How Group Quotas Lost in California

In 1996, California became the first state to ban preferential admissions, hiring, and contracting policies intended to bolster the prospects of groups that are underrepresented or the victims of discrimination. Since the 1960s the shorthand for such policies has been “affirmative action.” Voters passed Proposition 209, which amended the California constitution to stipulate that the state “shall not discriminate against, or grant preferential treatment to, any individual or group on the basis of race, sex, color, ethnicity, or national origin in the operation of public employment, public education, or public contracting” (emphasis added).

Prop. 209 prevailed by a margin of 54.6% to 45.4% on the same Election Day that saw Bill Clinton win a second presidential term. In 1996, California was a purple state turning blue: Clinton received 51.1% of its votes that year, slightly better than the 49% he got in the rest of the country. Not coincidentally, it was also a white-ish state turning brown, on its way to becoming “majority-minority.” According to a Los Angeles Times exit poll, 74% of the 1996 California general election ballots were cast by whites, 10% by Latinos, 7% by blacks, and 5% by Asians.

The demographic distribution of the vote is pertinent, given that 209’s opponents portrayed it as a sinister measure to reverse California’s progress toward racial concord and fairness. Proposition 209 “Harms Equal Opportunity for Women and Minorities,” according to the title of its opponents’ official argument, provided to all voters as part of the ballot initiative process. Rosa Parks was one of that argument’s signatories, and it included a statement from Colin Powell, then at the height of his prestige. Prop. 209, he said, “puts at risk every outreach program” and “puts the brakes on expanding opportunity for people in need.”

Although California’s white voters could, in theory, have enacted 209 without a single vote from any other group, the Times exit poll showed that the proposition’s winning coalition was more…well, inclusive. Its finding that 63% of whites voted in favor of 209 means that of the 54.6% of the total vote it received, 46.6 percentage points came from white voters and the other eight percentage points from non-whites. The Times poll also showed that 39% of Asian voters supported 209, as did 26% of blacks and 24% of Hispanics. All told, then, some 31% of non-white voters supported Proposition 209, which means that the idea of banning race preferences was twice as popular with whites as non-whites.