Talk:1994 California Proposition 187

THis statement is unclear

"On October 15, 1994, one week after Proposition 187 was passed, more than 70,000 people marched in downtown Los Angeles against the measure, one of the largest protests in memory." Exactly how long is "in memory"? The source cited for this is also a 404 error. --76.85.173.34 (talk) 06:57, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

[No heading given: Query]

can someone better explain how this law died? Kingturtle 03:59, 15 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Well, he gave up fighting it.

Error on the page. Fixed it.

Whites, Asians and blacks overwhelmingly supported Prop. 187, contrary to the view put forth by the person who wrote the article. [1]

Prop. 187 was killed by Governor Grey Davis, who entered into a bogus "arbitration" to prevent the matter from going before the Supreme Court. As this would have likely caused the unconstitutional decision that Texas must provide free educations to the children of illegals to be overturned, pro-Illegal Davis wanted anything but. Sixpackshakur 02:12, 25 May 2005 (UTC)

According to this site: [2]

The Los Angeles Times reported that 70% of whites voted for Proposition 187, while 78% of Latinos, 56% of African Americans and 54% of Asians voted against it.

The Field Poll (actually an average of the Times poll and another poll) found the Blacks and Asians to be split: [3]

White non-Hispanic voters favored Prop. 187 by a 28-percentage point margin, and white men supported it by 38 points. On the other hand, Latinos voted No by a 46-point margin. Blacks and Asians were about evenly divided, with 52% of each group voting Yes and 48% voting No.

Since the sources are equivocal, I think the assertion should be removed until we can calrify the matter. -Willmcw 06:26, May 25, 2005 (UTC)

Since all sources point to the fact that the initiative won with the overwhelming approval of the voters in California, I believe this should be put into the summary. --Nomad spirit 17:54, 23 September 2005 (UTC)

I agree and have added a sentence to the introduction to state that it passed w/ 59% but was overturned. Thanks, -Willmcw 19:48, 26 September 2005 (UTC)

so when you say it died, it means that it no longer has effect in california legislation. correct? meaning, it's as if it never happened? how does this relate to prop 227?

It was overturned by a judge and the decision was never appealed. -Willmcw 05:36, 29 October 2005 (UTC)

Final Sentence should be Removed?

The final sentence of the article reads:

"For illegal immigrant children in inner-city slums who saw people committing "187's" around them, and then learned that another law called "187" was about to be used to deny them access to government services, the number came to have a doubly unpleasant connotation."

These seems NNPOV and irrelevant as a subjective view that may or may not have existed. If anyone has any thoughts on why this should be here, toss it up here. Otherwise, I'd think about removing it in a week or so. James 00:38, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

Projected State Budget Savings?

Curious if anyone had the numbers on what was to be the projected cost-benefits to the State of California as a result of this law, had it been upheld? I remember the numbers being pretty considerable and worth noting in the article. James 00:38, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

I don't have data from the time, but this article, authored by anti-immigrant advocacy group FAIR from 12/2004 puts the cost of illegal immigration in California at $10.5 billion per year. Very hefty numbers indeed, but hardly credible considering the politicized source.

I wish to challeng the objectivity of this article

"While its prominent advocates were political conservatives, some libertarians (such as Los Angeles-based radio talk-show host Tom Leykis) also favored it, on the grounds that making life more difficult for illegal immigrants might result in fewer of them entering the state, creating labor shortages which could drive up wages for the lowest-paid workers."

No 'libertarians' support this type of legislation. Tom Leykis is NOT libertarian. (Many people seem to think they are libertarian and have authoritarian ideas such as this--the libertarian position is that the entitlements illegal immigrants are "stealing" should not exist.)

Thus, I am editing the absurd statement to remove the allegations that "libertarians" support this type of legislation. I encourage you to support this removal in the name of objectivity.—Preceding unsigned comment added by 206.124.31.221 (talk • contribs)

It said "liberals" until this afternoon, when someone changed it to "libertarians". Let's just revert it back to what it was earlier today. -Will Beback 04:30, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

• • Well, he does describe himself as a "liberal libertarian", for what it's worth. And the anon is wrong -- at least some people who describe themselves as libertarian supported 187. Big-L Libertarians, even. Always struck me as somewhat inconsistant with what I understood of libertarian philosophy. --jpgordon∇∆∇∆ 04:36, 8 April 2006 (UTC)
    • He's not Rush Limbaugh, but he sure doesn't fall under the "liberal" category. Can we get a better example of a "liberal" than Tom Leykis. Downchuck 06:59, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

Templates due to inadequate documentation, lack of source citations

Improper formatting; began a clean up--needs further work by other editors--see top templates added to this talk page as well for guidance re: WP:CITE and WP:NOR and other related WP and guidelines. Thank you. --NYScholar (talk) 20:44, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

Going overboard with "citation needed"

Yeah, this is stupid. All you've done is add "citation needed" after practically every sentence and put so many banners to that effect in every section that it's cluttered the whole article up almost to the point of being unreadable. Certain Wikipedia pages seem to get that way - usually the ones concerning controversial subjects - and mostly, it seems to be a tool that people use to vent their frustration about something that didn't work out the way they wanted to. I have no idea why people think they're actually doing a service or improving the quality of the article whatsoever.

Therefore, as someone who lived through this and can see that the article is generally accurate and factual, I am removing the excess "citation needed" tags. ALL of them. This should improve the general usefulness of the article. Facts are facts, regardless of whether they are provided along with a convenient link to some other source on the Internet. In fact, for events like this one that happened around the time the Internet was still getting off the ground and have since faded into relative obscurity, expecting such an abundance of links is pretty absurd.

Disputing the neutrality if you don't like the subject? Fine. Please don't junk up the whole article by calling every single fact into question needlessly. --User:bradrules 9:27, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

If the original research in this article were to be deleted, there would be nothing left, and I frankly question whether the original research is even accurate. Right now, this article is the raw opinion of whoever drafted it. The {{fact}} tags are preferable to simply stubbing the article, but I'll stub the article if you prefer. THF (talk) 21:42, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

factual mess

Federal courts do not "rescind" state propositions. Governor Davis colluded with an anti-187 set of organizations to avoid litigating the constitutionality of a measure he opposed. Article needs a complete rewrite. THF (talk) 01:51, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

Adding a claim that you yourself dispute.

I'm not sure I understand this. Wouldn't it make more sense to do the research first, find the source that verifies this statement, or satisfy yourself that it is not verifiable? It seems a rather extraordinary claim, at least in reference to Feinstein.[4] I'm not familiar with the other person. Dlabtot (talk) 20:20, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

I agree. We should find sources first, then summarize what they say. Adding something and then noting that no sources can be found for it is putting the cart before the horse. Regarding the comment above, Beilenson was a proponent of immigration reform, but it's not clear that his support was an outcome of Prop. 187. That's why we need sources, not speculation.   Will Beback  talk  20:53, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

I'd like more background information

I would like to know the background of 187 and why they felt it needed to be put into effect (besides just being plain racsist). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.245.235.129 (talk) 23:40, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

It was opposed by a small margin majority of Mexican Americans out of fear it will return the state to the pre-civil rights era, when ethnic or racial discrimination was legal and tolerated. For a state public service to ask a Hispanic/Latino to prove their citizenship is like to ask a Jewish person if they're "Jews"...or say to a black person "we don't serve your kind here". Opponents even compared Prop. 187 to measures taken against California's Asian Americans (notably laws excluded the Chinese from citizenship in the 1880s and acts to put the Japanese into military internment camps during WWII) that indeed violated their civil rights. Prop. 187 would been abused by racists, nativists or xenophobes who don't like Mexicans/Hispanics and may sour the US' diplomatic relations with Mexico or Latin America, where the source of immigration was caused by economic problems and how the American people reacts to ones' suffering. + 71.102.7.77 (talk) 04:22, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

Re: Why California voters and leadership felt it needed to be put into effect The climate surrounding Prop 187 was largely guided by the immigration debates of the later 1980's, including that around the restrictive Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986. The text of Prop 187 itself justifies the law by first explaining that the people of California find illegal immigrations as the cause of "economic hardship," "personal injury and damage." Thus, according to the law, because California citizens "have a right a to the protection of their government from any person or persons entering this country unlawfully," a state-run system that would verify the legal status of all people seeking public benefits is necessary. Governor Pete Wilson advocated for the law as a measure that would both deter illegal immigrants from entering the state, and motivate them to leave. --Kennethphsu (talk) 05:05, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

When you look for a 'reason' for something while simultaneously declaring that you won't consider the most commonly accepted 'reason', you are setting yourself up for failure. Otoh I reject the commonly held notion that everything has to have a 'reason'. Dlabtot (talk) 06:26, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

illegal vs undocumented

They don't really mean the same thing. For example I was born in NYC and I am a US citizen, but I don't at this time have any valid form of identification. Therefore I am 'undocumented' although there is nothing illegal about my residency.

Prop 187 had absolutely nothing to do with people like me who were simply 'undocumented' - it was about people who were illegally residing in the United States.

Hopefully we won't have an edit war about this. Dlabtot (talk) 02:24, 21 May 2010 (UTC)