Prop 11, Prop 93, the California Democratic Council and the California Democratic Party

Several red areas of the state, who did not want to be saddled further with their termed out Republican incumbents, revolted at the idea of term limits being extended and opposed the endorsement. There was also a faction of delegates who recognized that 2008 would be a good year to pick up Democratic seats in the legislature and did not want to lose it; they opposed Prop 93 as well. On Sunday, when Prop 93 came up for a vote, it was pulled off the consent calendar and a substitute motion to stay neutral on Prop 93 was made from the floor. Eventually, the substitute motion failed and the endorsement of Prop 93 carried the floor, but the vote for the substitute motion (which needed 60%) failed by only 91 to 81—hardly a resounding vote of confidence for the measure. Ultimately, Prop 93 failed at the ballot box.

The failure of Prop 93 illustrated the environment that Prop 11 would be fighting in—an anti-legislature environment. Many of the people who had opposed Prop 93, voted for Prop 11 at the CDC Convention, since CDC has always had a large contingent of members from red areas and the convention was held in Fresno, in the red part of the state. For many CDCers, it was payback time for a legislature that had ignored them in the last redistricting, and a party that had ignored them until they had agitated for a 58 county plan.

When the votes were finally tallied, it was clear that voters in the state shared the same sentiments about the legislature that the delegates at the CDC Convention had expressed. An October poll on the initiative showed that late in the battle, Democrats supports Prop 11 by a 37% to 36% margin—clearly the CDP had trouble in its own rank and file voters. And interestingly, at the recent party E-Board meeting, also in Anaheim, there was much discussion about Proposition 8, but very little on Prop 11.

Proposition 11 may very well display the faults that its critics says it does. I certainly have problems with. But in the final the analysis, if Proposition 11 passes, the Democratic in the legislature and the party leadership will have only themselves to blame for not heeding the earlier warnings from the fallout of Proposition 93.

Steve Cummings is a member of the Ventura County Democratic Central Committee, Controller for CDC, and the Southern VP for the California Federation of Democratic Central Committee Members. His book, Red States, Blue States, and the Coming Sharecropper Society, was published by Algora Publishing, NY in April.