Notes on Prop 16

Prop 16 on the California ballot in 2020 undoes Prop 209 from 1990s. Prop 209 banned the consideration of race in any state government programs including college admissions. For those looking for me to tell you how to vote, I cannot.

From a societal perspective, I think Prop 209 should be overturned. Supreme Court decisions in the last two decades will severely limit the changes in public university admissions. A key Supreme Court case involved my undergraduate alma mater, UT-Austin. I watched that case very closely. Consequently, I’m very comfortable saying Prop 16 would make a very small difference, at most, in public university admissions. Unfortunately, this has been lost in all the press coverage and the opposition to Prop 16 has been demagoguing this severely.

Prop 16 would make a bigger difference in government contracting. The workforces of state and local government contractors, especially at the local level, are diverse. The ownership of these contractors much less so. Prop 16 could change this and I would really like to see that happen. Consequently, on the social merits, I support Prop 16.

Opponents of Prop 16 proffer ideological reasons and appeal to purity of principle. I live in the real world and find those kinds of arguments lack applicability outside of college dormitories.

Nonetheless, the politics of Prop 16 stinks worse than durian. Asian Americans, in aggregate, are very suspicious of race being a factor in college admissions. There is a perception that earlier affirmative action programs worked on the back of Asian American applicants. The truth of this very nuanced matter doesn’t really matter. The demagogues have the simpler explanation and they’re not shy about pushing it. The rebuttals are nuanced, complex, and thus mostly fall on deaf ears. As an aside, I think the rebuttals are correct. But I’m old enough to understand that correctness only occasionally matters in politics.

Asian American legislators were not at the table when the legislation was formulated. It would have been simple to either remove college admissions from the proposition since Prop 16 would make little difference or add a sentence to make Asian Americans feel safe. If elected Asian Americans had been at the table, they would have told the Democratic Caucus, “This is going to hurt us in our districts.” They could have told them, “It’s taken a generation to move Asian Americans from the GOP to the Democrats. Do you want to risk sending them back?” They probably would have told them, “We need to have the campaign messages for Asian Americans ready when this is first introduced.” The way this was put together was pure political amateurism and hypocritical of a party that brands itself as inclusive.

Democratic Asian American politicians are now stuck between the trenches. If they don’t vocally support Prop 16, they’re attacked by Democrats as being against social justice. If they support it, demagogues in the Asian community are calling them Uncle Toms. It’s filtered down to school board and county supervisor races. This is a mess that didn’t need to happen.

Consequently, a big part of me wants to vote against Prop 16 as a message to the Democratic Party. Asian Americans are 15% of California and growing. How dare you do this without consulting us? Do it the correct way and come back in a year or two. Stop taking Asian Americans for granted.

I really don’t know how I’ll vote on this. I support the reversal of Prop 209. I also need the Democratic Party to be inclusive in practice, not just in rhetoric.