As a federal court Thursday ratified Gov. Gray Davis' agreement ending official efforts to preserve Proposition 187, the governor faced the threat of a new legal challenge and the outrage of critics who said he has "set himself up as a monarch" by ignoring voters.
Davis said the accord, which drops the state's legal defense of the 1994 measure to end public benefits for illegal immigrants, will implement the "spirit of Proposition 187" because federal law already blocks many health and welfare benefits the initiative would have banned. The only other major provision of the initiative--access to public schools for illegal immigrant children--was declared unconstitutional in a 1982 U.S. Supreme Court decision, he said.
"Is [Proposition] 187 technically struck down by this agreement? Yes," Davis said at a news conference in his Los Angeles office Thursday. "But it is supplanted by federal legislation that is faithful to the will of the voters who passed 187 and [it] will require the state to deny virtually all of the benefits that would be denied under the terms of 187. The notable exception is [elementary and high school] education, which all of the lawyers I consulted believe is unconstitutional."
Thursday's accord came after four months of closed-door bargaining--monitored by federal court authorities--in which Davis and several civil rights groups sought "common ground" to settle a legal challenge to the ballot measure filed after its passage in 1994. Davis represented voters, who passed the measure, in discussions with the plaintiffs who filed the lawsuit to halt Proposition 187.
The deal ends a high-wire attempt by Davis to navigate a conflict between two of his most fundamental public promises: to heal the wounds in race relations he has attributed to Proposition 187's divisive campaign, and to uphold the will of the voters even on issues in which he disagrees with their ballot box decision.
But it does not end a debate about whether Davis accomplished that difficult, if not impossible, goal.
Political observers were uncertain about the effect on Davis--whether voters will treat the agreement as a landmark compromise or agree with critics that it is a political sham used to kill the measure.
"This is not mediation, this is like negotiating with yourself," said former Gov. Pete Wilson, who championed the ballot measure during his 1994 reelection campaign. "I don't think it's fair; I don't think it's right. But I think that by virtue of the fact the [appellate court] has concurred in this abuse of judicial discretion that it has not left [initiative supporters] much to pursue."
