ATTENTION LOYAL INSTAPUNDIT READERS: If you have a X/Twitter account, please help me out by liking and retweeting this post. It’s my last chance to convince the California state senators on the committee considering the bill that would gut Proposition 209 that the public will be against it.
The CA Legislature tried to strike these words from the state constitution in 2020 (put there by Prop 209 in 1996). The voters smacked them down when 57.23% said NO—despite the YES campaign outspending the NO team by more than 14 to 1. Now they’re trying again—calling it a… pic.twitter.com/ecBbwDX2rl
— Gail Heriot (@GailHeriot) June 8, 2026
We are fighting an uphill battle at this point. But hope springs eternal. The only upside is that I managed to convince the senators that putting this referendum on the 2026 ballot would be ill-advised, because we’ll only be halfway through the Trump Administration and the Trump Administration could respond with a thorough Title VI compliance investigation. As a result, they amended the bill to put the referendum on the 2028 ballot instead. That at least will give me the opportunity to take care of the various things wrong with house before diving back into this.
I am resigned to the reality that I will be fighting to preserve California’s Prop 209 and its various clones in other states for the rest of my life.