Marc Novicoff
Persuasion and the Policy Process
November 21st, 2021
The Anatomy of a Popular Victory over Elites and the Media
Virtually everybody important in California politics wanted 2020 California Ballot Proposition 16 to win, which would have reinstate affirmative action in public hiring, contracting, and college admissions, reversing a 1996 ban on the practice that was added to the state constitution via referendum. California is an overwhelmingly blue state—Joe Biden trampled Donald Trump by 30 percentage points there in 2020. Democratic politicians in the state were clear in their endorsement of Prop 16, with the governor, both senators, the secretary of state, most House representatives, and several state senators and state assemblymen all endorsing the Proposition.[1] And nearly $26 million was spent by the Yes on 16 campaign to get those elite cues out there, with less than $2 million spent by the No on 16 campaign.[2] Media also tended to be one-sided, although to a slightly smaller degree, with the top papers in California endorsing the Proposition and much of the coverage being quite slanted. But public opinion refused to be swayed by Democratic elites, the donor class, or the newspapers, instead staying consistent with a robust history of sour public opinion on affirmative action when expressed explicitly. Though without close examination, polling in the lead-up to the referendum seemed mixed, the California voters made their voice heard in no uncertain terms on Election Day: Prop 16 failed by the decisive margin of 42.8% to 57.2%. They voted this way, contrary to the feelings of the elites and the media because most people (especially working-class people) value fairness and believe discrimination runs contrary to that strongly held value. In addition, the election was not a long and high-profile race; rather, it was short and of low political salience, and even elites did not care enough about the outcome to spend any time campaigning for it. But make no mistake—political elites and the media failed to convince working-class people that discrimination, as unfair as it seems, is not actually so.
Background
The history of affirmative action in today’s form in America (and in California) begins in the 1960s, when political leaders, convinced by civil rights leaders, decided that making the law colorblind would not be enough to right the wrongs of the past 200+ years of discriminatory laws and practices. Instead, they ruled, the society and its organizations should take “affirmative action” to secure the victims of discrimination economic and political success in America. What this created was a basic exception to the colorblind law enshrined in the Civil Rights Act: if you were acting on behalf of a group discriminated against previously, you could offer them preferential treatment (or take “affirmative action” on their behalf), even though that logically necessitates discrimination against those who do not receive preferential treatment. At the beginning of this era, the broad mandate of “affirmative action” meant that organizations, public and private, had all sorts of different rules about how much they discriminated, but over time, the Supreme Court narrowed the kinds of affirmative actions that could be taken, mostly pointlessly. For example, they ruled that colleges could not use racial quotas in 1978, but they have not batted an eye at the fact that all elite schools retain roughly the exact same percentages of each demographic year after year (and the same demographics as each other), even as the racial demographics of the relevant population cohort change over time.[3]
But in California in 1996, a charismatic, clever businessman by the name of Ward Connerly led a campaign to put an initiative on the ballot, Prop 209, to add the following words to the California state constitution: “The state shall not discriminate against, or grant preferential treatment to, any individual or group on the basis of race, sex, color, ethnicity, or national origin in the operation of public employment, public education, or public contracting.” Most of this text is already in the Civil Rights Act with the exception of the “grant preferential treatment to” part, which unequivocally prevents the use of affirmative action by the state. To be clear, this is a silly word game, one that the Supreme Court has stood by for decades, and not one that I endorse—preferential treatment is exactly the same as discrimination by definition—but it is how the law works. Prop 209 won by 8 points, getting rid of public affirmative action in California, and several states followed in the years after Prop 209’s passage with similar versions.
In 2020, the California state legislature, unable to change the state’s constitution without the approval of the voters, put on the ballot Proposition 16, the exact reverse of the state’s wishes 24 years prior. As the ballot initiative’s title says, Proposition 16 “allows diversity as a factor in public employment, education, and contracting decisions.” The text of the proposition was quite simple, proposing to do nothing but strike every single word from the California Constitution that Prop 209 had added, legalizing public affirmative action in California.
Elite Cues
If you only paid attention to the elites, Prop 16 appeared as if it would be a party-line vote. Not only did zero Democratic politicians in California come out against the proposition, but the California politicians who did come out against the proposition were Republicans, and the No on 16 Campaign did not bother to distance themselves from the brutally unpopular California Republican Party, placing their endorsement on the very top of the “Endorsements” page on their website.[4]
And state Republican opposition to the ballot measure, though it existed, was half-hearted if that. At the time of the election, there were 7 Republican U.S. House members in California’s delegation. Exactly one of them bothered to say what they thought of Prop 16, and it was Tom McClintock, not even a newsworthy House member like Devin Nunes or even Kevin McCarthy.[5] The entire campaign against Prop 16 contained basically no elite political support, with no national Republicans commenting on the issue, and at best, a couple state senators and former House members coming out against the proposition. I highly doubt this tiny amount of support persuaded anyone, since people do not pay attention to their state legislature—fewer than 20% of people can name their state legislators,[6] meaning an even smaller percentage know what they think of one of the twelve state-wide ballot initiatives, and not even the most salient one.
In stark contrast was the elite Democrats’ endorsement of the proposition, nearly united across all levels of government, with not a single prominent Democrat statewide or nationwide endorsing voting “no” on Prop 16, and the vast majority specifically endorsing voting “yes.” The most prominent Democratic politicians in California in 2020—Governor Gavin Newsom, Senator Kamala Harris, Senator Dianne Feinstein, and House Majority Leader Nancy Pelosi—all endorsed the proposition.[7] Joining them in endorsing the proposition was Bernie Sanders, who had won the California Democratic presidential primary only 8 months prior. Falling below those in relevance are the U.S. House members representing California—of the 45 Democratic representatives, 33 were on the record endorsing the proposition. The mayors of seven of the ten biggest cities in the state endorsed it as well. Somewhere a bit below mayors in terms of political relevance are state senators and assemblymen; state representatives were less enthusiastic about the bill, with five out of 29 Democratic state senators endorsing the proposition, and 31 of the 61 Democratic state assemblymen doing the same. [8] Many progressive groups also endorsed the proposition, including the ACLU,[9] the Anti-Defamation League, the NAACP, and the National Education Association, the biggest teacher’s union in America.[10] Even some prominent non-political elites endorsed the proposition, like the 49ers, the Oakland Athletics, the Golden State Warriors, and a few other Bay Area professional sports teams.[11]
But there is an important caveat here to the narrative, correct though it is, that the entire Democratic establishment was in favor of Prop 16, which is that most Democratic politicians did not care very much. It’s very easy to “endorse” something, and by all means, as discussed, nearly every prominent Democrat in the state did that, alongside the man who won the presidential primary in the state. But it takes more work to campaign for it, to talk about it frequently, and to convince the public that your view is the correct one, and none of those elite Democrats cared enough to do that. Dianne Feinstein, Kamala Harris, and Gavin Newsom, three of the most notable endorsers of Prop 16, tweet a few times a day, yet none of the three of them tweeted out about Prop 16 during the four months of campaigning.[12] They also gave no quotes to the media about the proposition.
When the rare endorsement was made with an official quote, the rhetoric implied that to be against the proposition was to be in favor of racism. Bernie Sanders, the winner of the 2020 California presidential primary, wrote in his endorsement of Prop 16 (on the blogging platform Medium—not a place that many would be likely to read) that “After four years of Trump’s racist policies, it is more important than ever for us to ensure we level the playing field for women and people of color and dismantle all forms of systemic racism and sexism in our society.”[13] There are some powerful partisan cues in there—Trump is referenced as a foil, to show that Prop 16 is part of the resistance towards him that most Californians identified with. In addition, an opportunity to “dismantle all forms of systemic racism” is presented. The phrase “systemic racism” has no real meaning outside progressive areas, but in those areas, “systemic racism” is an enemy that must be opposed at every opportunity. The ACLU’s endorsement is similar, tweeting that “Prop 16 will allow all Californians — especially Black, Brown, and Asian communities — to have an equal shot at fair wages, good jobs, and quality schools.” This suggests that to vote no on Prop 16 is vote against an equal shot at fair wages, good jobs, and quality schools for “Black, Brown, and Asian communities.”
But even though the endorsements were rarely made especially publicly, there was a well-funded and very conscious effort from the Yes on 16 Campaign to highlight these endorsements, so it is still possible that the elite cues were publicized to a wide swath of the people. The campaign was about four and a half months long, from late June when the California State Legislature put it on the ballot to Election Day in early November. In those four and a half months, the Yes on 16 Campaign spent almost $26 million (nearly $7 million of which was donated by a single woman) trying to persuade the public to vote in favor of the Proposition, spending about 14 times more than the No on 16 Campaign spent.[14] To put that number in perspective, Joe Biden spent half that amount, $13 million, in February of 2020, the month that he took a stranglehold on the Democratic primary.[15] And some of the ads this money was spent on went above and beyond as to allege that anyone voting no was a racist, even more so than elite partisans’ endorsements. In one widely aired ad[16] paid for by the Yes on Prop 16 Campaign, with happy music and a picture of a smiling Kamala Harris, the narrator says “It’s supported by leaders like Kamala Harris…,” and then the music stops abruptly and the narrator says “…and opposed by those who have always opposed equality,” as video of white nationalists marching in Charlottesville plays. Below is a screenshot. [17]
Given the results of the election, it is hard to say elite cues actually convinced almost anyone, and given the lack of energy from them, it is hard to say they really tried other than to sign their names onto things. But, the Yes on Prop 16 Campaign was well-funded, and its goal was to connect the proposition to elite Democrats who were popular in the state, and to connect opposition to the proposition with racism. They failed, but there was no lack of effort or money on the campaign’s part, just a lack of caring from the elites.
The Media
Similar to elite partisans and progressive donors, the media’s fondness for the proposition was very clear. Endorsements came from the editorial boards of four of the five most circulated[18] papers in California (Los Angeles Times,[19] Mercury News,[20] San Francisco Chronicle,[21] and the San Diego Union-Tribune),[22] with one not endorsing a position on Prop 16 (San Francisco Examiner) at all. The New York Times also endorsed Prop 16 in an editorial,[23] while media endorsements against the proposition came from smaller California papers like the Orange County Register,[24] or major national news sources coded as right-wing, like the Wall Street Journal,[25] and Tucker Carlson Tonight.[26]
These editorial boards are deft in their choice of rhetoric. The editorial board of San Diego Union-Tribune references “President Donald Trump’s explicit racial demagoguery” and the murder of George Floyd in an effort to connect voting for the proposition to the Black Lives Matter movement and to connect voting against the proposition with Trump, a hated figure in the state of California.[27]
Three of the major endorsement editorials (New York Times, Los Angeles Times, and San Francisco Chronicle) seek to correct what they see as “misinformation”[28] coming out of the No on 16 Campaign: the idea that Prop 16 would legalize racial quotas—which they rightly and smugly point out are unconstitutional thanks to the 1978 Supreme Court ruling in Regents of the University of California v. Bakke. Not only was “misinformation” a heavily loaded term during the Trump era, and one that these papers yield on purpose with that connotation, but the only misinformation here comes from those editorial boards. None of the three editorials actually link to any example of any representative of the campaign, or even some ill-informed opponent of Prop 16, saying that Prop 16 would legalize unconstitutional quotas, even though two of the editorials are scattered with links. After far and wide searching, I could not find a single example of an opponent of Prop 16 arguing it would legalize unconstitutional university racial quotas, besides a low-income Asian high schooler interviewed by the LA Times who worries about getting into college if Prop 16 passes; to be sure though, the LA Times’ reporter points out the very next moment that the low-income high schooler is wrong.[29] What you can find—easily, I would add—is a post on the website of the No on 16 Campaign by one of the directors of the campaign, carefully explaining that, while racial quotas in universities were ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court in Bakke, the campaign fears quotas in other areas, which have been ruled legal after Bakke by the Supreme Court.[30] This post on the campaign website went live before all of the editorials came out, yet these three editorials seek to dunk on a claim the campaign never made with a point the campaign readily acknowledges.[31]
Yet, it is worth pointing out that the editorial board operates independently from reporters, and many news articles about Prop 16 were written fairly.[32] But, at times, it can be hard to separate the news from the opinion, since much of the news about Prop 16 was rather one-sided. A New York Times newsletter entitled California Today by Jill Cowan covers Prop 16 in a very biased way: after noting that the proposition is inexplicably losing in the polls, Cowan interviews a dean at the University of California, Riverside Public Policy School who “told [Cowan] that many voters may not know what’s at stake… ‘Many of these new voters have no idea what affirmative action is,’ he said.” Cowan does not take this opportunity to point out that “affirmative action” is not even on the ballot, so it does not make any sense at all to cite the public’s knowledge of affirmative action’s definition as influencing the proposition, or explaining why it does not poll well. Instead, Cowan moves onto remarks by Ward Connerly, one of the chief organizers of both Prop 209 and the campaign against Prop 16. Cowan writes that Connerly and opponents of Prop 16 “say that giving preferential treatment to any group is discrimination. Admission to competitive universities, or access to jobs, they say, is a zero-sum game that will force some groups to lose out, although explicit race-based quotas were effectively barred by the Supreme Court more than 40 years ago.” This attempted dunk on opponents of Prop 16 is unfair and illogical, to an impressive degree—if preferential treatment is given to one group and not another, the latter group is discriminated against by definition. And admission to competitive universities is literally a zero-sum game, since Prop 16 does not propose expanding enrollments. And quotas are not even mentioned by Connerly and have nothing to do with his point, which is a tautology—racial preferences are the same as racial discrimination.
The Los Angeles Times’ coverage is equally biased—one video explainer by the LA Times on Prop 16 interviews only one opponent of the proposition, a low-income Asian high school student, before quickly interviewing a professor at Stanford who supports the bill and dispels the mistakes that the child who was interviewed before him got wrong. The pinning of a misinformed high-schooler against a professor at one of the best colleges in the country has the effect of presenting opponents of the proposition as only possibly being misinformed (not knowledgeably against it), guiding readers to the only correct opinion when getting all the facts right, support for the proposition. Though some reporters tried to write diligent, fair articles about Proposition 16, the two papers likely read by the most Californians (the NYT and LAT) presented information about Proposition 16 in an extremely biased way, effectively discrediting opponents of the proposition.
Public Opinion
But what is notable here is not elites’ wanting a certain thing and the media trying to manufacture consent for it—that would be unremarkable. What is remarkable here is that voters were completely unpersuaded. Despite voting overwhelmingly for the Democratic presidential candidate, California voters also voted decisively against Prop 16, against the wishes of the vast majority of their politicians.
According to polls leading up Election Day, public opinion swayed a bit. Below is a list of the polls on Proposition 16.[33]
From first glance at the tracker, it seems that opposition to the ballot measure, strong at first, dipped dramatically going into October, and then suddenly got a lot stronger in mid-October. But, not all polls are created equal, and when you look at the quality of these polls, it becomes obvious that Prop 16 never had a chance. The Ipsos/Spectrum News poll is worthless because the question is worded as “How much do you support or oppose the following proposals?... Reinstating affirmative action in California, by repealing Proposition 209, which banned it.”[34] The actual text of the ballot proposition is completely different: “Allow Diversity as a Factor in Public Employment, Education, and Contracting Decisions.” The result of this poll is rendered meaningless by this error, and the pollster should have known better. Researchers have known for years that, while “affirmative action” polls well as a concept, explicitly described racial preferences or use of race as a factor are decisively unpopular (according to Gallup,[35] Pew, and the General Social Survey) [36] because a huge swath of Americans (and Californians) do not know that “affirmative action” involves the use of race to award preferential treatment. An example from the Pew Research Center is telling, where Americans support “affirmative action programs” 63-30,[37] but oppose race being a factor in college admissions decisions 73-26. [38]
As for the other poll that shows “Yes” winning, the poll is worded correctly,[39] and the pollster is highly rated according to their success at predicting other races,[40] but the sample size is just really small (588), and the percentage of undecided is huge (34). The only other poll that showed Proposition 16 having a chance of passing was the David Binder Research poll, which also had a tiny sample size (600). The polls from the UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies have orders of magnitude bigger sample sizes, and are worded correctly,[41] which explains why their toplines are much closer to the final result.
An interesting question here is why voters’ preferences were so sticky, despite their leaders’ opinions and the media’s flaunting endorsements and slanted coverage. I think the answer here is threefold, but the most important part is that using “diversity as a factor” runs extremely counter to people’s strongly held beliefs of what is fair. The political science literature is clear that intuitive cognitive biases, like deservingness, have a big effect on how people feel towards certain policies,[42] and influences how they vote,[43] as do our belief systems[44] and our moral intuitions.[45] It is already documented by political scientists that one of the values that influences people’s opinions towards policies is fairness, especially among working-class people,[46] and I would argue that affirmative action is a textbook case here. One paper that is supportive of my conclusion is “The Influence of Discrimination and Fairness on Collective Self-Esteem” by Scheepers, Spears, Manstead, and Doosje, which proposes that where there is competition, there evolves the norm of fairness, and that norm is so strong as to actively harm people’s self-esteem if they know they have discriminated.[47] Affirmative action, when expressed in explicit terms, has a tiny constituency in America because most people in the last few decades view it as fundamentally unfair to discriminate against people based on the color of one’s skin.
The second reason I would list for why Prop 16 failed is because of low relative salience. In addition to the presidential election, which many in the media—irresponsibly, I would argue—billed as a potentially world-saving election, California featured a ballot proposition that drew far more attention than Prop 16: Prop 22. Prop 22 made drivers on ride-sharing and delivery apps like Uber, Lyft, and DoorDash independent contractors, and whatever the merits of the proposition, it is undeniable that Prop 22 sucked up a lot of the media coverage, ad time, and finite attention of Californians. Though the $26 million the Yes on 16 Campaign spent is a lot of money, it is pennies compared to the $204 million that the Yes on 22 Campaign spent thanks to donations from Uber, Lyft, and DoorDash. With people inundated with arguments about Prop 22, it is harder to pay attention to the others.
The last reason that the media and elites were not able to convince voters is because the voters they needed to convince were working-class people, who do not spend their days reading the New York Times and the LA Times or scrolling through Bernie Sanders’ Twitter account to see what he thinks of the ballot propositions. Below is a table I adapted from the education crosstabs in Berkeley’s last poll on Prop 16,[48] which was not far off in terms of how the topline compared to the election results.
| Education Level | Support Prop 16 | Oppose Prop 16 | Undecided |
| High school graduate | 30 | 52 | 18 |
| Some college/trade school | 32 | 56 | 12 |
| Bachelors’ degree | 42 | 45 | 13 |
| Post graduate work | 50 | 39 | 11 |
As can be easily seen, as educational attainment goes up, support for Prop 16 goes up. And the more poorly educated and poorer one is, the less they consume news, and the lower quality news they do consume (and I have been looking at only high-quality, well-circulated news sources).[49] So, even if the media is biased and the editorial boards of all the top papers feel the same way, that means little for the success of Prop 16 if the opponents of Prop 16 do not read the news. And though elite politicians sometimes have success reaching working-class communities, it takes them a lot of effort, money and a cohesive, well-organized, grassroots campaign. Of those requirements, the Yes on Prop 16 campaign just had money, but no mainstream politicians willing to give their energy to the cause, even if they were willing to give their weak endorsement. And since the working-class opponents of Prop 16 are hard to reach, it would take more time to do so if you wanted to convince them, as the elites and the media did. But there was not time—the proposition was put on the ballot in late June, and election day was November 3rd, and California had a huge amount of early voting in 2020 due to the COVID-19 outbreak and the politicization of voting methods[50] that made Democrats somewhat likely to vote early.
To conclude, opinions about racial preferences, referred to as “affirmative action” by the well-informed, are not hard to parse. The public does not like them, even in a very blue state like California. But, Democratic politicians nearly unanimously do like affirmative action, but probably because they know it is not popular, they do not have any political energy to fight for it, and the Yes on 16 Campaign was stuck with a lot of rich people’s money, and nobody prominent politically who was willing to argue for it. That is except for the media, whose editorial boards loudly and proudly argued for affirmative action, and whose newsrooms produced noticeably slanted articles and videos wherein public policy professors are allowed to spew nonsense, but high schoolers are quickly corrected for their silly ignorance. But, in the end, the opinions of the media and the political elites just did not matter. People, especially working-class people, believe fairness to be a core value, and they believe racial preferences violate that core value. And in the four months the elites and the media had, competing with an overhyped presidential election and a different ballot proposition totally manipulated by corporate plutocrats to take up every fiber of people’s political attention span? The elites and media never had a shot at convincing California’s public, especially not the pivotal working class.
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The San Diego Union-Tribune Editorial Board. “Endorsement: Vote Yes on Proposition 16. It’s Time to Revive Affirmative Action in California.” San Diego Union-Tribune, October 14, 2020. https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/opinion/story/2020-10-14/vote-yes-on-proposition-16-affirmative-action-california-endorsement.
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Ting, Eric. “‘They Lost Partly Because of That Ad’: How No on Prop. 16 Organizers Knew the Measure Would Fail.” SFGATE, December 2, 2020. https://www.sfgate.com/politics/article/Proposition-16-California-affirmative-action-why-15763791.php.
Unz, Ron. “Statistics Indicate an Ivy League Asian Quota.” The New York Times, December 3, 2013. http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2012/12/19/fears-of-an-asian-quota-in-the-ivy-league/statistics-indicate-an-ivy-league-asian-quota.
White, Jeremy B. “California Legislature Places Affirmative Action Measure on November Ballot.” POLITICO, June 24, 2020. https://www.politico.com/states/california/story/2020/06/24/california-legislature-places-affirmative-action-measure-on-november-ballot-1294368.
Wu, Wenyuan. “Facts and Myths About Proposition 16.” No on Proposition 16 - Californians for Equal Rights (blog), August 23, 2020. https://californiansforequalrights.org/2020/08/23/facts-and-myths-about-proposition-16/.
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[1] “Prop 16 Endorsements | 100s of Elected Officials, Organizatons, & Leaders,” Vote Yes on Prop 16 [Archived], November 4, 2020, https://web.archive.org/web/20201104021318/https://voteyesonprop16.org/endorsements/.
[2] “California Proposition 16, Repeal Proposition 209 Affirmative Action Amendment (2020),” Ballotpedia, accessed November 15, 2021, https://ballotpedia.org/California_Proposition_16,_Repeal_Proposition_209_Affirmative_Action_Amendment_(2020).
[3] Ron Unz, “Statistics Indicate an Ivy League Asian Quota,” The New York Times, December 3, 2013, http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2012/12/19/fears-of-an-asian-quota-in-the-ivy-league/statistics-indicate-an-ivy-league-asian-quota.
[4] “Endorsements for ‘No On Prop 16 Campaign’ | No on Proposition 16 - Californians for Equal Rights,” Californians for Equal Rights [Archived], October 31, 2020, https://web.archive.org/web/20201031012540/https://californiansforequalrights.org/endorsements/.
[5] “McClintock on the Ballot Propositions: 2020 Edition,” McClintock for Congress, September 16, 2020, https://tommcclintock.com/new-single.php?id=213.
[6] Jill Rosen, “JHU Survey: Americans Don’t Know Much About State Government « News from The Johns Hopkins University,” Johns Hopkins University (blog), December 18, 2018, https://releases.jhu.edu/2018/12/11/jhu-survey-americans-dont-know-much-about-state-government/.
[7] “Prop 16 Endorsements | 100s of Elected Officials, Organizatons, & Leaders.”
[8] Ibid.
[9] “In California, Voters Can Vote Yes on Prop 16 to Overturn a Ban...,” Twitter, November 2, 2020, https://twitter.com/ACLU/status/1323317268709781509.
[10] “Prop 16 Endorsements | 100s of Elected Officials, Organizatons, & Leaders.”
[11] Golden State Warriors, “We Join the @49ers, @SFGiants, @Athletics, @SanJoseSharks, @SJEarthquakes, and @oaklandrootssc in Endorsing #YesOnProp16. #BayAreaUnite Https://T.Co/ODEW1l8uF4,” Tweet, Twitter (blog), August 19, 2020, https://twitter.com/warriors/status/1296134972147814400.
[12] “Proposition (from:SenFeinstein) until:2021-01-16 since:2020-06-02 - Twitter Search / Twitter,” Twitter, accessed November 22, 2021, https://twitter.com/search?src=typed_query&q=proposition%20(from%3ASenFeinstein)%20until%3A2021-01-16%20since%3A2020-06-02; “Proposition (from:KamalaHarris) until:2021-01-16 since:2020-06-02 - Twitter Search / Twitter,” Twitter, accessed November 22, 2021, https://twitter.com/search?src=typed_query&q=proposition%20(from%3AKamalaHarris)%20until%3A2021-01-16%20since%3A2020-06-02; “Proposition (from:GavinNewsom) until:2021-01-16 since:2020-06-02 - Twitter Search / Twitter,” Twitter, accessed November 22, 2021, https://twitter.com/search?src=typed_query&q=proposition%20(from%3AGavinNewsom)%20until%3A2021-01-16%20since%3A2020-06-02.
[13] Bernie Sanders, “Our Issues Are on the Ballot,” Medium (blog), October 16, 2020, https://medium.com/@BernieSanders/our-issues-are-on-the-ballot-c6b48afa5fa5.
[14] “California Proposition 16, Repeal Proposition 209 Affirmative Action Amendment (2020).”
[15] Jason Lange and Grant Smith, “U.S. Candidate Biden Was Vastly Outspent by Sanders in February,” Reuters, March 21, 2020, sec. 2020 Candidate Slideshows, https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-biden-spending-idUSKBN218074.
[16] Eric Ting, “‘They Lost Partly Because of That Ad’: How No on Prop. 16 Organizers Knew the Measure Would Fail,” SFGATE, December 2, 2020, https://www.sfgate.com/politics/article/Proposition-16-California-affirmative-action-why-15763791.php.
[17] Yes on Prop 16: Opportunity for All, Yes on Prop 16 - We Rise Together, 2020, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2NiPdd-bfNc.
[18] “The Top 10 California Daily Newspapers by Circulation,” Fullintel, October 23, 2019, https://fullintel.com/top-media-outlets/the-top-10-california-daily-newspapers.
[19] LA Times Editorial Board, “Endorsement: Yes on Prop. 16, Because the U.S. Is Not a Meritocracy - Los Angeles Times,” Los Angeles Times, September 11, 2020, https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2020-09-11/endorsement-affirmative-action-ban.
[20] Mercury News & East Bay Times Editorial Boards, “Editorial: Prop. 16 Helps Create Level Playing Field in California – The Mercury News,” The Mercury News, September 1, 2020. https://www.mercurynews.com/2020/09/01/editorial-prop-16-will-create-level-playing-field-in-california/;
[21] San Francisco Chronicle Editorial Board, “Editorial: Vote Yes on Prop. 16 to Restore Affirmative Action,” San Francisco Chronicle, September 6, 2020, https://www.sfchronicle.com/opinion/editorials/article/Editorial-Vote-yes-on-Prop-16-to-restore-15544595.php.
[22] The San Diego Union-Tribune Editorial Board, “Endorsement: Vote Yes on Proposition 16. It’s Time to Revive Affirmative Action in California.,” San Diego Union-Tribune, October 14, 2020, https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/opinion/story/2020-10-14/vote-yes-on-proposition-16-affirmative-action-california-endorsement.
[23] The New York Times Editorial Board, “Opinion | Californians, Vote Yes on Prop 16,” The New York Times, October 27, 2020, sec. Opinion, https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/27/opinion/california-prop-16-affirmative-action.html.
[24] Orange County Register Editorial Board, “Vote No on Proposition 16 to Defend State’s Respect for Diversity and Equality – Orange County Register,” The Orange County Register, August 28, 2020, https://www.ocregister.com/2020/08/28/vote-no-on-proposition-16-to-defend-states-respect-for-diversity-and-equality/.
[25] The Editorial Board, “Opinion | A Vote for Discrimination,” Wall Street Journal, June 25, 2020, sec. Opinion, https://www.wsj.com/articles/a-vote-for-discrimination-11593127619.
[26] Stop Proposition 16, Mr. Ward Connerly on Tucker Carlson to Discuss Prop. 16 California 2020 (Fox News, 2020), https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LXwCuMOZg2Q.
[27] The San Diego Union-Tribune Editorial Board. “Endorsement: Vote Yes on Proposition 16.”
[28] LA Times Editorial Board, “Endorsement: Yes on Prop. 16, Because the U.S. Is Not a Meritocracy - Los Angeles Times.”
[29] Los Angeles Times, Would Prop. 16’s Affirmative Action Ensure Equality in California?, 2020, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=53hIFdJBuVI.
[30] Fred Barbash and Jane Seaberry, “High Court Rules Hill Can Set Racial Quotas,” Washington Post, June 3, 1980, https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1980/06/03/high-court-rules-hill-can-set-racial-quotas/d79e65c0-82c5-44c1-a4e9-344a10775c4a/.
[31] Wenyuan Wu, “Facts and Myths About Proposition 16,” No on Proposition 16 - Californians for Equal Rights, August 23, 2020, https://californiansforequalrights.org/2020/08/23/facts-and-myths-about-proposition-16/.
[32] Marco della Cava, “Amid National Outcry over Racism, Californians Consider Bringing Back Affirmative Action,” News, USA Today, October 26, 2020, https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2020/10/26/california-law-bans-affirmative-action-but-could-change-nov-3/3714505001/.
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[36] Bruce Drake, “Public Strongly Backs Affirmative Action Programs on Campus,” Pew Research Center (blog), April 22, 2014, https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/04/22/public-strongly-backs-affirmative-action-programs-on-campus/; “Snapshot,” accessed November 23, 2021, https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/04/22/public-strongly-backs-affirmative-action-programs-on-campus/.
[37] Nikki Graf, “Most Americans Say Colleges Should Not Consider Race or Ethnicity in Admissions,” Pew Research Center (blog), February 25, 2019, https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/02/25/most-americans-say-colleges-should-not-consider-race-or-ethnicity-in-admissions/.
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[42] Michael Bang Petersen and Kevin Arceneaux, “An Intuitionist Theory of Argument Strength in Politics: How Intuitive Cognitive Biases Produce Universally Strong Arguments,” Political Psychology, 2020, https://doi.org/10.1111/pops.12668.
[43] Shalom H. Schwartz, Gian Vittorio Caprara, and Michele Vecchione, “Basic Personal Values, Core Political Values, and Voting: A Longitudinal Analysis,” Political Psychology 31, no. 3 (2010): 421–52, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9221.2010.00764.x.
[44] Mike Hulme, Why We Disagree about Climate Change: Understanding Controversy, Inaction and Opportunity, 4th Edition (Cambridge, UK ; New York: Cambridge University Press, 2009).
[45] William Saletan, “‘The Righteous Mind,’ by Jonathan Haidt - The New York Times,” The New York Times, March 12, 2012, https://www-nytimes-com.dartmouth.idm.oclc.org/2012/03/25/books/review/the-righteous-mind-by-jonathan-haidt.html.
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[47] Daan Scheepers et al., “The Influence of Discrimination and Fairness on Collective Self-Esteem,” Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 35, no. 4 (April 1, 2009): 506–15, https://doi.org/10.1177/0146167208329855.
[48] DiCamillo, “Release #2020-24.”
[49] Johan Lindell, “Battle of the Classes: News Consumption Inequalities and Symbolic Boundary Work,” Critical Studies in Media Communication 37, no. 5 (October 19, 2020): 480–96, https://doi.org/10.1080/15295036.2020.1829670.
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