On November 8, 1994, 59 percent of California voters approve Proposition 187, banning undocumented immigrants from using the state’s major public services. Despite its wide margin of victory, the ballot measure never takes effect.
In 1994, California, the home of Presidents Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan, was not yet the Democratic stronghold many now consider it to be. A popular destination for immigrants from both Latin America and Asia, its demographics changed dramatically in the second half of the century, but neither Republicans nor Democrats won a decisive share of these newcomers’ votes. That would change after a group of Republican activists and state-level legislators, responding to the state’s economic slump and the presence of over a million undocumented immigrants, decided to launch the campaign for what became Prop 187.
In the name of saving taxpayer money, the proposition prohibited the undocumented from accessing basic public services such as non-emergency health care and both primary and secondary education. It also required public servants like medical professionals and teachers to monitor and report on the immigration status of those under their charge.
Although public support was high from the start, the threat of barring over a million California residents from basic public services stirred up vocal opposition. As Republican Governor Pete Wilson’s campaign used the threat of immigration in an attempt to scare voters, 70,000 people marched against 187 in downtown Los Angeles, and 10,000 public school students walked out of class on November 2, just days before the vote. The measure’s passage on November 8 was an entirely symbolic and short-lived victory for conservatives.
Within a week, a legal challenge had prevented the new law from taking effect—it was held up in the appeals process until 1999, when a Democratic governor dropped the state’s appeal. Studies have since shown that Proposition 187 played a key role in galvanizing immigrants’ rights activists and pushing Latinx and Asian voters away from the California Republican Party. Over the next decade, 66 percent of newly-registered California voters were Latinx and another 23 percent were Asian. In the same period, Republicans went from holding roughly half of elected offices in the state to less than a quarter. California has since formally repealed Prop 187 and enacted some of the United States’ most sweeping protections for the undocumented.
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I wrote about this the other day. I lost all faith in voting after this was thrown out in a Fed. court.
I actually attended the only political rally ever in my life in support of this. This and the Rodney King L.A. riots made me realize the state I was born in and loved was not my home anymore and moved to rural coastal Oregon, white, conservative, armed. This was a red state when I moved here but the politics suck now, but not enough to make me move…not yet anyway.
Voting = Suggestion box for slaves
Voting=A suggestion box for slaves, where no one ever reads the suggestions.
I’m a registered Independent. I still get voting pamphlets and I read the “why you should vote for me” comments and then I read the for and against arguments for propositions (almost always for raising taxes), then I have myself a nice long laugh , then I throw it in the fucking trash, then I go outside and stare at the ocean and and feel grateful that I’m old and don’t have kids.
What in the literal fuck is latinx?
An unbathed illegal from mehico. They stinx.
Yep.
California voted to ban gay marriage as a ploy to have the law overturned by the not so supreme court, thus sneaking gay marriage in by getting the population to vote against it.
Another example of the voters, not getting what they voted for.
The Orwellian term “undocumented immigrants” is an utter lie. They are trespassers; invaders . . . just as that fella in the dress and pumps is a man.
Pro Tip:
They are not illegal if they are being let in on purpose.
Wrong. They are allowed in by criminals in “our” government, against our wishes.
Immigration without representation.
What laws are they breaking if dot gov won’t enforce?
Keep paying taxes and voting bro!
Packaging and branding is everything.
You could pass this bill today even in California if you used a picture of a dead cop to promote the bill and paired it with this song and passed out free marijuana to everyone who voted.
Prop 19 was the last legitimate election in CA. After that, everything was fixed. California today is a dictatorship, which is why people are finally waking up and fleeing.
Nope.
Prop 13.
That was the only proposal that ever passed in California that directly protected landowners from the government treating property taxes like their personal bottomless piggy bank.
It is the only law I know of in 58 years, that benefited the taxpayers.