In 1994, debate over immigration, especially of undocumented immigrants from Mexico, nearly tore California apart.
Back then, the state had an estimated 1.3 million undocumented immigrants and was already facing economic challenges as the federal government shut down military bases as part of the Clinton administration’s “Reinventing Government” initiative.
“There was really a perfect storm going on in the 1990s, between the base closures, businesses going to other states and the immigrant population coming into the state,” said Marcia Godwin, an associate professor of Public Administration at the University of La Verne.
That year, former Monrovia assemblyman Dick Mountjoy introduced Proposition 187, the Save Our State initiative, proposing to create a state-run immigration system and deny most public benefits, including K-12 education, to undocumented immigrants.
Nearly six out of 10 Californians voted in favor of it.
Now, after President Donald Trump temporarily blocked the entry of most residents of seven predominantly Muslim countries — an executive order halted in the courts — issued another order to deny federal funds to “sanctuary cities” that refuse to aid federal immigration officials, and talks about making good on his campaign promise of building a “big beautiful wall” along the Mexican border, experts say California’s experience 23 years ago may foreshadow the national discussion today.
“Given the size of the immigrant community in California, we’re on the leading edge of the debate,” said Jack Pitney, a professor of American Politics at Claremont McKenna College. “Many communities in the United States are now seeing large numbers of immigrants where they didn’t see them before, and that tends to change attitudes.”
Between 2007 and 2014, the nation’s Hispanic population only grew by about 2.8 percent, according to the Pew Research Center. But the fastest growth was in regions not traditionally thought of as Hispanic centers, including the South and North Dakota.
“What you have in other states is definitely an increase in diversity and, through the recession, an increase in the number of undocumented workers, as well,” Godwin said. “The number of undocumented workers in North Carolina went from 25,000 in 1990 to something over 300,000 today.”
Nationally, there are about 8 million undocumented immigrants in the United States, according to the Pew Research Center, a number that’s been stable since about 2009.
“The kind of demographic changes we saw in California are not going to occur in the United States for at least a few more decades,” said Karthick Ramakrishnan, a professor of Political Science at UC, Riverside. “The baseline Hispanic population of California was much higher by the 1980s than it is today in Georgia or parts of the Midwest.”
Proposition 187 was met with legal challenges almost immediately after it passed. A federal judge issued a temporary restraining order against its implementation just three days after Election Day 1994. In 1999, Democratic Gov. Gray Davis withdrew the state’s appeals to the legal challenges, and Proposition 187 was dead.
Californians’ attitude toward immigration has softened. Today, more than 80 percent of them support a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants, according to the Public Policy Institute of California.
“Over time, it’s likely there will be larger acceptance, because immigrants tend to assimilate,” Pitney said, in part, because “they tend to marry native-born residents.”
Immigration debates aren’t new.
“Over the course of American history, many immigrant groups that were considered ‘alien’ in the nasty sense are just now part of the American fabric. Italians, for instance, were long considered an ‘other,’ ” Pitney said. “But that’s going to take quite awhile.”
Whether Americans’ attitudes will follow Californians’ remains to be seen.
“We might see a similar shift where you see a peak of polarization and then some kind of tipping point, politically,” Godwin said. “But it’s really hard to project that onto every state in the union.”
Godwin thinks some swing states, and even some GOP strongholds, are likely to follow California’s path as their demographics shift.
“Texas and Florida are the ones to watch, politically, because their demographic shift comes closest to what California has experienced,” she said.
In the meantime, Godwin cautions the Republican Party not to overplay its hand. She pointed to a 1994 gubernatorial campaign ad by Republican governor Pete Wilson, which showed people crossing the border from Mexico, and touted Wilson’s sending the California National Guard to the border to combat illegal immigration.
“It really created lasting hostility to the Republican Party. It was not just seen as being negative to illegal immigrants but as being racist against Hispanics,” she said.
The 1994 California GOP approach didn’t just turn off Hispanic voters, “it alienated not only Latino voters but white moderate voters as well,” Ramakrishnan said.
John Husing, chief economist for the Inland Empire Economic Partnership, thinks lasting damage may have already been done to the Republican Party, similar to the effect Barry Goldwater’s 1964 presidential campaign had on the black vote. Goldwater, who voted against the 1964 Civil Rights Act, is often blamed for black voters turning against the Republican Party, despite more than 80 percent of Republicans in Congress voting in favor of it. Fifty-two years later, 80 percent of black voters voted Democratic in the November 2016 presidential election.
“It’s pretty clear to me that what the Republican Party is doing is pretty much guaranteeing an overwhelming anti-Republican vote out of a community that the Republicans have clearly decided to alienate,” Husing said. “And once you lose it, you don’t get it back. That’s very clear in California.”
As of Oct. 24, 2016, only 26 percent of the 19.4 million Californians registered to vote declared themselves to be Republicans, according to California Secretary of State Alex Padilla. In 1994, 37.2 percent of the state’s 14.3 million voters were registered Republicans.
“The party has almost been destroyed in the state,” Husing said.
Republican strategists have been aware of this problem for a while. In 2013, GOP leaders, including current White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus, created an “autopsy” report after the losing 2012 presidential election. It called on the party to become more inclusive toward minorities. Trump was not a fan, asking on Twitter if the GOP had a “death wish.”
“Trump proved you could win the nomination without moderating his tone,” Ramakrishnan said. “Trump not only ignored that playbook, but he used the antithesis of that playbook and won.”
Husing thinks it’s now too late for the GOP, even if they win the current battles.
“Realistically, I think for the Republican Party, the war is over,” he said.
In the meantime, those national demographic changes didn’t happen fast enough to swing the 2016 presidential election to Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton, as some had predicted.
“America has changed enormously since the early ’90s and the changes are going to keep going on,” Pitney said. “It’s not going to go as fast as Democrats read into it. They were expecting a thrill ride on a glacier, but glaciers are powerful in the long run.”
Our editors found this article on this site using Google and regenerated it for our readers.
