03 Apr California’s New Majority
From South L.A. to Oakland to Fresno, Voters Shake Up State Politics
By Satish Kunisi and Jung Hee Choi
Hundreds of volunteers spread out across California last November to knock on doors and talk to their neighbors about the importance of passing Proposition 30.
For the first time in ten years, Californians are not facing devastating budget cuts to education and other vital services. Instead of seeing tuition increases this year, Cal State students are receiving refunds. Rather than mailing out pink slips to teachers, public schools are getting additional money. Thanks to Proposition 30, a tax initiative approved by voters in November that will generate $7 billion in new revenue, lawmakers are considering increasing state spending by 5%, mostly on education and Medi-Cal.
Given that just three years ago the state faced a $42 billion budget deficit, many in the national media are hailing the recent turnaround as a “civic miracle” — largely crediting a recovering economy and Gov. Jerry Brown’s leadership in getting Proposition 30 passed.
A turnaround, yes, but a miracle? Not quite, say community and labor organizers across California who pushed to get Proposition 30 on the ballot and helped get it approved by mobilizing one of the largest progressive grass-roots voter campaigns in state history.
No Miracle
“Prop. 30 was a product of multiyear organizing and the hard work of talking to tens of thousands of voters one on one in between and during election cycles to understand their concerns and their motivations,” said Anthony Thigpenn, a longtime organizer and the chairman of California Calls, an alliance of thirty-one community organizations across the state dedicated to tax and fiscal reform. “We knew if we could inspire 15% of infrequent voters in twelve key counties, they could be the decisive difference.”
Proposition 30, which increased income taxes on the wealthy and the sales tax by a small percentage, won with 55% of the vote — a margin of victory few could have imagined, acknowledged Sabrina Smith, deputy director of California Calls.
Since the passage in 1978 of Proposition 13, which capped commercial and residential property tax rates and ensured legislative gridlock any time tax increases were considered, the state has faced chronic budget deficits, Smith said. Proposition 13 created a strong anti-tax climate that prevailed for decades.
When the Great Recession hit and state revenues plummeted, “We were stuck in this box. Cuts were the only solution,” Smith said. “Even our progressive friends in the legislature were proposing cuts. Issues [like funding education versus health care for low-income children] were pitted against one another.
“California was at a critical turning point,” Smith continued. “Were we going to push policies that divide and harm our communities? Or were we going to push a new progressive realignment that brought more people together?”
A New Base of Power
Leaders of California Calls, along with labor partner the California Federation of Teachers, seized the 2012 presidential election as an opportunity to put an initiative on the ballot that would raise taxes for California’s wealthiest residents. The proposal would later merge with another one being backed by the governor to eventually become Proposition 30.
Key to the initiative’s victory was the grass-roots voter mobilization strategy. The alliance focused on reaching and engaging voters usually neglected by mainstream campaigns — the young, the recently naturalized, people of color and low-income residents. The organizers focused on these groups in traditional progressive strongholds like Los Angeles and the Bay Area as well as in new battleground rural and suburban communities undergoing major demographic shifts.
In 2008, people of color made up 60% of the state’s population but only 37% of those who went to the polls, according to California Calls. Voters in most elections tend to be white, older, middle- and upper-class homeowners.
That’s because mainstream political campaigns don’t target communities of color, argued Roger Kim, whose California Calls-affiliated Bay Area organization ran a statewide multilingual voter outreach program among Asian voters. Almost 70% of the Asian Pacific Islander voters whom his organization talked to reported that they hadn’t been contacted by either the Democratic or Republican Party in several years.
Smith explained, “We believed that if we could engage, inspire and expand the electorate to those traditionally overlooked by formal campaigns, they could be decisive.”
The strategy paid off. In 2012, people of color comprised 44% of Californians who voted, according to exit polls. The percentage of young and low-income residents who cast ballots also increased significantly. Across the board, voters of color overwhelmingly supported Proposition 30.
Organizations such as Community Coalition, Strategic Concepts in Organizing and Policy Education (SCOPE), InnerCity Struggle, Asian Pacific Environmental Network, Oakland Rising, Central Coast Alliance United for A Sustainable Economy and Communities for a New California talked to more than 400,000 voters in thirteen counties. More than 80% of California Calls supporters turned out to vote in November and they made up more than 6% of those who said yes to Proposition 30.
The on-the-ground work by community volunteers cannot be underestimated, noted Tracy Zeluff, a political consultant at GroundWorks Campaigns. The legwork wasn’t “farm[ed] out to some call center in Georgia,” she explained. “These are real organizers, having real quality conversations. I think it was historic.”
Experts believe the passage of Proposition 30 reveals shifting attitudes about government among a voter base whose demographics are transforming.
“This new electorate realizes that government has an important role in setting the table, making things fair and creating opportunities and that people then need to step up and take advantage of these opportunities,” said Professor Manuel Pastor, director of USC Program for Environmental and Regional Equity. “That aspirational message resonates with African Americans, Latinos and Asians. And it resonates with young white voters too who realize in the wake of the Great Recession that government should be making sure that economic opportunities are open and available to people.”
The power of an emerging and growing constituency and the decisive impact communities of color had in November have organizers such as Pablo Rodriguez of Communities for a New California feeling optimistic. Soon, “we will be able to stop saying that California is changing and we’ll be able to say it has changed,” he predicted.
Kunisi is the communications coordinator for Strategic Concepts in Organizing and Policy Education, and Choi is the communications director at Community Coalition.
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