NEWS ANALYSIS : State’s Diversity Doesn’t Reach Voting Booth

For weeks, Latinos dominated the political landscape as they marched en masse through the streets in vehement opposition to Proposition 187.

But when Election Day came, it was white California that spoke, putting the racially charged measure over the top by an almost 20-point margin--a landslide in a race that many believed was narrowing in recent weeks. Final results showed the proposal--which cuts off government services to illegal immigrants--winning comfortably throughout the state, except for the San Francisco Bay Area.

Recent high-profile student demonstrations--lauded by some Latino leaders as the vanguard of a new activism--contributed to the margin of victory by further alienating a white voting majority, some analysts said.

“They (marchers) polarized the issue,” said Dick Woodward, whose Bay Area consulting firm, Woodward & McDowell, handled the mainstream anti-Proposition 187 campaign and vainly advised against the demonstrations. “Not only did students walk out, but there were Mexican flags, and I think that made the undecided voter angry.”

Probably more than in any recent election, the divisive contest surrounding Proposition 187 has turned a spotlight on the glaring disparity between the California voting rolls--dominated by whites, who accounted for 80% of the voters Tuesday--and the diverse state population: 57% white, 25% Latino, 9% Asian Americans and 7% blacks at the time of the last census.

“Basically, as whites go, goes any election in California,” said Arnold Steinberg, a political strategist who usually works with Republicans.

The vote on Proposition 187 also tapped a deep populist vein, generating strong support among the less well-educated and the elderly--as well as with conservatives and Republicans. (Almost 8 in 10 of those who described themselves as either Republicans or conservatives supported the measure, exit polls show.) Denunciations of Proposition 187 from unions, religious leaders, law enforcement officials, educators, health professionals and others evidently were not enough to change voters’ minds--nor to spur greater voter turnout by Latinos.

Although successfully capturing voter discontent, some are concerned about the long-term impact of the divisive debate on a region already polarized across racial lines.

“The legacy of this is going to be harmed human relations in this state for some time,” said Joe Hicks, executive director of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference of Southern California, the civil rights group founded by the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.

Multicultural Los Angeles County, with its huge numbers of immigrants, voted in favor of Proposition 187 by a 12-point margin.

Although Latinos represent more than one-quarter of the state population, they accounted for only 8% of those voting across the state Tuesday--despite much-heralded efforts to get out the vote and register voters in the weeks before the election. That underlines a reality of non-participation: Immigrants, particularly Latino immigrants, tend to be non-citizens ineligible to vote or too young to register.

Recognizing the need to bolster voting rolls, Latino activists statewide have mounted a major effort promoting the values of U.S. citizenship. It is the vote, many recognize, that will ultimately turn things around.

“We lost the battle, but we need to win the war,” said Father Pedro Villarroya, who heads Hispanic ministry for the Roman Catholic Archdiocese. “We need to vote.”

But the trend is not likely to change quickly. Mexican nationals, the largest single group of Latino immigrants, are traditionally among the least likely newcomers to renounce allegiance to their homeland and become U.S. citizens. An electorate dominated by aging white baby boomers is expected to drive California electoral politics at least until at least 2010, researchers conclude.

“What happened yesterday is not very heartening example of what will happen in the future,” said David Hayes-Bautista, a UCLA sociologist who has studied demographic trends and is opposed to Proposition 187.

According to Hayes-Bautista, Tuesday’s vote represented white voters’ decision to, in essence, “secede” from California--a suggestion dismissed by Proposition 187 advocates.

Although exit polls showed a considerable support for the proposition among most voting groups--with Latinos being the major exception, opposing it 77% to 23%--it is also clear that its strongest backers are whites, almost two-thirds of whom said they voted for the measure. Roughly half of black and Asian American voters also cast ballots in favor of the measure.

Harold W. Ezell, a former U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service official who was a Proposition 187 co-sponsor, scoffed at the secession argument. “What about all the Asians and blacks who voted with us, and even the Latinos?” he asked. “This is a mandate across the board.”

While scholars and activists debated what the vote said about ethnic and racial attitudes, there were deep divisions apparent within the opposition camp.

Nowhere was the split more evident than at the Biltmore Hotel in Los Angeles, where the anti-Proposition 187 forces congregated late Tuesday.

As the proposition’s victory became likely, then certain, a mostly Latino audience gathered in an ornate ballroom and seemed intent on denying the imminent defeat that was being broadcast on the television screens. Several speakers even boasted of “victory” to a vociferous crowd, including many of the student protesters who had hit the streets the week before.

“I am here today to tell you that we have defeated Proposition 187!” Gilbert Cedillo, general manger of Local 660 of the Service Employees International Union, told the roaring crowd. “We have defeated Proposition 187 because we have taken the spirit and heart out of that racist attack!”

Many expressed the viewpoint that the recent mass mobilizations of students and others would translate into a broad-based movement that would defeat future Proposition 187-type proposals.

Down the hall, however, Woodward, the veteran consultant who ran campaign by Taxpayers Against 187--the principal opposition group--was addressing a central campaign image: the Mexican flag, hoisted by students and other demonstrators.

“We cringed every time we saw it,” said Woodward, who absorbed his first defeat in an opposition campaign in nearly three decades of consultant work. “We didn’t want them to march, because we knew exactly what would happen, and we have the polling data to show that’s exactly what did happen.”

Throughout the campaign, the consultants emphasized a pragmatic approach: Illegal immigration was a serious problem, but Proposition 187 did nothing to stop it, while possibly increasing crime and spreading disease.

That message ended up getting less exposure than the widely televised images of Mexican flags and marching students. The formal campaign against the proposition began late and lacked funds for television advertising. In particular, opponents lamented that more money had not come from organized labor, the entertainment industry and the Roman Catholic Church, which denounced the proposal strongly from the pulpit.

With Gov. Pete Wilson’s support for the proposition and his highlighting of immigration in his victorious campaign, the anti-Proposition 187 camp was unable to sway enough white voters.

“From the beginning, we knew there was a huge anger out there,” Woodward said.

Now that Proposition 187 is on the books, although subject to numerous court challenges, many say it could be an omen of other proposals to come. Over and over, supporters distressed by the state’s changing demographics spoke of a range of concerns--”multiculturalism,” bilingual education, a loss of jobs--that they associated with illegal immigration.

“There’s a lot of latent anger out there,” said former Los Angeles County Supervisor Pete Schabarum, the author of a Proposition 187-like ballot initiative that was withdrawn earlier this year. (Unlike Proposition 187, the former supervisor’s plan did not apply to public education, a provision Schabarum decided would be too controversial.)

In casual conversations with Proposition 187 supporters, it is clear that their complaints go beyond illegal immigrants. Often, their comments apply broadly to all immigrants.

“I’m tired of hearing and seeing their language,” said a man who gave his name only as Wayne, one of three plumbers on a coffee break Wednesday at the Downtown Civic Center mall. “Between food stamps, welfare and everything else, they are probably living better than me, working 40 hours a week.” (In fact, federal law already makes illegal immigrants ineligible for welfare and food stamp benefits.)

Glenn Emigh, another Proposition 187 supporter Downtown said Wednesday that he voted for the measure in part because of a larger concern about the state’s economic decline. Many of the middle-class jobs that once formed the region’s economic backbone are gone, Emigh said, replaced by more menial slots. He blamed illegal immigrants.

“When I see a street vendor out there on the street ringing a bell to sell some food, I have a sad feeling and maybe a little angry feeling too,” said Emigh, chief of computer programming unit for local office of the Army Corps of Engineers. “Not at the person, but just about the change and the change in the economy and the fact that these are the jobs that are left now.”

Contrary to widespread perceptions that illegal immigration is worse than ever, U.S. officials say that the undocumented population actually peaked in 1987, before implementation of a federal amnesty program that resulted in legal status for more than 3 million formerly undocumented residents, more than half of them California residents.