A Different Midterm Milestone
Redistricting measures in Texas and California have all eyes on the Nov. 3 midterm election. That contest also marks 30 years since the people of California won a victory for civil rights, now ignored by the ruling class in the Golden State and across the nation.
California’s ballot initiative process gives the people “a way to propose laws and constitutional amendments without the support of the governor or the legislature.” The California Civil Rights Initiative (CCRI), Proposition 209 on the November 1996 ballot, was the project of California State Hayward (now Cal State East Bay) professors Glynn Custred and Thomas Wood, backed by University of California regent Ward Connerly.
CCRI ended racial and ethnic preferences in state education, employment, and state contracting. Opponents of the measure included the Rev. Jesse Jackson, an associate of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and a former candidate for president.
The disaster opponents predicted never occurred.
The Rev. Jackson compared CCRI to “a radical revival of apartheid,” and called the African American Connerly a “house slave,” with others branding him a “race traitor,” or worse. Days before the Nov. 5 election, President Bill Clinton touted race and ethnic preferences at a rally in Oakland. Even so, California voters passed Proposition 209 by a margin of 54 to 46 percent. The disaster opponents predicted never occurred.
There were declines in minority enrollment at UC Berkeley and UCLA, but as Thomas Sowell showed in Intellectuals and Race, minority enrollment increased at other University of California campuses. In addition, the number of African-American and Hispanic students graduating from the UC system went up, including a 55 percent increase in those graduating in four years with a GPA of 3.5 or higher.
Despite those positive results, the preference forces charged that Proposition 209 harmed “diversity.” In bureaucratic parlance, “diversity” means that all institutions must reflect the racial or ethnic proportions of the population. If they don’t, the reason must be deliberate discrimination, and the only remedy is racial and ethnic preferences, enforced by the government.
Long after the people approved CCRI, the University of California built a vast DEI bureaucracy, with UCLA paying a vice chancellor for “equity, diversity, and inclusion,” a salary of $440,000. California cities also employed “diversity officers” at high salaries, and in 2020, state officials put up Proposition 16 to repeal Proposition 209. Despite support by Gov. Gavin Newsom, California rejected the measure by a margin of 57.23 to 42.77, greater than the margin of victory in 1996. The voice of the people had no effect on the state education establishment.
In 2024, the University of California at Santa Barbara sought to fill the position of “Vice Chancellor for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion,” with a salary of $250,000 to $430,000. The previous year, UCSB shelled out more than $400,000 to the “interim” official in that non-teaching position.
Proposition 209 is not California’s first case of repressed memories. This November will mark 40 years since California voters passed Proposition 63, the Official Language of California Amendment. This measure directs the state legislature to “preserve the role of English as the state’s common language” and refrain from “passing laws which diminish or ignore the role of English as the state’s common language.”
A full 73 percent of California voters approved the measure, but as Orange County Register columnist Gordon Dillow observed 20 years later, “state legislators and public officials acted as if Prop. 63 never existed.” That brand of denial would continue across the decades.
In 1978, when some Californians were being taxed out of their homes, Californians passed the People’s Initiative to Limit Property Taxation, better known as Proposition 13. The measure capped property tax rates at 1 percent of assessed value, limited annual assessment increases to 2 percent, and required a two-thirds vote of the legislature to increase non-property taxes. Gov. Jerry Brown stridently opposed the measure, but after 65 percent of Californians approved it, the governor proclaimed himself a “born-again tax-cutter,” which was never true.
After Brown’s four terms, California deployed some of the nation’s highest income and sales taxes. Once again, the people pushed back. In the style of Proposition 13, California’s Taxpayer Protection and Government Accountability Act gave voters the final approval on future taxes and fees imposed by state and local governments.
In 2024, the measure qualified for the ballot, but Brown and Newsom (who boasts about ties to the Brown, Pelosi, and Getty families) pressured a compliant state supreme court to have the measure taken off the ballot. If Californians thought Brown and Newsom feared the voice of the people, it would be hard to blame them, and there’s more about these governors that people across the country should know.
Thomas Sowell, who long before “affirmative action” earned degrees at Harvard, Columbia, and the University of Chicago, turns 96 this year. The author of the landmark Basic Economics, The Economics and Politics of Race, and many other books, has been a fellow at Stanford’s Hoover Institution since the late 1970s.
By all indications, governors Brown and Newsom never quoted Thomas Sowell or showed the slightest familiarity with his unmatched body of work. Californians could be forgiven for believing that willful ignorance, plus fear of the voters, spells bad news for the people.
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Lloyd Billingsley is a policy fellow at the Independent Institute in Oakland, Calif.