Let’s say the quiet part out loud. As a Republican in California, your vote doesn’t count. Not really.
This isn’t A Christmas Story (1983), and it wasn’t “soap poison.”
And before anyone lights the torches — that is more of a Democrat thing traditionally — yes, California has democratic elements. Ballot propositions, for example. But even those are conditional. Voters can pass a proposition, but the governor still has to execute it, and the legislature still has to fund it. Without that cooperation, “direct democracy” becomes less Athens and more like an expensive Yelp.
Take Proposition 50. It was sold as a democratic improvement. In practice, it functioned as a republican process to put a democratic proposition on the ballot that was then used to dismantle a democratic safeguard. That safeguard was Proposition 11 (2008), which created the California Citizens Redistricting Commission — an independent, bipartisan body designed to take redistricting out of partisan hands. Voters were told they were strengthening democracy. They bought it. What they actually did was hand power straight back to a Democratic supermajority in the legislature. That was their right, I suppose.
Even with the Commission, Democrats already had the maps tilted in their favor. A 2011 ProPublica investigation, “How Democrats Fooled California’s Redistricting Commission,” laid it out plainly. California Republicans were, in the article’s words, “essentially non-entities” in the redistricting process. Doug Johnson of Claremont McKenna’s Rose Institute put it bluntly: “Republicans didn’t really do anything.”
Also quoted was Paul Mitchell — yes, that Paul Mitchell — who proudly explained that voters benefited from the work done by consultants deeply embedded in the process.
To quote Tommy Boy: “You’re naughty!”
The article ends with Mitchell saying, “My only regret is that we didn’t do more.” And as we now know, he would — with Prop 50. I love a good redemption story.
Back then, I thought Paul Mitchell was a hair guy. Turns out, he’s just very good at splitting hairs. And neighborhoods. And “communities of interest.” Why did I call Prop 50 for Democrats before it even started? Because history doesn’t repeat, but it sure does rhyme. And to all the GOP mamacitas on X telling people they’re terrible people who don’t care enough — that they should run for office because influencers have “no influence” — Prop 50 is your Exhibit A. Here we are, as my grandmother would say!
California voters effectively dismantled their own checks and balances, returning full control to one party. What does that mean in practice? It means any ballot measure, statute, or even constitutional amendment can be delayed, defunded, rewritten, ignored, or outright nullified by Democrats alone. Republicans — and anyone stuck in the political middle — have zero leverage. Nada. This imbalance isn’t new, and it isn’t accidental. It’s baked in.
The problem goes all the way back to California’s Constitutional Convention of 1850. At Colton Hall in Monterey, forty-eight delegates gathered to draft the state’s first constitution. Thirty-seven came from Northern districts. Eleven came from Southern ones. You can guess how that went. Northern delegates voted to fund the state primarily through property taxes. The irony was brutal. Miners — largely northern, often transient, often landless — paid little to nothing.
Hispanic and Chinese miners, of course, paid a miners’ tax. Hispanics left. The Chinese were indentured servants — they were stuck. Southern landowners funded a government that gave them very little in return, aside from courts that spent decades stripping them of Mexican land grants. To make matters worse, much of the state’s administrative cost was covered by federal tariffs, since income taxes were unconstitutional at the time. Those same property owners were exporters of hide and tallow. Tariffs, I’d assume.
Fast-forward 175 years and the pattern looks familiar. Today, roughly 60 percent of the governor’s budget comes from personal income tax. Population centers rule — but not in the Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure kind of way. Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Sacramento decide. The rest of the state lives with the consequences. More than 200 attempts have been made to split California over the years, all rooted in the same complaint: lack of representation. The most recent attempt, introduced by Assemblyman James Gallagher in 2025, fits neatly into that lineage.
So let’s say it plainly: California Republicans have no power. I wish that weren’t true. But it is.
So how does the California GOP respond? Do they go ultra-MAGA? Every man for himself? Send moms to post angry tweets on X? Talk about “fixers” to scare off challengers? Suppress competition in safe red districts? Funnel money to consultants? Door-knock affluent Republican neighborhoods with glossy flyers to generate puff pieces about “momentum”? Host another bad dinner inside the echo chamber? A GOP-hosted debate? That idea reminds me of the Gary Wright song Dream Weaver.
The grassroots? Lovely phrase. In practice, the CA GOP seems to prefer rock gardens. I kid. Sort of. They embrace grassroots candidates only after those candidates win on their own.
As Maverick said in Top Gun (1986): “Talk to me, Goose.”
Is anyone listening? Is the GOOSE OLD PARTY…dead? I’ll leave those questions to voters and central committees. “We’re not worthy, we’re not worthy,” as the boys from Wayne’s World would say. Here’s one crack at an answer: recruit quality candidates. Candidates who can speak. Candidates who can argue coherently. Candidates who can engage the public.
Look at the most effective Republican in the California Assembly: Carl DeMaio. He is not a traditional Republican. He’s theatrical. He has a husband. And so what? He’s effective. For his trouble, the San Diego County Republican Party refused to endorse him in 2024, according to Voice of San Diego. Imagine the Assembly Republicans without DeMaio. They’d look a lot like the State Senate Republicans — quiet, cold, and mostly irrelevant — with a few exceptions, like Shannon Grove.
Grove once told the San Francisco Chronicle she could go “full right-wing” and introduce bills she knew would fail, but instead focused on narrow, single-subject legislation that actually had a chance. Thank God for term limits, because when we get a good one, they term out. Senator Melissa Melendez is another example. Serious. Effective. Gone.
Meanwhile, the Democratic supermajority hums along like a legislative factory. In the most recent session alone, 2,397 bills were introduced — over 1,500 in the Assembly and 864 in the Senate. Hundreds passed. Maybe thousands. Apparently, California has no shortage of “needs.”
As Cicero said, “The more numerous the laws, the worse the republic,” or something like that. Go read it.
I’m not here to break hearts. But reality doesn’t care. As Billy Ray Cyrus once said, “Don’t tell my heart, my achy, breaky, heart. I just don’t think he’d understand…” Dialogue, Obi-Wan Kenobi, may be our only hope.
Bibliography | Notes
CalMatters. “California Secession: The New Plan to Break Up the State.” CalMatters, June 3, 2024. https://calmatters.org/politics/2024/06/california-secession-san-bernardino-county/
Capitol Weekly. “Bill Volume of California Legislative Committees — 2025 Session.” Capitol Weekly, August 22, 2025. https://capitolweekly.net/bill-volume-of-california-legislative-committees-2025-session/
EdSource Staff. “California Lawmakers Rush to Pass Key Education Bills Before Deadline.” EdSource, August 20, 2025. https://edsource.org/2025/legislative-education-bills-california-teachers-immigration/738900
Hoeven, Emily. “Republicans Are an Endangered Minority in California. So How Does This Right-Wing Lawmaker Get So Much Done?” San Francisco Chronicle, December 20, 2025. https://www.sfchronicle.com/opinion/emilyhoeven/article/shannon-grove-republican-california-21123279.php
KPBS. “Why It Matters: Breaking Down the Rift Between Carl DeMaio and the San Diego GOP.” https://www.kpbs.org/videos/why-it-matters-breaking-down-the-rift-between-carl-demaio-and-san-diego-gop
Lewis, Scott. “Politics Report: GOP Goes to War Against DeMaio.” Voice of San Diego, September 14, 2024.
https://voiceofsandiego.org/2024/09/14/politics-report-gop-goes-to-war-against-demaio/
Pierce, Olga, and Jeff Larson. “How Democrats Fooled California’s Redistricting Commission.” ProPublica, December 21, 2011. Accessed December 24, 2025. https://www.propublica.org/article/how-democrats-fooled-californias-redistricting-commission
SFGate. “Controversial California Proposal Returns After Prop. 50 Passes.” SFGate. https://www.sfgate.com/politics/article/controversial-california-proposal-returns-prop-50-21146593.php