IRVINE, Calif. — A coalition of equality activists in California celebrated on Sunday their successful effort to kill an effort by the state’s Democratic-controlled legislature to reinstall affirmative action.
California Democrats this year backed a bill that sought to create an exemption to bans on race-based decisions.
The proposal, ACA-7, was put forth despite California’s famous Proposition 209, which amended the state constitution to outlaw state-sponsored preferential treatment based on race, sex or ethnicity, as well as in the wake of the 2023 Supreme Court decision that struck down the use of race in college admissions.
While the bill sailed through the Calif. state assembly, it stalled in the state senate — missing a summer deadline to make it on the November ballot.
Leaders of the No on ACA-7 converged in Irvine as part of the Californians for Equal Rights Foundation’s annual meeting and celebrated their victory.
“We don’t have the big donors, we don’t have the mainstream media,” said activist Tony Guan, adding what they do have is “grassroots” power.
“You either have money, or you have the people,” he said. “The power of the grassroots movement is unstoppable.”
ACA-7 purports to allow the governor to make exceptions to Proposition 209 for research-based or culturally specific programs aimed at increasing the “life expectancy of, improving educational outcomes for, or lifting out of poverty specific groups based on race, color, ethnicity, national origin, or marginalized genders, sexes, or sexual orientations.”
Gail Heriot, a University of San Diego law professor and member of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights who worked to oppose the proposal, said that in fact ACA7 would have permitted any preferential affirmative action program the state of California could possibly have wanted.
In addition to traditional methods — petitions and protests — one way they stopped the measure was by convincing Democrats in the state Senate that their districts were at risk, she said.
Some of their districts are purple and would not take kindly to another attempt to circumvent the will of the people — especially among their Asian-American constituents, Heriot said. California voters had only recently reaffirmed their support for Prop 209 in a 2020 referendum.
“We made the practical arguments,” she said.
It caught Democratic lawmakers’ attention.
John Fund, writing for National Review, reported in December that privately California Democrats told him they felt it was a big political risk: “Republicans have no chance of winning California for president, but that doesn’t mean there won’t be hard fought battles over four to six House seats that could determine partisan control of that body.”
“…In California, Asian voters are turning more conservative on issues such as university admissions, which they see as being tilted against Asian applicants if race is a factor.”
Frank Xu, president of CFER, said it was a compelling argument that worked.
“The Democrats were really concerned about it,” he said.
Xu and Heriot said Democrats may try again, but probably not for a few years.
“It’s a victory that the state’s voters won’t have to go through unnecessary political drama and expense again,” a June 28 Wall Street Journal editorial stated. “But it’s also a reminder that no victory for equality under the law is permanent—especially in California.”
CFER’s Executive Director Wenyuan Wu said when the Democrats try it again, the group will work once again to stop it.
“We’re small,” she said, “but mighty.”
(Pictured above, left to right: Wenyuan Wu and Frank Xu)
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