Although no racial or ethnic group now constitutes a simple majority of California’s overall population, non-Hispanic whites cast nearly two-thirds of the votes in initiative elections.  Some observers have argued that this electoral majority – which is older, whiter, more educated, and more conservative than the state’s population as a whole – has used the initiative process to target the state’s growing nonwhite population. 

When considering the outcomes of all initiative elections between 1978 and 2000, one sees little evidence of bias against any racial or ethnic group.  Blacks and Latinos voted for the winning side 59 percent of the time, whereas Asian Americans and whites were on the winning side 60 and 62 percent of the time, respectively.  However when race or ethnicity itself was an important part of an initiative, nonwhite voters fared poorly compared to whites.  On minority-focused issues such as affirmative action, social services for illegal immigrants, and bilingual education, whites voted for the winning side 64 percent of the time, whereas the comparable figures for Latinos was 32 percent.  On these same issues, African Americans and Asian Americans voted for the wining side 57 percent and 48 percent of the time, respectively.