Unlike Prop 16, ACA7 would not repeal 209 outright. Instead, it would allow the governor to make as many EXCEPTIONS as he pleases, so the end result would be the same.
I’ve mainly been lobbing practical arguments at the senators: You will lose. And you will lose more than just ACA7. Your party is already hemorrhaging Asian American voters. ACA7 will cause even more to take the red pill. If you put ACA7 on the ballot, it will assure that Republicans retain control of the U.S. House of Representatives and perhaps even tighten their grip on it (since California has several evenly balanced Congressional districts with high numbers of Asian voters).
The first senator I tried to talk to told me pointblank, “This is going to pass.” She was not encouraging. But by March I’d spoken to several senators who were smart enough to understand that passing ACA7 was not in their interest. Heading it off in the Senate started to seem like a very real possibility.
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