On immigration, California Republicans still haven’t learned
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SACRAMENTO — There are echoes from California Republicans’ disastrous past in their solid support of the Trump administration’s ugly raids targeting Latinos suspected of illegal immigration.
California’s GOP apparently still hasn’t learned. Scaring, insulting and angering people is not an effective recruiting tool. It doesn’t draw them to your side. It drives them into the opposition camp.
That should have been a lesson learned three decades ago when Republicans strongly pushed a harsh anti-illegal immigration ballot initiative, Proposition 187. It became principally responsible for changing California from a politically competitive state to one where the GOP is essentially irrelevant.
This occurred to me when reading recent poll data that showed strong overall objection in California to President Trump’s oft-inhumane immigration enforcement policies — among virtually every group, that is, except Republican voters. They overwhelmingly support his tactics.
The in-depth poll by the UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies delved into voter attitudes toward Trump’s mass deportation actions.
On the basic question of his immigration enforcement strategy, 69% of registered voters disapproved and just 29% approved. But there was a sharp difference between political parties. Democrats almost unanimously disapproved — 95%. And 72% of independents were opposed. But 79% of Republicans approved.
Interviewers also asked about specifics. And GOP voters were with Trump all the way.
Strong majorities of Republicans disagreed that federal agents “have unfairly targeted Latino communities for their race or ethnicity,” believed the raids have “primarily focused” on undocumented “serious” criminals — although evidence shows that many law-abiders have been snatched — and thought “all undocumented immigrants need to be deported.”
Smaller Republican majorities disagreed that detained undocumented immigrants “have a right to due process” and a court hearing — although the due process clause of the 5th Amendment indicates they do — and agreed that “agents should expand enforcement into schools, hospitals, parks and other public locations.”
Democrats and independents expressed emphatically opposite views — and they greatly outnumber Republicans in California.
The parties also reported diametrically opposite feelings when viewing news accounts of raids by federal agents. Nearly two-thirds of Republicans said it made them feel “hopeful, like justice is finally being served.” Democrats said they were “enraged and/or sad. What is happening is unfair.”
Republicans were more divided on whether immigration agents should be required to show clear identification, such as wearing badges. Armed agents have been going incognito in street clothes, traveling in unmarked vehicles and wearing masks.
Among GOP voters, 50% opposed requiring identification and 45% supported the idea.
Two bills currently are awaiting votes in the state Assembly to require agent identification and ban masks in most circumstances.
“Agents have been running around wearing essentially ski masks, grabbing people, throwing them into unmarked cars and disappearing them,” says Sen. Mark Wiener (D-San Francisco), author of the mask ban bill. “In a democracy, we don’t have secret police running around masked.”
Listening to Republican voters, I’m hearing reverberations from 1994 when that GOP generation overwhelmingly backed Proposition 187, led by Gov. Pete Wilson, who was subsequently demonized by Democrats and, particularly, Latinos.
That now-infamous measure would have denied most public services — including schooling — to undocumented immigrants, and turned teachers and nurses into snitches. It passed by a landslide, but a federal judge ruled it unconstitutional.
Republicans voted for Proposition187 by 3 to 1 and independents by 3 to 2, according to a Los Angeles Times exit poll. Democrats opposed it by 2 to 1.
White people voted for Proposition 187 by 59% to 41% — the exact victory margin — but Latinos opposed it by 78% to 22%. Today, there are a lot fewer white people and lots more Latinos in California.
The measure awakened Latinos and spawned a new generation of Democratic political leaders, including U.S. Sen. Alex Padilla, former L.A. Mayor and Assembly Speaker Antonio Villaraigosa and other legislative honchos.
And it instigated a hemorrhaging of Republican voters in California. In the November presidential election, Republicans amounted to only 25% of registered voters. In 1994, they were 37%. Many have since shifted to registering as independents, who amounted to only 10% back then and are 22% now. Democrats also have lost slightly to nonpartisan ranks, falling from 49% to 46%.
No Republican candidate has won a statewide race since 2006, and Democrats hold supermajorities in both legislative houses.
The GOP has been touting an uptick in Latino support in November’s election. But is that a trend, or just the reflection of a sorry Democratic presidential campaign? How will Latino voters react to immigration agents chasing people through farm fields, seizing teens without telling their parents and stalking picnickers?
“Republicans can talk about crime and homelessness and gas prices all they want but the immigration issue is a boulder in the road that will keep large numbers in California from listening to what they say on any other issue,” says Dan Schnur, a USC and UC Berkeley political science instructor who was Wilson’s spokesman in 1994.
GOP consultant Mike Madrid, who has written a book about how Latinos are transforming democracy, says Republicans “are limiting what could be a tidal wave of voters in their direction. They’re their own worst enemies.”
He adds: “Latinos are primarily economic voters but will respond when attacked. As long as the GOP resorts to anti-Latino appeals they’ll fight back.”
Republican voter attitudes also are symptomatic of today’s extremely polarized politics.
“Wherever Trump decides to steer the ship, Republicans are following him. Trump is the Pied Piper here,” says Mark DiCamillo, the IGS pollster.
Republican consultant Kevin Spillane theorized that Republican respondents in the poll were “rallying around Trump. They thought they were really being asked about him.”
Whatever. They need to evolve into the increasingly diverse 21st century. We can secure the border without storming churches, hospitals and schools.
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Until next week,
George Skelton
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Ideas expressed in the piece
California Republicans are repeating the same catastrophic political mistake that destroyed their party’s relevance in the state three decades ago by continuing to support harsh anti-immigration policies and Trump’s enforcement tactics. The GOP’s overwhelming support for Trump’s immigration raids, with 79% of Republican voters approving his enforcement strategy, demonstrates they haven’t learned from the disastrous consequences of Proposition 187 in 1994.
Proposition 187 fundamentally transformed California’s political landscape by awakening Latino voters and driving them permanently into the Democratic camp, creating a political realignment that rendered the Republican Party essentially irrelevant in statewide politics. The measure sparked record Latino voter registration and naturalization, contributing to the GOP’s decline from 37% of registered voters in 1994 to just 25% today, while Democrats achieved supermajorities in the legislature that they have rarely relinquished since.
Current Republican attitudes mirror the harmful rhetoric and policies of the Proposition 187 era, with GOP voters supporting problematic enforcement methods including agents operating in unmarked vehicles with masks, targeting schools and hospitals, and denying due process rights to detained immigrants. Republicans fundamentally misunderstand that scaring, insulting, and angering communities is counterproductive to political recruitment and only serves to drive potential supporters into the opposition camp.
The party’s continued embrace of anti-Latino appeals represents a self-defeating strategy that limits their potential electoral gains, particularly as California’s demographics have shifted toward greater Latino representation and diversity in the 21st century.
Different views on the topic
The political consequences of Proposition 187 may be unique to California rather than a predictor of national trends, as other states like Arizona, Texas, and Florida have enacted harsh immigration laws without experiencing similar Republican Party collapse[1]. The demographic and political dynamics that made California vulnerable to this political realignment may not apply broadly across the nation.
Wilson’s support for Proposition 187 was strategically motivated rather than opportunistic, as he endorsed the measure in September 1994 when he was already leading in polls, not to save a failing campaign[2]. The governor’s primary goal was to force a Supreme Court review of the 1982 Plyler v. Doe decision that allowed undocumented children to attend public schools, after his unsuccessful attempts to secure federal reimbursement for immigration-related state costs.
The effectiveness of immigration enforcement depends on complete implementation rather than half-measures, with some arguing that Proposition 187’s failure to achieve mass deportations prevented it from maintaining Republican electoral dominance in California[1]. The political realignment might have been avoided if enforcement had been more comprehensive and decisive.
Latino voters themselves may have more complex views on immigration than commonly assumed, with evidence suggesting that established immigrant communities often oppose additional immigration and prefer policies that benefit their own families rather than broader immigration increases[1].
