

The controversy also spilled over into the Senate, where a Latino lawmaker blasted the verse. Sen. Charles M. Calderon (D-Whittier) read aloud examples of hate mail that had been sent to him and another Latino lawmaker, Sen. Art Torres (D-Los Angeles). One letter contained such terms as “fascist Jews and Mexican monkeys” and warned of “a bullet in your mentally sick head.”

Calderon said that Knight’s description of the poem had given a “common voice” in the Legislature to “all of the demented, ignorant and misinformed thinking.”

Time staff writer Carl Ingram contributed to this story.