Posted 10:52 AM by Floyd

Proposition 187 killed California's Republican Party. This is an article of faith among many political analysts, most of them Democrats.

If you live in California, or pay attention to Golden State politics, you probably remember how in 1994 an initiative promised to make sweeping changes in how the state government would deliver services to millions of people. The initiative was both enthusiastically promoted, and wildly criticized as a demoniac perversion of proper governance. When the smoke cleared, a mere 27% of California voters had punched the hole that signified Yes.

But .. the proposition I just described was not Prop 187, which won handily, 59-41. The proposition that went down in flames was "Little Hillary", which attempted to socialize health care in California. If backing a proposition approved by three-fifths of the voters is sufficient to demolish any hope of electing Republicans, why have any Democrats been elected in the past decade? For that matter, why are Democrats still walking around free of tar and feathers?

Supposedly Prop 187 energized Hispanics to turn out to vote Democratic. But, as Mickey Kaus points out, the numbers don't support this theory:

Here is the Latino share of the vote in the last three gubernatorial elections, according to the L.A. Times:

1994: 8 percent

1998: 13 percent

2002: 10 percent

Furthermore, do we have any examples of this dynamic occurring elsewhere? A political party backs a controversial initiative, bill, or program, the voters enthusiastically approve -- and in a few years, that political party is moribund? Where has that happened?

The idea that Prop 187 killed off Republicans is a fantasy, a Just So Story. I think the Left subconsciously believe that voters felt guilty and revolted by their supposed mean-spiritedness, and turned to the Democratic party to do penance. In the real world, introspection and contrition are not qualities possessed by people who cast ballots. (For example, there are many people who voted for Davis who are now pro-recall and claim that Davis "deceived" them about the size of the state budget deficit. It never occurred to them in 2002 that Sacramento could not provide free money from the sky forever.)