California legislators have decided that universities and government agencies should be using racial- and gender-based quotas in admissions and hiring. California voters will be the last line of defense.
The California Assembly has passed Assembly Constitutional Amendment 5, which would repeal Proposition 209 — California’s ban on racial preferences. Proposition 209 passed in 1996, with 54% of Californians deciding that race- and sex-based affirmative action was no longer acceptable in the state. Now, ACA 5 has passed the Assembly, 60-14. Next, it heads to the California Senate, which will likely pass it as well.
California’s statewide ballot proposition statement ensures one final fail-safe in this process. If the Senate passes ACA 5 by June 25, it will be put to voters on their November ballot. A 2014 poll of registered California voters found that more than 65% supported affirmative action, but that same year, a push led primarily by Asian American voters killed a similar effort. Three state senators, including now-U.S. Rep. Ted Lieu, reversed their positions under pressure.
This year’s repeal is even more aggressive than the 2014 version. It would extend affirmative action to government hiring and contracting. It will also be more difficult to fend off in the current climate, as the authors of the bill have said themselves.
“We’re going to make sure that ACA 5 gets on the ballot in November 2020, in the middle of an international awakening about the role bias, implicit and explicit, has played on our world, country, and state,” co-sponsor Sen. Holly Mitchell said.
It’s tough to know if the repeal will even get a fair shot; supporters of a 2018 gas tax repeal accused the state of wording the proposition poorly on purpose because California Democrats wanted the gas tax to survive intact.
The last thing the country needs is to begin inflaming racial divides by offering government jobs and college admissions based on race, especially from the most populous state in the union. California Democrats, in their effort to be the flag-bearers of American progressivism, are causing the Golden State to regress. California voters might represent the last chance to stop it in November.
