Pete Wilson's Vindication
SAUNDERS, DEBRA J.
Pete Wilson's Vindication Proposition 187 has painted California Democrats into a corner. BY DEBRA J. SAUNDERS IT IS AN ARTICLE OF FAITH among political journalists that Proposition 187, the 1994...
...Their refusal to distinguish between illegal and legal immigration put them at odds with the California mainstream...
...Davis strategists anticipated high conservative turnout...
...When Wilson aired a campaign ad in 1994 that showed illegal immigrants streaming across the border, Democrats were quick to attack him...
...Later, in answer to the same question, Bustamante told the San Francisco Chronicle editorial board that he would deny illegals the right to vote and passports—that was it...
...As the results of the recall confirm, Proposition 187, while clearly no killer for Republicans, instead pushed the Democrats into a corner...
...While Torres and other Democrats thought they owned the Latino vote, only 54 percent of Latinos voted against the recall...
...The R-word didn't help Democrats keep Wilson out of the governor's horseshoe that year—Wilson defeated Kathleen Brown by 55 percent to 40 percent—but it defined a position they have had to live with ever since...
...He also feared lest the state give legitimacy to escaped criminals...
...A desperate Davis announced he would sign the driver's license bill...
...This outraged Lt...
...Somehow the measure, though endorsed by 59 percent of voters and many GOP candidates, is bad politics...
...This year, Democratic politicians obscured their position by referring to illegals simply as "immigrants...
...The Democrats' opposition to Prop...
...Davis had vetoed similar bills on the grounds that they required no background checks on those applying for America's gateway document...
...Now, Democrats were demanding that such laws be overturned— or else...
...187 had transformed the party...
...Davis faced a recall because voters suspected that he would sell them out to save his own sorry skin...
...The way to win, they decided, was to energize the party's base and boost the flagging Latino vote...
...Shameless pandering to Latinos failed to pay off...
...Call it his last mistake...
...Thus began the rift that would prompt Bustamante to run in the recall election, despite party solons' efforts to keep Democratic officeholders out of the race...
...187 might hurt Schwarzenegger, it was Bustamante who tanked, with a mere 32 percent of the vote in a state that has 44 percent Democratic registration...
...It hit every Davis sore point...
...Debra J. Saunders writes a nationally syndicated column for the San Francisco Chronicle...
...The California Democratic party argued that it was racist to deny illegal immigrants state benefits...
...He repeatedly tried to undermine Schwarzenegger by reminding voters of the actor's ties to Wilson, the evil purveyor of Prop...
...In the same spirit, another Times story noted the danger of Schwarzenegger's taking positions on immigration issues: "That risk was apparent Sunday when former Gov...
...At the first candidates' debate, when asked if there were a single state benefit that he would deny to illegal immigrants, Bustamante didn't name one...
...A desperate Davis announced that he would sign SB 60, a driver's license bill then up for consideration in the legislature...
...As Wilson noted on election night, Schwarzenegger's overwhelming victory proved that he and 187 are good politics...
...BY DEBRA J. SAUNDERS IT IS AN ARTICLE OF FAITH among political journalists that Proposition 187, the 1994 initiative approved by California voters to deny illegal immigrants state benefits, was poison to the Republican party...
...Under Wilson, many Latino legislators— including Bustamante—had supported a measure that required driver's license applicants to show proof of citizenship or legal residency...
...Bustamante began the race refusing to distance himself from MEChA, a radical student organization that proposes Latino separation...
...Enter the recall...
...As pollster Frank Luntz told me at a pre-election press conference for his client Arnold Schwarzenegger, when Davis signed SB 60, "That was the beginning of the end of Cruz Bustamante...
...The license vetoes hurt Davis with the Latino caucus...
...In his first term, Davis signed a bill that gave an in-state tuition tax break to illegal immigrants attending California colleges and universities, but he twice vetoed bills to allow illegal immigrants to obtain drivers' licenses...
...only 52 percent voted for Bustamante...
...And while newspapers were suggesting that support for Prop...
...Cruz Bustamante, who denounced Davis...
...Yes, Latino turnout grew, but Latinos didn't behave as a monolith...
...The recall election should put an end to this nonsense...
...Pete Wilson, a co-chairman of the actor's campaign, acknowledged that Schwarzenegger backed Proposition 187, the 1994 ballot measure that sought to curb public services for illegal immigrants...
...And he had just confirmed it...
...So the message was wrong, and the math was wrong...
...The way to win, they decided, was to boost the flagging Latino vote...
...He'd noted that "a driver's license was in the hands of terrorists who attacked America" on September 11...
...When he was elected governor in 1998, Gray Davis tried to straddle the 187 divide...
...Davis had opposed the measure when it was on the ballot, but he didn't want to be seen as thwarting the will of California voters...
...Meanwhile, energized Latino Democrats started producing bills to help "undocumented" immigrants...
...It was a move, according to the Los Angeles Times poll, to which 38 percent of Latino voters were strongly opposed, while nearly three quarters of state voters overall disapproved...
...But analysts say it might help him with hard-core conservatives...
...Call it his last mistake...
...So it was inevitable that when Arnold Schwarzenegger ventured into the governor's race, the Los Angeles Times would blare: "Actor voted for the divisive '94 initiative, a move that could alienate Latinos...
...Davis strategists rightly anticipated high conservative turnout...
...After the courts gutted the measure, Davis tried to craft a judicial compromise...
...Again Davis tried to appease the Latino corner without provoking anger from the majority...
...But California Democratic party chairman Art Torres couldn't see it...
...Facing political extinction, however, Davis was ready to sign on the dotted line—and, he let it be known, he would sign unconditionally, even without a background-check provision...
...Team Davis attributed a drop in his support from Latinos— an estimated 400,000 fewer Latinos showed up at the polls to vote for Davis in 2002 than in 1998—to his driver's license vetoes...
Vol. 9 • October 2003 • No. 6
