03/10/2005
Law Professor Gail Heriot, of The Right Coast has a three part post titled Don’t Blame Pete Wilson for Making California a Blue State, [1, 2, 3,]Brendan Miniter’s comment in today’s WSJ Political Diary (subscription required) seems quite unfair to me. He suggests that former California Governor Pete Wilson and Proposition 187 (which denied illegal immigrants certain state benefits, including welfare benefits) are responsible for making California a Democratic electoral stronghold. I’m starting to hear this everywhere I go and its utter nonsense. 1,This inaccuracy is characteristic of the WSJ, which just today, hammered on the oft-refuted “immigrants will save social security" myth. One thing Professor Heriot points out is that proportionately more Latinos voted for Proposition 187 than vote Republican.
Proposition 187 actually polled better among Latinos than either George H.W. Bush before it or Bob Dole after it. 2,The actual cause of California’s Democratic shift: Hispanics and Asians entering, blue-collar whites packing up and leaving.
Between 1990 and 2000, California’s population increased 13.82%. From the standpoint of race and ethnicity, the increase was overwhelmingly the result of an increased number of Hispanics and Asians. The numbers of whites (including Hispanic whites) actually decreased in absolute terms by 1.73% as a result of out-migration and low birth rates. 3,Professor Heriot doesn’t share VDARE.COM’s view of what should be done about immigration, of course, but she does have an academic’s commitment to the truth. The Wall Street Journal, on the other hand…may be invincibly ignorant [Vdare.com Note: or dishonest.]
This is a content archive of VDARE.com, which Letitia James forced off of the Internet using lawfare.