Canvassing California

Tea Party gadfly Michael Erickson plots an Arizona-style immigration law initiative in California

California

California presents some of the most challenging political terrain facing White Advocates anywhere in America.

The Golden State has been overrun by SWPLs and Hispanics. The outcome of the 2012 elections and the bleak demographics there hardly inspires confidence in our long term racial survival.

Over the last four decades, the standard of living of White Californians has gotten much worse without the quality of its elected officials getting much better. Jerry “Moonbeam” Brown, a retread from the 1970s, is the next Governor of California. This will be his third term in office.

In spite of all this, I would like to draw attention to some positive developments and grassroots activism now going on in California. There are some disgruntled conservatives in the Golden State who are trying to make the best out of a bad situation. They are responding to our predicament in a constructive way.

Support Federal Immigration Law

A Tea Party activist in California named Michael Erickson is pushing an initiative to get an Arizona-style immigration law on the ballot in 2012:

Erickson needs to collect 433,971 signatures from California voters by April 21 to meet state requirements. The California Tea Party network is providing volunteers who are canvassing the state to collect the necessary signatures from conservative voters.

According to Ruben Navarette, a pro-amnesty Hispanic Republican and enemy of the California initiative, Erickson shouldn’t have much difficulty getting a vote on an Arizona-style immigration law. California’s Secretary of State approved the signature drive last September.

56 percent of likely voters in California believe that illegal immigrants are having a negative impact upon the state. 34 percent of Californians believe illegals are having a favorable impact.

41 percent of California voters are “strongly in favor” of an Arizona-style immigration law and 13 percent are “somewhat” in favor of the law. In contrast, 32 percent of California voters are strongly opposed to an Arizona-style immigration law and 11 percent are somewhat opposed.

In other words, the odds are that this initiative will get the signatures necessary to make it on the 2012 ballot, a vote will be held on the issue, and restrictionists will likely win at the ballot box.

California banned gay marriage with Proposition 8 in 2008. Prop 209 banned affirmative action in 1996. Prop 187 which cracked down on illegal immigration was passed in 1994.

These initiatives have all been contested by our enemies in federal court. Prop 187 died after Governor Gray Davis dropped appeals against the initial judgement. Prop 8 is now being litigated before the Ninth Circuit in San Francisco. Prop 209 has survived repeated legal challenges.

So we have a mixed record on defending these initiatives in federal court. The ban on affirmative action survived while the earlier crackdown on illegal immigration did not.

Fortunately, the outcome of the California initiative will hinge on the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling on Arizona’s SB 1070, which will be decided well in advance of the 2012 elections.

If the U.S. Supreme Court under John Roberts vindicates Arizona and establishes a national precedent on illegal immigration, which is the more likely scenario, the enemies of the California initiative won’t have a legal leg to stand on.

Future Scenarios

I can imagine a plausible scenario unfolding in California:

(1) In April, Michael Erickson succeeds in getting the necessary signatures to get an Arizona-style immigration law on the California ballot in 2012.

(2) Illegal immigration is already highly unpopular in California among the White electorate.

There are plenty of Californians who would happily vote for a crackdown on illegal aliens if it meant they did not have to vote for Republican candidates. The initiative process eliminates the partisanship factor.

(3) It should be noted that California voters approved Prop 8 which banned gay marriage while overwhelmingly voting for Barack Obama as recently as 2008. The blacks who turned out for Obama decided to stick it to their homosexual allies down ballot.

(4) There is more support for gay marriage in California than amnesty for illegal aliens.

(5) As things stand today, Californians would likely approve an Arizona-style immigration law through the initiative process. The polls seem to show that.

(6) In between now and then, the Supreme Court is going to rule on SB 1070 and other state immigration laws, and the conservative majority is likely to side with restrictionists.

(7) Arizona has already passed an earlier crackdown which drove hundreds of thousands of illegals out of the state. Most of those illegal aliens probably went to California.

(8) I can easily imagine over a dozen states passing Arizona-style crackdowns on illegal immigration in 2011. Oklahoma, Nebraska, Pennsylvania, Mississippi, Georgia, and South Carolina are almost certain to pass the crackdown. We know this because even our enemies have conceded that much

It is highly likely that Utah, Texas, Florida, Alabama, Virginia, Tennessee, Kentucky, Iowa, Kansas, and Wisconsin will be passing their own versions of the Arizona-style immigration law. Even more states will likely pass limited crackdowns like E-Verify.

(9) Those illegal aliens are going to have to go somewhere. This is especially true of the massive numbers of illegal aliens – at least a million or two million – now infesting Texas, Georgia, and Florida.

(10) Where do you suppose they will go? The most likely destination is California where open borders politicians like Nancy Pelosi welcome them with open arms.

(11) The massive influx of illegals to California from the “Texodus” will inflame an already bitter electorate.

(12) The economy is likely to decline over the next two years.

(13) The budget crisis in California is already so bad that the state could literally collapse next year from fiscal insolvency. Illegal immigration will almost certainly be blamed in other parts of the country on conservative television and talk radio.

(14) In 2012, Californians will be in no mood to welcome the millions of illegal aliens which are likely to be driven out of other states in the Southwest and Southeast.

(15) California responds by passing its own crackdown and it sticks … because unlike Prop 187, in which California acted alone and Supreme Court precedent was unclear, this time around California will be following the national trend, when lower courts in other less liberal federal districts back east uphold the copycat versions of SB 1070.

(16) Long before this happens, illegal aliens stirred up by the escalating crackdown on immigration in the Southwest and Southwest will have rioted in cities like Los Angeles, which will further polarize the races and diminish support for comprehensive immigration reform and public sympathy for their plight.

(17) With their prospects diminishing in California, racial polarization on the rise, and massive cuts on social services making life steadily more inhospitable, illegal aliens react by either trekking north to Oregon and Washington or south back to Mexico.

(18) The successful crackdown on illegal immigration in Arizona and other states inspires an escalating cycle of more radical crackdowns which starts with an attack on birthright citizenship.

Final Thoughts

In passing, I would like to note that every Democrat in the House from California who voted supported the DREAM Act while every Republican who voted opposed it.

Clearly, there is a strong difference of opinion between progressives and conservatives in California when it comes to immigration. The vote on the DREAM Act broke down along partisan lines. That fact is sure to elicit howls of protests from the White Nationalists who claim there are no significant differences between Left and Right.

There are 19 Republicans in the House from California. 17 of those Republicans voted against the DREAM Act. Rep. Brian Bilbray, who didn’t vote from some reason, is the leader of the House Immigration Reform Caucus. Some of the leading restrictionists in Congress like Duncan Hunter and Dana Rohrabacher are from Southern California.

Alabama and Mississippi combined produced 8 votes in the House against the DREAM Act. It therefore makes no sense to write off California because large swathes of the state are represented in Congress by hardline restrictionists.

There were numerous other NumbersUSA true reformer candidates who contested Democratic House seats in California in the midterm elections. Several of them lost close races.

In 2010, the unpopularity of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Meg Whitman weighed down the Republican ticket in California like George W. Bush did nationally in 2006 and 2008. But in 2012, California conservatives won’t be carrying the huge albatross of the unpopular Governator on their backs.

I can’t think of a reason not to support this initiative. It is an excellent example of a positive, constructive course of action – one that costs nothing but a signature from a concerned citizen – that White Nationalists in California can get their shoulders behind right now.

Yet I have no doubt that a certain segment of the White Nationalist community will passionately disagree with my analysis. Nothing quite gets them riled up like the prospect of victory.

In the year ahead, I will be taking a few more stabs at California. I get the sense that a lot can still be done on the ground there and with the indispensable assistance of other states even Californians can start climbing out of this hole.