Los Angeles, CA -- Donald Trump has energized the Republican base in the short term, but one state's GOP delegates are making a long-term bet that his anti-immigration policies aren’t going to win them elections. Two decades after Proposition 187 was passed, the California Republican Party has rejected some of the anti-immigrant goals and therotic in it's party platform, something that members see as a concrete step closer to Hispanics, the largest ethnic group in the state. It's also a step away from Trump's now-infamous immigration rhetoric, and the candiates proposals to bar children of immigrants from having certain legal rights.
For example, the new platform abandons the goal of banning “all federal and state benefits to illegal aliens other than emergency medical care,” according to the O.C. Register.
"There are going to be people that if we made the chair of the party and the top of the ticket somebody born of immigrant parents, it would not convince them that we are the right party for them because of the history of 187 and other issues," Vice Chairman Harmeet Dhillon told Cathleen Decker of the L.A. Times.
Proposition 187 barred immigrant children from schools, one form of “federal and state benefits.” But that measure was one of the many in the bill that were deemed unconstitutional by federal courts. As a result of the bill's zeal, it was gutted by federal courts and had little long-term effect on the law.
The new party platform also softens language about illegal immigrants and assimilation, dropping the goal that “all election ballots and other government documents should be printed in English only.”
Last week, Trump criticized rival candidate Jeb Bush for speaking Spanish to Spanish-language media, saying that he should “set an example” and “speak English.”
In another section of the Golden States new GOP plank, the line “new immigrants should be required to learn English” has been replaced with “must be the goal of California’s education programs.”
Final versions of the immigration platform changed the term “Illegal Alien” to “person.” A proposal to use the phrase “otherwise law-abiding folks” was killed in committee.
Trump has referred to Mexican immigrants in the country illegally as “rapists” and murders.
California GOP leaders say that their party’s platform change was motivated in part as a backlash to that kind of rhetoric, according to Roxana Kopetman of the O.C. Register.
California GOP Central Valley Vice Chair Marcelino Valdez holds a low opinion of Trump.
“He does not speak for me or Republicans or my party,” Valdez told Kopetman. “He’s an entertainer.”
Those are harsh words in the state of California, where the last popular Republican governor was actor and body builder Arnold Schwarzenegger.
As we reported last week, there’s a small but lively movement of California conservatives who still rally around the principles of Prop 187. Last week, we reported on the dozens of anti-immigration advocates who rallied outside of the second Republican debate in Simi Valley, California.
“We started with prop 187,” said Eveline Miller, who was quoted in that article as referring to pro-immigrant Latinos as “invaders, or children of invaders.”
In rejecting Trump and the principles of Proposition 187, the California GOP may alienate supporters like Miller. But even representatives of the ultra-conservative and grassroots Tea Party movement stood by the party’s decision.
Tea Party California Caucus Communications Director Robert Jeffers told Breitbart News that the compromises on immigration didn’t diminish the GOP’s conservative principles.
“Today was a big win for conservatives [...] We proved a coordinated voice, working with party leadership, can defend our principles,” Jeffers said.
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