In November 2010, California voters defeated proposition 23, which would have suspended the state’s plans to establish a regulated carbon market. Grassroots organizations and people of color turned out in force against the ballot proposition, as I’ve recently been reading.
From “A Perfect Storm: Lessons from the Defeat of Proposition 23” (pdf), published by the Funders Network on Transforming the Global Economy (now EDGE Funders Alliance):
Prop 23 went down to a resounding defeat, with 61.6 percent voting no and only 38.4 percent voting yes. But there is more to the story: Voters of color comprised 37 percent of the electorate and whites 63 percent. However, 73 percent of voters of color and 57 percent of white voters voted against the measure. One million new voters of color came to the polls in November 2010 in California, and clearly the vast majority of them opposed Prop 23.
Those new voters helped to tip races for both Jerry Brown and Barbara Boxer.
The short film Where We Live tells the story of the 2010 grassroots organizing.
