By Kevin D. Williamson
Wednesday, November 04, 2020
It may have taken the Associated Press a little while to
call California, but the outcome there was never in doubt. California is the
land of Democratic excess and nutty aquarian politics, after all.
Or is it?
As of this writing, Joe Biden is on track to beat Donald
Trump in California at least two-to-one, but the same electorate came down on
conservatives’ side on issues ranging from rent control to racial preferences.
Uber and Lyft, joined by other gig-economy companies,
went to voters to head off an effort to reclassify the independent contractors
who work for them as full-time employees, proposing a compromise measure.
California’s insane plan for independent contractors would have hammered the
prospects of workers ranging from freelance writers to ride-share drivers, and
it very likely would have meant the end of Uber and Lyft in the state.
Democrats and labor unions fought Uber and Lyft as hard as they could and lost
— and it wasn’t particularly close, with 58 percent voting for the measure. The
new arrangement will keep ride-share drivers as independent contractors but
give them wage guarantees for time spent in the car and make them eligible for
health-care subsidies. Innovation and a sensible compromise carried the day.
Democrats pressed to rip open the state constitution in
order to impose racial and sexual preferences on college admissions and
government employment, which have been banned since a constitutional amendment
passed in 1996. California said: No, thanks.
Democrats also had hoped to impose a large tax increase
on non-residential real estate in California. Proposition 15 would have
dissolved some of the taxpayer protections passed in 1978, subjecting
commercial and industrial properties to reassessment — meaning a likely tax
increase — every three years. With 72 percent of the votes counted, 51.7
percent of the electorate has rejected Democrats on that one, too: A big tax
hike on businesses during a disruptive epidemic is not an obviously good
idea.
In the wake of the recent protests, the Left in
California pushed for a measure that would have prohibited cash bail. It
likewise seems headed for defeat. At the same time, Californians extended
voting rights to those on parole and rejected a measure that would have made
some offenders convicted of serious crimes ineligible for early release.
Democrats pressed to extend voting rights to some
17-year-olds in California, allowing those who would be 18 before the general
election to vote in primaries. California appears to have rejected this idea.
Democrats demanded broader powers to impose rent control.
Voters turned them down.
The SEIU, a powerful union, tried to get voters to impose
heavy regulations on kidney-dialysis centers as part of its pressure campaign
to get a foothold in these businesses. It failed.
Sometimes, good policy is good politics: As much as the
prospect may irritate our woke friends, government at all levels really ought
to be racially neutral as a matter of law, and that stance is politically
attractive. Of course it is the case that formal “colorblindness” is not a
guarantee of justice or fairness, but it is still the best policy — rules and
norms matter. It is also the case that affirmative-action schemes such as those
entertained by California progressives systematically discriminate against
Asian Americans. That is a problem in institutions around the country, not only
in California. Conservatives are right to attend to it.
Extending the vote to 17-year-olds is bananas. If
anything, we should be pressing in the opposite direction, given the state of
the nation’s 18-year-olds. You can have a world in which students must be
provided security blankets and trauma counseling whenever Ben Shapiro speaks on
a college campus, or you can have a world in which we treat 18-year-olds like
adults. You cannot have both. Children don’t get the vote.
Allowing for flexibility in the labor market is good for
workers and for firms. Being an Uber driver in Los Angeles may not be the best
job in the world, but that is not the relevant question. The question is,
rather: What’s the next-best option for the people who need that income? The
most likely option for gig-economy workers thrown out of work by regulation is
unemployment and loss of income. Everybody is better off with options.
Rent control is a proven failure as a policy for making
housing affordable. Higher real-estate taxes on commercial buildings are not
likely to contribute to a lower cost of living in California, either.
Republicans are not very competitive in California. But
some conservative ideas are very competitive in California. Tuesday’s
election provided six or seven examples of that. Somewhere in there, there is a
lesson to be learned for Republicans, if they are interested in learning it and
able to.
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