California Republicans have been reduced to a foil for Democrats. That’s not good for anyone

The Republican Party established the citizens initiative, referendum and recall in California. It championed tax increases, gun control and expanded abortion rights. Earl Warren, a former state party chair and chief justice of the United States, looked forward to welcoming 10,000 new immigrants every Monday when he served as governor.

The GOP now has a new role in the nation’s biggest state: a foil for Democrats.

That’s not good news for California. It’s not even good news for Democrats, whose one-party rule grows ever more calcified and arrogant in the absence of meaningful debate. But it’s where we are.

Two races underscored that reality on Tuesday. In the campaigns for district attorney of Los Angeles and that to succeed Dianne Feinstein in the U.S. Senate, early returns show that conservative candidates may have nosed their way into run-offs. If the results hold, they will have provided paths to victory for Democrats – and in one case, a Democrat who is supremely vulnerable.

At the state level, Rep. Adam Schiff created the contest he wanted. He was more concerned about facing a challenger from his left in November, so he artfully advertised for Republican Steve Garvey, boosting the former baseball star without any political experience, message or ideas into the run-off.

Garvey has declined to state who he is supporting for president and responds to almost every question by insisting he will bring “common sense” and “compassion” to Washington. He was a better-than-average player for the Los Angeles Dodgers and San Diego Padres, but if Garvey belongs in the Senate, Willie Mays should be president.

All of which made him bait for Schiff.

Garvey now faces off against the man who brought him to the party. It cost Schiff millions to get Garvey this far, but the ballplayer’s free ride is over, and with it, any realistic chance of actually winning.

Gascón could face a conservative – in L.A.

In Los Angeles, meanwhile, incumbent District Attorney George Gascón did not engineer his run-off as Schiff did, but he also got the one he wanted. For Gascón, the real political danger was posed by Democratic candidates just to his right. They threatened to isolate him on the left and sweep the broad center of a liberal electorate, leaving Gascón with a narrow band of progressives and an abysmal approval rating – somewhere around 20%.

Instead, Gascón may luck into the opponent he most hoped for: former federal prosecutor Nathan Hochman, whose sizable war chest and slightly hysterical characterizations of Los Angeles as a city and county at the edge of chaos were enough to draw him close to 18% of the vote as of Wednesday morning, with about half of ballots counted.

Hochman, who ran two years ago as a Republican for attorney general, now faces the same problem that Garvey does: His electorate has enough Republicans to elbow him into a run-off but not nearly enough to secure him a victory unless he attracts Democratic support.

He has a better lane than Garvey. Hochman is an experienced prosecutor with a message, and he will temper some of his dystopian rhetoric now that he no longer has to worry about competition from the law-and-order right. And Gascón is vulnerable to any opponent with a pulse.

Still, Hochman must contend with the fact that he’s a recently converted Republican in a part of the world that doesn’t have much use for Republicans.

How the GOP could come back

This is music for Democrats, of course, but not great for California. One-party rule narrows debate and alternatives. Whatever you think of Garvey, it’s discouraging that the ideas California Republicans once espoused now can be easily ignored by ruling Democrats.

This is the state that gave us Warren, Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan, Republicans who once connected with California priorities. They saw the value of environmental protection – as president, Nixon created the EPA – and celebrated the contributions of immigrants.

Those with long memories or access to history books will recall that conservatives in California once welcomed migrant labor, while César Chávez was among those advocating for tighter border controls, since those immigrants competed for jobs with members of his union.

Warren built roads and universities and was willing to raise taxes to invest in the state’s future. He championed universal health care and liked to say that his job required him to provide for 10,000 new Californians every week. He was elected three times – once, in 1946, as the nominee of both the Republican and Democratic parties.

As for Reagan, the icon of modern conservatism, he raised taxes, supported gun control and expanded abortion rights as California’s governor.

But the Republican Party has slipped away from that history and positioned itself increasingly out of step with most Californians. This is a state that prizes its environment – a state office building bears the slogan “Bring me men to match my mountains” – values individual autonomy and hence abortion rights, and has a long history and relationship with Latin America.

As the party, particularly under the captive ownership of Donald Trump, has moved away from those positions, it has moved away from California.

No wonder that Trump loathes the state. Complaining in the wake of his 2016 victory against Hillary Clinton, the sore-winner alleged that “millions and millions of people” voted illegally in California, denying him a victory here (that’s a lie, of course). And he has since criticized the state for its efforts to safeguard illegal immigrants and combat climate change, among other things. His solution to wildfires was to argue that California should do a better job raking the forest.

Caught in the familiar tug between support for those policies and support for their party’s de facto leader, state Republicans have mostly tried to bite their tongues, a la Garvey.

That keeps Trump off their backs, but it also makes them seem cowardly – indeed, it’s evidence of actual cowardice. Today, there are almost twice as many Democrats and nearly as many independents in California as there are Republicans.

The party could find its way back. It could welcome immigrants, support abortion rights and join the effort to combat climate change (the state’s last Republican governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger, was a leader on climate policies). That would be good for the party, of course, and good for the state, too.

Until then, it will put up candidates like Steve Garvey – and lose.

Jim Newton is a veteran journalist, best-selling author and teacher. He worked at the Los Angeles Times for 25 years as a reporter, editor, bureau chief and columnist, covering government and politics.

This article originally appeared on Palm Springs Desert Sun: California Republicans have been reduced to a foil for Democrats. That’s not good for anyone