California has a flair for making big statements at the ballot box.
Upset by rising property taxes, the electorate passed Proposition 13 in 1978, setting off a nationwide tax revolt. In 1994, Republican Gov. Pete Wilson won re-election by backing Proposition 187, which denied state aid to illegal immigrants. Even as power shifted decisively toward Democrats after the election of Gov. Gray Davis, California voters passed propositions banning affirmative action, curtailing bilingual education and defining marriage as a relationship between a man and a woman.
These blockbuster California ballot measures drew national attention, many times predicting national political trends, particularly in states like Colorado that allow citizen lawmaking.
While this year’s California ballot initiatives include no such blockbusters, a number of more modest propositions on Tuesday’s ballot will give insight into the state’s future. California may no longer be a reliable predictor of presidential races. But, with its populist instincts and burgeoning Hispanic population, it may remain something of a bellwether of ballot measures.
Consider Proposition 73, which would require parental notification for minors seeking an abortion. Thirty states, including Colorado, are governed by similar measures. Indeed, California law had such a provision until the state supreme court overturned it in 1997. While California has a well-deserved reputation for pro-choice politics, parental notification is a commonsense reform instinctively understood and supported by parents across the political spectrum. Nationwide it garners the highest support of any restriction on abortion, hovering around 70 percent approval and prevailing in one state initiative after another. The fate of Proposition 73 will help to answer that question of whether that national moral consensus is still intact.
In fiscal matters, Proposition 76 will prove a useful barometer of voters. “The Live Within Our Means Act” would put a lid on state spending, enabling Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to extend his two- year effort to hold fiscal catastrophe at bay without a significant increase in taxes. Since California is already overtaxed and over-regulated, a successful effort by liberal interest groups to defeat the measure could prove catastrophic for the state’s long-term fiscal health. Just as Californians said “enough” to ballooning property taxes in 1978, they now have a chance to say “enough” to out-of-control spending.
If Proposition 73 and Proposition 76 both win, Republicans can hope that some cultural and fiscal conservatism still lurks within California voters, and that enterprising and articulate candidates might tap into it. If both lose, the Golden State may be out of Republicans’ reach for the foreseeable future.
Finally, Schwarzenegger forced onto the ballot a number of “reform” measures aimed at making it easier to fire incompetent teachers, making it harder for public employee unions to spend member dues on political campaigns, and allowing retired judges rather than politicians to draw legislative districts. The school measure is small potatoes; constraining the use of union dues is a potentially big but prosaic change.
Only Proposition 77, the redistricting measure that could make political races more competitive, even resembles a blockbuster initiative. Its passage could signal a public desire for a new, less contrived way of doing political business, and other states might imitate it.
However, studies indicate that even if it passes, and even if Republicans won all the newly competitive districts, Democrats would likely still hold a majority in the state legislature, so it is unlikely to radically transform the state’s political landscape.
Like Colorado’s, California’s stacked districts are only partly the result of gerrymandering. They are mostly the result of population distributions characterized by strong concentrations of Democrats or Republicans. Neither San Francisco nor Denver are going to yield very many Republican districts, no matter how one draws the lines.
Although the effects of the measure itself would be modest, the reaction to its passage or defeat might be greater. After all, Schwarzenegger has staked his prestige on his reform agenda. Redistricting reform is the most visible piece.
Victory would give him sudden leverage in Sacramento, where many legislators care most about whether the governor has the capacity to touch them. Defeat would be highly damaging, a signal that the legislature has nothing to fear from the governor at the ballot box or in the bully pulpit. If other measures endorsed by Schwarzenegger fail, many will conclude that California voters are done wandering from their liberal tendencies, and that Schwarzenegger himself is a spent political force.
Dr. Andrew Busch is associate professor of government at Claremont McKenna College and previously taught at the University of Denver.
