California Democrats Pushing for Legalized Racial Discrimination on Ballot – AGAIN

Even after badly losing a 2020 referendum to bring back racial preferences, the professional class of race hustlers are back again – with a constitutional amendment.

Proposition 16 would have overturned California’s ban on Affirmative Action – the preferential treatment to persons on the basis of race, sex, color, ethnicity, or national origin in public employment, public education, and public contracting.

Assembly Constitutional Amendment 7 by Assemblyman Corey Jackson (D-Riverside) already passed the Assembly 62-18, and is in the Senate awaiting committee hearings.

If passed by by the California Senate, ACA 7 will be on ballot as an amendment to the existing constitutional language of Proposition 209, which banned racial preferences in education and hiring… but it’s not as if the state or higher education actually honored Prop. 209…

The Calif constitution’s ban on preferential treatment based on race, sex, or ethnicity was put there in 1996 by Prop 209. Now state legislators want to create an unlimited number of “exceptions.” They will swallow the rule. #NoACA7 #KeepDiscriminationIllegal pic.twitter.com/sZVoh6PXVo

— Gail Heriot (@GailHeriot) December 19, 2023

Assemblyman Jackson claims, “Since its passing in 1996, Proposition 209 has served as a barrier toward implementing potential programs to assist vulnerable communities who have intentionally been neglected and left behind for over 400 years. This unjust law has substantially limited the state’s ability to address disparities in business contracting, education, housing, wealth, employment, and healthcare, which are deeply embedded in laws, policies, and institutions that perpetuate racial inequalities.”

Ironically perhaps, Prop. 209 is based on the exact language of the 1964 U.S. Civil Right Act.

In June, the United States Supreme Court issued a ruling against using affirmative action in the college admissions process. California passed its own Civil Rights Initiative, Proposition 209, in 1996, passed by voters 55% to 45%, which said that the state cannot discriminate against or grant preferential treatment on the basis of race, sex, color, ethnicity, or national origin in the operation of public employment, public education, and public contracting.

Assemblyman Jackson is pro-reparations, and notably, the California Reparations Committee Reparations report released earlier this year calls for the repeal of Proposition 209, which Jackson says “is a substantial obstacle to remedying systemic racism in California.”

Calif legislators are AGAIN trying to gut Prop209-the part of the Calif constitution that bans preferential treatment based on race, sex or ethnicity. Please make your voice heard by signing this PETITION. @tobeequal @VijayIngam https://t.co/x1sCm3g4PI

— Gail Heriot (@GailHeriot) January 4, 2024

The Globe spoke with Gail Heriot, Chair woman of the No on ACA 7 campaign and Professor of Law at the University of San Diego. She said the new attempt to overturn Prop. 209 “is trickier” because “instead of attempting an outright repeal, it creates a procedure under which the governor can make ‘exceptions.'”

“ACA-7 is all about asking voters to pre-approve whatever exceptions to Proposition 209 that Governor Newsom or some unknown future governor decides to make,” said Heriot. “I am confident that if it makes the ballot and voters understand it, they will reject it. The state Senate should stop it before it gets that far.”

The No on ACA 7 website gives the background:

“No on ACA 7” is a ballot measure committee organized for the purpose of defeating Assembly Constitutional Amendment No. 7, a discriminatory and unconstitutional proposal that would erode and effectively repeal the California Constitution, Article I, section 31 (a). The constitutional provision states the following:

“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.”

First codified via the successful passage of Proposition 209, which was approved by 54.55% of California voters in November 1996. In 2020, opponents of Prop. 209 tried to repeal it via Proposition 16, placed on the ballot through the State Legislature. This time, 57.23% of the California electorate, more progressive and diverse than in 1996, voted to keep Prop. 209 in place.

Some have said that ACA 7 could run afoul of the June Supreme Court ruling that banned affirmative action in higher education. But because the ruling was limited to college admissions, the answer is probably not.

As for those “exceptions” ACA 7 will allow the governor, Assemblyman Jackson notes:

ACA 7 will allow the Governor to issue waivers to public entities that wish to use state funds for evidence-based or research-informed and culturally specific programs to increase life expectancy, improve educational outcomes, and lift specific ethnic groups and marginalized genders out of poverty.

As the Globe reported in September:

In other words discrimination is permissible if an academic somewhere says it is doing good.

ACA 7 says that the “State may use state moneys to fund research-based, or research-informed, and culturally specific programs in any industry, including, but not limited to, public employment, public education, and public contracting, if those programs are established or otherwise implemented by the State for purposes of increasing the life expectancy of, improving educational outcomes for, or lifting out of poverty specific groups based on race, color, ethnicity, national origin, or marginalized genders, sexes, or sexual orientations.”

The discriminatory programs would have to be approved by the governor.

Dr. Allen Shafter wrote in July for the Globe:

It seems clear that if ACA 7 were to be eventually approved by voters, the race preferences lobby will be able to gut Proposition 209 pretty much at will. Put another way, the proponents of ACA 7 are counting on the fog that permeates the scholarly research landscape to give cover to their racial preferences agenda. There is the old saying attributed to Lavrentiy Beria, head of Joseph Stalin’s secret police: “Show me the man, and I’ll show you the crime.” In the case of ACA 7 it’s “Give me your agenda, and I’ll give you a study supporting it”.

Here is the “NO on ACA7” PETITION

Word is getting around about ACA7. The Wall Street Journal’s Bill McGurn is now opposing it.@SenatorUmberg @NancySkinnerCA @GeneralRoth @SenBillDodd @SenSusanRubio @SusanRubioCA @BrianDahleCA @RogerNiello @SenRogerNiello @SenatorSeyarto @ScottWilkCA https://t.co/1ABPybbrDU

— Gail Heriot (@GailHeriot) January 2, 2024

Gail Heriot recommends California voters contact their state senators to let them know where they stand. Email, call their offices, send a letter, and definitely sign the petition. “There are many arguments in favor of not putting ACA 7 on the ballot,” Heriot said. She is confident that once Senators realize this, “putting ACA7 on the ballot is not in their interest.”

Below is a complete listing of the California State Senators where you can find your Senator.

Benjamin Allen (D)

District 24

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