A dumb idea isn't forever, even in government. This is our
first reaction to the landslide decision by California voters
Tuesday to end the strange 30-year experiment known as "bilingual
education." It can take awhile, but democracies usually
get around to doing the right thing.
The 61% support for Proposition 227 is all the more amazing
because it was achieved despite opposition from elites of all
kinds and from both political parties. All four of the major
candidates for governor opposed it. The politically correct big
city dailies all fought it. The owner of the biggest Spanish-language
TV empire threw $1.5 million of his own cash to defeat it. President
Clinton piled on.
Only average voters liked it, apparently voters of all ideologies
and ethnicities. As of this writing, we don't have the final
exit poll figures. But a Los Angeles Times poll 10 days before
the vote showed 62% support for the measure even among registered
Latino voters. White support was 64% in the same poll. Ron Unz,
the software entrepreneur who was 227's main backer, says the
measure did better than any contested initiative since Proposition
13 on taxes 20 years ago.
The sweep of this victory tells us several things of national
import.
One lesson is the value of the initiative process in breaking
up special-interest logjams. Bilingual education began 30 years
ago as a well-meaning liberal experiment. But it grew to become
another bureaucratic entitlement, even as it provided no real
benefit to kids.
The original bilingual program expired in California as long
ago as 1987. But it lived on because neither party would challenge
the potent combine of a state bureaucracy that wanted the bilingual
cash subsidy and Latino pols who played the race card. The California
legislature wouldn't reauthorize the program, but also wouldn't
challenge self-sustaining bureaucratic orders to local school
boards. Only when Mr. Unz put the issue on the ballot did the
political process begin to respond to the numerous complaints
from parents who wanted their kids taught in English.
The success of 227 also bodes well for the American model
of immigrant assimilation. These columns have resolutely favored
open immigration. But we are the first to admit that such a policy
is sustainable only if immigrants are able and willing to become
part of the broader American culture.
Prop. 227's victory is a reassuring sign that most Latino
immigrants understand that becoming American means being able
to speak English. It's a rebuke to those liberal multiculturalists
who favor separate cultural enclaves--in particular to MALDEF
and the National Council of La Raza, two professional Hispanic
lobbies that have shamefully played sectarian ethnic politics.
And it's a rebuke to those nativist conservatives who want to
build a Buchanan Fence to keep out anyone with a brown complexion.
If we're really lucky as a democracy, the Prop. 227 vote will
also restore more healthy political competition for Hispanic
votes. The 1994 fight over anti-immigrant Prop. 187 had a polarizing
effect on Hispanics that is dangerous to social comity. Democrats
began to think they could demagogue on matters of ethnicity the
way they have so often on race to lure black voters. They tried
it again on 227, but, thankfully, without much result.
Republicans, for their part, have been so skittish since Prop.
187 that they've barely had anything at all to say to Hispanic
voters. They fled from 227 because they thought they could be
branded anti-Hispanic. The only prominent Republican to endorse
227 was Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan, who had built up a
store of credibility among Hispanic voters and so couldn't easily
be stereotyped. (He also knows the problems of Los Angeles schools
up close.) The 227 vote should tell Republicans they can appeal
to Hispanic voters even on controversial subjects if that appeal
is rooted in substance and principle.
The American political process is so balky it sometimes seems
like nothing ever changes. But over time it usually gets to the
right conclusion. The landslide for 227 looks to us like a big
political event, a populist blow for a common language that signifies
the desire for at least a basic common national culture. Like
the tax revolt of 20 years ago, it is likely to spread nationwide.
Maybe even the politicians will notice.
(Copyright 1998 - Wall Street Journal)