Hollywood and Politics, Part 5: How California Politics in the 2000s May Have Been A Harbinger Of Events to Come a Decade Later

 

Because at this point it has become a leftist talking point about how the repeal of the Fairness Doctrine was critical in the right wing's rise to power it is important to tell you – as someone who lived through it – exactly what the left chose to do during this same period.

When the Fairness Doctrine itself was repealed on August 4^th 1987 the left did nothing. When Rush Limbaugh became a fixture on talk radio, they also did nothing. And when Fox News was founded in 1996 they did nothing.

This was in keeping with the pattern of how the left reacted during every factor of the right's rise to power. There was never a progressive equivalent of the Heritage Foundation or The Federalist Society. They never attempted to elect politicians who would keep to the left-wing ideology the same way Gingrich would do so in the Republican Revolution in 1994.  All of their complaints and arguments about how this has led to the polarization of politics are accurate but always reported on in the kind of detached fashion: somebody should have done something.  These methods, by their definition, were just as available to progressives as they were to conservatives. But they chose to do nothing.

And in the case of Hollywood they did the same thing they did they always do: they mocked it with the attitude of 'no intelligent person would ever take this seriously'. This was, as I noted in the previous article, the exact same attitude of smugness in which they had been proven spectacularly incorrect when it came to either Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan. But in this case it was far more dangerous as this was not a single candidate but a method of broadcast that reached millions of Americans across the country on a daily basis.  Considering in particularly just how successful Reagan had been at reaching the voters this way the dangers should have been crystal clear far more to Hollywood than anyone else.

And yet during the 1990s well into the 2000s Hollywood's attitude was to openly mock the idea that anyone would take this seriously. Perhaps it was built on the idea of offense: one of the talking points of both Limbaugh and Fox News was just how hopelessly liberal Hollywood was and how it was leading the country down a moral sewer. But Hollywood never felt a need then or now to make a case to defend itself to those very viewers. However in the 1990s and 2000s there were different reasons then there are today.

And that is because, with the exception of programs like The Daily Show and Bill Maher, during this period Hollywood was not challenging politics directly any more than they had to this point.  By and large Hollywood still had no use for the Republican party but they also had very little for the Democratic Party and their projects both in film and TV basically reflected it. They believed correctly their jobs were those of entertainers and that  they were to mock those who were in power, regardless of their politics.  Despite the fact networks like Fox News argued Democrats were in the pocket of Hollywood by and large they were still neutral on the subject.

To be sure they were increasingly fundraising for Democratic candidates far more than Republicans and many of the faces were more and more left-wing. But with few exceptions their entertainment during this period – the 1990s until Obama's second term – was to essentially follow their version of the Fairness Doctrine. Both sides were equally worthy of their contempt and they saw no reason to choose one or the other.

There were exceptions of course, notably among documentarians such as Michael Moore and increasingly the films of Oliver Stone. But Hollywood essentially spent the Clinton era and all of W's Presidency basically absent. Some of their more left-wing members would protest, some of them would give speeches at awards show arguing for various causes, but that was basically as far as it went. Hollywood was still a business, after all, and despite what conservatives said the industry basically took the same approach Michael Jordan did when he refused to campaign for a Democratic Senator in North Carolina: Republicans bought movie tickets and watched TV, too so why isolate them?

Unlike other aspects of the left's constituency not only do I not blame Hollywood for not taking any action but I approve of it and wish they'd maintained it throughout the past decade. And there is a good possibility that a large part of the reason Hollywood didn't choose to criticize the right is because during this period in the state of California it would have looked like they were throwing stones from glass mansions.

In 1996 voters in California approved Proposition 198 that changed the partisan primary to a blanket primary in which each voter's ballot lists every candidate imaginable regardless of party affiliation. The candidate of each party who wins the most votes was the parties nominee. This went against the rules of every California political party opposed this idea because they historically prohibited nonmembers from voting in their party's primary. Eventually all four parties filed suit against California, alleging the blanket primary violated their First Amendment right of association. Jones, a Republican, argued that a blanket primary would intensify the election. This judgment would be upheld by a district judge and the Court of Appeals. But eventually the California Democratic Party would present the question that violated the political parties First Amendment right of association.

IN 2000 by a 7-2 opinion, the Court held that proposition 198 forced political parties 'to associate with – to have their nominees and hence their positions, determined by – those who, at best, have refused to affiliate with their party and, at worst, affiliated with a  rival…A single election in which the party nominee is selected by nonparty members could be enough to destroy the party."  Only Ruth Badeer Ginsburg and John Paul Stevens dissented in this opinion.

By that point California had already held what would be its only election of this type for governor. At that point California might well have wished it had never happened.

Grey Davis has been part of California politics since the 1970s when he had volunteered for John Tunney's campaign for the Senate. He'd served as Jerry Brown's chief of staff and was far less liberal then him. He would eventually serve as Assemblyman from West LA and Beverly Hills and had served as state controlled from 1986-1995. But even by then he had a habit for being a dirt campaigner. When Pete Wilson had vacated his Senate seat he'd run against Dianne Feinstein in the Democratic primary. He ran one of the most famous negative ads of all time when he compared Feinstein to the just incarcerated Leona Helmsley. This spectacularly backfired and Davis lost to Feinstein significantly. Nevertheless he continued to use horribly negative campaign ads and would do so win the Lieutenant governors race in 1994 against the Republican candidate who he claimed was too conservative.

In the primary campaign David surprised everybody by beating two better funded Democratic opponents. Upon winning the nomination he went out of his way to frame his opponent Attorney General Dan Lundgren as too conservative for California and out of touch with its views on issues like guns and abortion. Upon election Davis, with no apparent irony, said he would work to end the 'divisive politics' of his predecessor Pete Wilson.

Davis was the first Democrat to win in California in sixteen years. He used the growing budget to increase spending in education, signed legislation that led to a new statewide accountability exam and began recognizing students for academic achievement in arts and science. But by May of 2000 the bloom was coming off the rose.

A coalition of civil rights groups would file Williams v. California alleging the state's failure to ensure basic and decent educational necessities  violated the state's constitution's guarantee of a free and equal public education with plaintiffs emphasizing that the worst conditions centered on low-income and non-white students.

Rather than pursue a negotiated settlement Davis retained a private law firm to defend the state and by September of 2001 California had paid this firm 2.5 million dollars. He drew criticism for deposing student plaintiffs some as young as eight, filing cross complaints against the school districts and diverting millions that could be spent from repairs and instruction into litigation.

Davis was very much one of the more left-leaning governors in the state recognizing domestic partnerships and signing laws banning assault weapons, expanding the number of low-income children with state subsidized health coverage and was one of the most environmental governors in America.

All of this happened during a period of an economic boom and the budget expanded to cover Davis's new programs and the budget had a ten percent surplus. But when the dot.com boom that had been fueling California record tax revenues went bust and the state income taxes dropped. Combined with the huge spending commitments California suffered deficient and its credit rating began to fail. Davis was determined to keep a balanced budget, a position that was increasingly becoming unpopular with the far left wing of the party who believed in government spending without limits.

Early in his governorship Davis began to fundraise for his reelection campaign and had 27.4 million dollars by the end of 2000 alone. And during the lead up to the 2002 election Davis took the unusual steps of taking out campaign ads against Republican Mayor of LA Richard Riordan. Davis's polls show that as a moderate Riordan would be more formidable challenger in the general election. He attacked Riordan's pro-choice stance and wanting a moratorium on the death penalty as being to the left of Davis, who supported it. In the first ten weeks of 2002 Davis spent 3 million dollars boosting his record and $7 million attacking Riordan. When the more conservative Bill Simon won the primary Davis ran a long and bitter campaign attacking him.

By the time the election was over Davis would win largely because the horrible tone of the campaign had led to the lowest turnout percentage in modern gubernatorial history. Even then he won with 47 percent of the vote to Simon's 42 percent. Davis received 1.3 million fewer votes than he had when he was elected to the office four years later.

By this time the budget crisis had fundamentally hit California hard and he was widely criticized for reversing a decade of fee reduction on motor vehicles. And not long after he signed a law allowing the California DMV to grant driver's licenses to undocumented immigrants he was challenged to a recall.

Davis was attacked by everybody. Some claimed he had mismanaged events in the lead up to the California energy crisis. Conservatives thought a corporate friendly Republican governor could save it from fraud. The overall believe was that Davis was guilty of corruption because of the massive campaign contributions he had take it, even if he couldn't be prosecuted by the legal standard.

 

By July of 2003 a sufficient number of citizen signatures were collected for a recall election. It had been financed by the funds of Darrell Issa who had been reelected to Congress the same year as Davis. An Orange Country Republican Issa had started the 'Dump Davis' movement in order to hopefully become governor himself. Davis spent a fair amount of time calling the recall vote an insult but eventually admitted he had lost touch with the voters. He called it a right-wing effort to rewrite history having lost the election the previous year.

By that point Issa had dropped out of the race. On August 23^rd so did Bill Simon the previous nominee. Eventually 135 different candidates would run to the point that it very much seemed like a media circus and a nightmare. It didn't help that the Game Show Network held a game show debate entitled "Who Wants to be Governor of California, featuring unlikely but on the ballot candidates as Gary Colman and porn star Marey Carey. It became more unclear who didn't want the job: Issa would drop out as would Simon. Lt. Governor Cruz Bustamante would become the Democratic frontrunner and there were several legitimate candidates including Arianna Huffington Republican Tom McClintock.

The actual frontrunner, however, almost seemed like it was the punch line to a horrible joke.

Arnold Schwarzeneggger had been prominent in Republican politics for years. Having served on the President's Council of Physical Fitness under George H.W. Bush. He had considered running for public office in 1999 but he denied the efforts early saying he was in show business.

When he jumped into the political campaign he'd never held public office and no one knew his political views, even in California. But because he was one of the biggest action movie stars of all-time he moved ahead based solely on name recognition. He declined to participate in any of the debates with other candidates and only engaged in one the entire campaign.

That Hollywood chose to fall lockstep behind a man who had no qualifications for elected office for the governorship of the biggest state in the country solely because he was one of their own should have served as a bellwether for what would happen to the Presidency more than a decade later.  No one in Hollywood seemed to care about what it would be if a man whose only qualification for governor of California was that he was one of the biggest box-office draws of all time. The actual recall of Davis may have been done out seriousness; the choice to replace him Schwarzenegger was pure farce. And it didn't help that days within the election allegations of sexual and personal misconduct were raised against him from six different women.

Schwarzenegger was moderate Republican who claimed to be fiscally conservative and socially liberal. But what the state seemed to care about was his handiness with a  catchphrase such as calling Democratic state politician 'girlie men'.

And almost from the start of his gubernatorial run the state unions itself began to oppose his various referendums. On June 13^th 2005 he called a special election for eight ballot initiatives. Prop 74, teacher tenure requirements, Prop 75, the use of Union Dues for campaign contributions, Prop 76 state budgetary limits and Prop 77, redistricting. He put on four other propositions, including parental notification for abortion, prescription drugs by pharmaceutical companies, and electric industry regulation. Every single one of them failed , most with 60 percent of the population voting no. He would sign the Global Warming Solutions Act as part of being governor and would be one of the best governors when it came to climate change.

Furthermore many of his policies as governor when against what members of his state asked for. He twice vetoed bills for a single-payer health care system in the state and two bills that would have legalized same-sex marriage. And he opposed Prop 66 an amendment to the Three Strikes Law in November of 2004, that would have required the third felony to be violent to mandate the maximum sentence. It ended up being voted down.

And he suffered nearly as many ethics issues as Davis by the time he left office. His approval rating when he finally stepped down in 2010 was 23 percent, only one percentage higher that Davis when he was recalled. This act was signed during a period of campaign finance reform of which Schwarzenegger openly believed. It had been passed in some states such as Massachusetts, Maine and Arizona but in 2003 the legislature had repealed it because the people had voted to reverse their position by a margin of 74 percent against.

It's also worth reminding readers that in 2008 the California Fair Elections Act passed the California Assembly and Senate and Schwarzenegger signed it to law. He had tried to push this through in 2005 with Proposition 89 in 2005, which suggested funding elections with a business tax. That was voted down by 74 percent as well. Because of the Citizens United Decision the vote had to be approved by an initiative. And on June 8^th 2010, the voters of the most liberal state in the Union rejected it by 57 percent to 43 percent.

This rejection is keeping with all of the liberal reforms of the Davis administration and that Schwarzenegger made numerous attempts to follow through on. At the end of the day someone has to foot the bill for these reforms and the electorate of California, already known as a very liberal state, made it clear repeatedly they didn't want to have to pay for them. One sees this same pattern play out whenever progressive states argued for the kinds of things they claim are fundamental rights. They will use grand talk about how these things will benefit all Americans in some kind of nebulous future in a way that will justify short-term costs.

 But the world lives in the present and in the present they have to deal with things that affect their economic well-being.  Repeatedly voters have made it clear they don't want to have pay extra money for something they may not give out benefits in the long-term, perhaps not in their lifetime.  Not coincidentally when most of the people arguing for these reforms are educated, rich and mostly white it adds to the detachment they have from the working class voter who will feel the pain far more than they will.

 

In the last decade I'm seen every historian, professional, amateur or online, use something from every aspect of our American history going back nearly a century to try and 'explain' how the electorate could have let the 2016 election 'happen'.  Somehow in all that time none of them have ever tried to look at California after 2002.

But look at the story. One of the most successful states in the Union – one which could have had one of the largest economies in the world were its own country  - chooses a Democratic leader who enacts some of the most progressive reforms after decades of Republicans rule. That state which had bene undergoing an economic boom suddenly undergoes circumstances that lead to a crash that hurts the economy. The citizenry, upset with the unpopular leader, lead a concentrated effort to remove that leader from office, one that is heavily financed by Republicans and quickly becomes a media circus

The leading candidate for that effort has no experience in electoral politics but it is a national celebrity. He refuses to engage in the typical political process, has rallies which center far more on film catchphrases then actual policy and quickly becomes the overwhelming frontrunner. Even the fact of multiple sexual improprieties within days of the election does nothing to stop him from coming to power. And yet his agenda is unpopular with the electorate of his state and he is challenged far more by the left then his right. Eventually he leaves far more unpopular than he ever was and with the state in far more economic trouble than it was when he came into office.

So why does Hollywood choose to ignore a parallel so obvious a child could see it? I think the biggest reason is that Schwarzenegger chose to go more to his left as he governed and eventually became a pariah in his own party. As we all know among the progressive failures are completely acceptable if you move to the left by doing so. By this point Hollywood and the left it represented had long since stopped looking for legislation or candidates to foment their agenda then people who said and did the right things. That he did so at the cost of not helping their own state was irrelevant; it suited an increasing brand of activism rather than actual politics. Even the fact that Schwarzenegger had been the keynote speaker at the 2004 Republican National Convention -  at a time when the industry was at its peak in its contempt for George W. Bush – was never a disqualifier the same way so many former Democrats were increasingly moving to the Republican party during this same period.

And it also ignores the fact that the state was putting on the ballot multiple parts of the progressive agenda where it has since become gospel among the left are universally popular among voters. But the fact remains Schwarzenegger put many of these principles to a vote among the citizenry of the biggest state in the Union, one that by the mid-2000s was already far more to the left then the rest of America and they were all overwhelmingly rejected by the voters. It's worth noting these patterns played out in multiple states across the country during the first two decades of this century  -most of them also left-leaning – and the electorate of those states rejected them as well.

This was far from the only lesson progressives and Californians alike failed to learn during the 2000s. In the next article I will deal with how the results of the 2000 election perhaps more than anything else caused a new generation of progressives to completely misinterpret America's politics right up until 2016.