Things often get lost in translation and this challenge affects millions of Americans. Telehealth for example, is a phenomenal resource that continues improving health care access not just by lowering costs but by removing the temporal and geographical barriers to care. Unfortunately, not all Americans have been able to benefit.

Patients with limited English proficiency are significantly less likely than other Americans to make use of telehealth. The demand for these services is present in communities with limited English proficiency, but to solve this problem it will require a bipartisan effort. That is why it is so important to find common ground in Congress to help break down language barriers in this country to improve access to our health care system. The introduction of the Supporting Patient Education and Knowledge (SPEAK) Act marks an important step toward assuring that all Americans have access to the care they need. 

The SPEAK Act would create a taskforce to identify how best to support the over 25 million people in the U.S. with limited English proficiency and ensure that they can also benefit from new health care services. Health care affects all of us and a language barrier is not just a treatment barrier, but it is also expensive. Not only does limited language access keep individuals from receiving proper care or even pursuing it, but unclear communication can result in real harm to patients and providers.  

The numbers themselves speak volumes—patients with limited English proficiency face an elevated risk of medical errors, and a staggering $1.7 billion in medical malpractice costs over five years could have been averted with improved patient communication. It’s more than just policy; it’s about drastically improving and even saving lives. The SPEAK act is more than a message, it’s a commitment to making healthcare services accessible to all Americans.

The Asian and Hispanic communities to which we belong would benefit greatly from increased language access. Together these two communities represent 60 percent of California’s 45th district and 54 percent of the whole state. Many of us enjoy the rich diversity of our community: from the Vietnamese Night Market in Little Saigon to the culture celebrations in Buena Park, our district represents the best of America, and we should want all Americans, regardless of origin, to be able to receive services just like everyone else.

Being the children of immigrants, we both personally understand the challenges that can come from limited language access, especially in the realm of health care. We know well the look of relief from our own parents when they find a health care professional who speaks their language. We, like countless others, find ourselves in the doctor’s office translating for family members. Increasing language access doesn’t just benefit the single individual with limited English proficiency but also has positive effects on their caregivers and family unit. The SPEAK Act is a step toward a world where our families and neighbors could not only access the care and treatment they need, but also be able to fully understand their options. This act is a step towards ensuring dignity in health care access. 

As we look to the future, we know that now isn’t the time for division, we should all come to the table to work across the aisle to find solutions that help all Americans. To speak for those without a voice and bring everyone closer to achieving results and allowing everyone to pursue their American Dream.

Michelle Steel represents the 45th congressional district. Daniel Garza is president of The LIBRE Initiative.

President Joe Biden and Congress’ reaction in the coming days is vital. In President Biden’s address to the United States he gave his heartfelt support for the innocent people of Israel and committed to give aid to our ally, but conspicuously gave no mention of any strategy dealing with Iran, Hamas’ benefactor. Leading up to this attack, President Biden’s actions regarding Iran have been deplorable. He has empowered the rogue state, lifting sanctions worth $25 billion, waiving Iraq to send $10 billion to Iran, renegotiating the Iran nuclear deal, and authorizing $6 billion in exchange for hostages that is all but guaranteed to be funneled to Hamas or other terrorist proxies. This is a total of $41 billion to the Iranian regime.

I hope this war is a wake-up call to President Biden and his administration. Now is not the time to retreat from the global stage. The world needs the United States on the front lines, gathering support to aid our ally Israel and strangle the Iranian regime’s ability to ever orchestrate this depravity again.

In conjunction, Congress must be swift in sending aid to our ally Israel as they fight for the safety of their families, including replenishing the Iron Dome, and pass additional ironclad sanctions against Iran. That is why I am calling for an immediate vote on my bill, the Solidify Iran Sanctions Act, to make sanctions established by the Iran Sanctions Act of 1996 that are set to expire in 2026 permanent.

As our ally suffers one of the darkest days of her recent history, now is the time to stand up to swiftly bring justice to the evil regime that chants “death to the Jews” and “death to America.” I urge President Biden to end his tolerance of Iran’s terrorist agenda and stand side by side with our ally as they fight for their right to exist.

Michelle Steel represents California’s 45th congressional district.

Those five simple words can be a radical statement in America these days. Many in our own country have set out to convince us that the United States lacks the moral authority to lead the free world. And though we believe self-criticism is a vital part of democracy, we can’t lose track of the fact that we are the good guys.

President Reagan understood this fully. He was the foremost evangelist for faith in the goodness of the American people, especially when compared with the inhumanity of Marxist-Leninist regimes.

Reagan denied any moral equivalence between our two systems. To win the Cold War, Reagan knew he had to win the ideological war. He had to show that the contest with communism was not just about two different ways to organize economies, but about an existential struggle for individual freedoms against totalitarian oppression.

Today, we find ourselves in a New Cold War. One where the Chinese Communist Party aims to maximize its global power at the expense of the United States and the liberal norms that we, and our allies, have sustained for decades. As Republican presidential hopefuls take the stage at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library this week, they have an opportunity to channel the Great Communicator and clearly articulate to the American people not just how we win this New Cold War, but why we must win.

First, aspirants for the Republican Presidential nomination must properly frame this conflict in terms the American people can understand. President Biden may call this a strategic competition, but let’s be clear: The battle with the Chinese Communist Party is not a polite tennis match. This is a fight that will define the 21st century.

At every opportunity, the candidates should highlight the cover-ups in Wuhan, the tyranny of Xi Jinping’s Zero-Covid policy, the broken promises in Hong Kong, the forced separation of children from families in Tibet, and the concentration camps of Xinjiang.

They should highlight how the CCP does not recognize the inherent value of an individual, how it seizes the passports of its citizens, clamps down on visas for the rest of the country, silences dissenters, and even establishes police stations around the world to hunt those who have fled their borders.

To wage Reagan-style ideological warfare, Republican candidates must make sure people know the genocidal, techno-totalitarian truth about the CCP.

Secondly, the candidates should outline their specific plans to make it more difficult for the CCP to use emerging technologies to control and repress its people. Taking a page from the Reagan administration’s emphasis on blocking the transfer of sensitive technologies to the Soviet Union, the candidates should articulate a plan to block U.S. exports from supporting party-directed firms such as Huawei and SMIC, ban TikTok, and prevent American dollars from funding the CCP’s development of critical technologies like semiconductors, artificial intelligence, quantum computing, and more.

Finally, Republican candidates must differentiate between the Chinese people and the Chinese Communist Party. Just as Reagan sympathized with Soviet citizens against the system that oppressed them, the United States must make clear we have no quarrel with the people of China. Rather, we are on their side and on the side of freedom.

This means protecting Chinese Americans and Chinese dissidents living in the United States from the long arm of CCP espionage, intelligence, and police services, and making sure our country remains a haven from persecution, not a hunting ground for authoritarian regimes.

The Biden administration has taken a few constructive actions, inking new regional basing agreements and drafting important new export controls. But largely missing from the Biden administration’s strategy is the kind of ideological war that Ronald Reagan waged against the Soviet Union.

President Reagan understood this. “If some of you fear taking a stand,” he said, “because you are afraid of reprisals…recognize that you are just feeding the crocodile, hoping he will eat you last.”

This is a message the Biden administration seems to have missed and a lesson Republican presidential hopefuls have a chance to articulate at the Reagan Library.

President Reagan famously said: “I’ve spoken of the shining city all my political life, but I don’t know if I ever quite communicated what I saw when I said it. But in my mind it was a tall, proud city built on rocks stronger than oceans, wind-swept, God-blessed, and teeming with people of all kinds living in harmony and peace; a city with free ports that hummed with commerce and creativity.”

This was President Reagan’s more eloquent way of saying: We are the good guys.

On Wednesday night, Republicans must make clear that the good guys are going to win this New Cold War.

Mike Gallagher is chairman of the House Select Committee on the Strategic Competition between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party. Michelle Steel represents the 45th congressional district.

Nearly 40% of Americans have delayed going to the doctor and receiving the care they need because of the cost. This is unacceptable. Even worse, when Californians try to save for their healthcare costs, our state taxes them for it. 

Many Americans open Health Savings Accounts (HSA) to save money on current and future health care costs including medical, dental, vision, and prescription expenses. Nationwide, there are over 35 million HSA accounts, and the U.S. is expected to approach 43 million accounts by 2025. Over half of individuals with an HSA live in zip codes where the median income is below $75,000 annually. In California, over 5 million people, including dependents, are covered by an HSA.  Families and individuals appreciate that HSAs allow them to decide how and when to spend their medical expenses and gives employers the ability to help pay for deductibles, co-payments, and co-insurance. 

For most of the country, HSAs are tax free, and they are not subject to federal income tax. However, California taxes HSA contributions and taxes employers who contribute to their employee’s HSA. Workers who save money in these accounts to help lower their monthly premiums or pay for out-of-pocket medical expenses, and employers who decide to contribute to an employee’s HSA get taxed for trying to cover these necessary health care costs. 

Here’s an example: Angela is a California employee who is enrolled in family coverage through her consumer directed health plan. She contributes $3,000 to her HSA through payroll and her employer contributes $1,000 to the HSA. For federal income tax purposes, Angela and her employer’s HSA contributions are pre-tax and tax-free. In California, Angela’s HSA’s contributions are reported as taxable income, driving up her state taxes, and her employer’s contributions to her HSA are treated as after-tax contributions. 

This is a direct attack on low and middle-income families by a state that is intent on taxing its hardworking citizens in any way possible. This tax on health care savings is so unusual that, outside of California, only New Jersey punishes families who rely on HSAs in this way.

The five million Californians who rely on HSAs deserve to have the same health care options as their fellow Americans. This unfair tax targeting low and middle-income Californians must end immediately. HSAs ensure Californians can control and manage their health care savings the way they see fit. Families, not the government, know how to take care of their needs best.

I am working on multiple ways to reduce health care costs including strengthening hospital price transparency, encouraging competition, improving access to care, and urging Governor Gavin Newsom to reform health care policy on the state level.  I urge Governor Newsom and legislators in Sacramento to join me in bringing down health care costs across the board.

Michelle Steel represents the 45th congressional district.

Unfortunately, in direct contrast to those principles, our country has witnessed a sharp increase in hate crimes and incidents since the COVID-19 pandemic targeting Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders, (AAPI) in recent years. Between March 19, 2020 and March 31, 2022, over 11,450 hate incidents were reported against the AAPI community in all 50 States, territories, and in Washington, D.C. In fact, in 2021, hate incidents against Asian Americans increased by 339%.

The stories of these attacks are horrific. On January 28, 2021, 84-year-old Vicha Ratanapakdee, an immigrant from Thailand, was attacked in front of his San Francisco home. He never regained consciousness and later died from the injuries he sustained during the attack.

On March 16, 2021, three Asian American owned spas in Atlanta, Georgia were targeted, resulting in the violent murder of eight men and women, six of which were of Asian heritage. This community will never be the same.

In June 2021, Cesar Echano, a 70-year-old Filipino American man in Cerritos, was assaulted when he was walking with his wife in Don Knabe Community Regional Park. The man yelled profanities, telling them they “don’t belong here” and to “go back to your country” before following them to their car and physically attacking Mr. Echano.

In January 2022, Hoa Nguyen, a 67-year-old Vietnamese grandmother, was walking down the street in Brooklyn, New York on the way to the grocery store when she was punched several times in the head by a stranger. The assailant admitted to police he targeted Ms. Nguyen because of her race. Because of this senseless violence, she no longer feels safe walking on the streets or taking public transportation.

Many in the AAPI community feel similarly, fearing they may be next. This evil must not be allowed to stand. No American should live in fear as they go about their daily lives. That is not who we are as a nation. Only together can we end the discrimination and hatred experienced by Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders in Southern California and across the country. That is why I led a bipartisan, bicameral resolution with 24 of my colleagues in the House of Representatives and one Senator to stand with our AAPI neighbors and friends in solidarity against this senseless violence.

First, our resolution makes clear that Congress condemns all racism against Asian-Americans, Native Hawaiians, and Pacific Islanders in any form. Second, we call on federal law enforcement to improve their cooperation with state and local officials to improve reporting of hate crimes and quickly and vigorously investigate all reports of hate crimes and threats. Finally, we call on law enforcement to bring the perpetrators of these horrific crimes, incidents, and threats to justice. If you have experienced violence, I encourage you to report the incident to law enforcement. Together, we can protect our community from those who perpetuate these hateful acts.

We live in the greatest country in the world, but we are always striving to live up to the mission, laid out in our Constitution, to “form a more perfect union.” We must work constantly to maintain those values and ensure equal opportunity for everyone. Opportunity to live in safety, without fear of discrimination or violent hatred. I invite you to join me in standing firm beside our AAPI friends and neighbors against hatred.

Only together can we protect and preserve the principles of this nation that we all love.

Michelle Steel represents the 45th congressional district.

With a new Republican majority, we’ll start by kicking the government’s tax-and-spend addiction. Today, I am re-introducing legislation to defund the Biden Administration’s $80 billion plan to hire 87,000 new IRS agents targeting middle-class families with a flood of audits.

In the coming days, I will introduce legislation to stop government snooping on Americans’ finances and protect independent contractors from efforts to nationalize California’s disastrous Assembly Bill 5.

America faces many foreign adversaries, but none poses a greater threat than the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). As a member of the Congressional-Executive Commission on China, I will continue highlighting the CCP’s human rights abuses and efforts to spy on Americans and steal our technology.

We made a good first step in the recently passed National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) by starting an assessment of LOGINK, a shipping logistics technology that the CCP could use to disrupt our supply chains and spy on U.S. Navy ships. To prevent the CCP from meddling in our supply chains or spying on our armed forces, we must ban this technology, and I will continue fighting to end it.

I recently returned from Taiwan where I saw first-hand the importance of our relationship with the island nation and the threat they face from the CCP. We must stand with Taiwan.

It’s not all doom and gloom. Working together, we achieved many successes for Orange County, getting many legislative priorities enacted into law.

When the supply chain crisis and bureaucratic mismanagement emptied shelves nationwide of baby formula, leaving parents desperate and hopeless, I introduced legislation requiring the government to make a plan to prevent this kind of crisis from happening again. We got that bill signed into law in just four days.

I also introduced bipartisan legislation to form a task force to address the ship backlog at the Ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles and prevent future disruptions. That proposal was included in the NDAA and became law on December 23rd.

When I came to Washington, I promised progress on local environmental priorities like the Surfside-Sunset sand replenishment and Newport Beach dredging projects, which were significantly delayed because the federal government refused to prioritize the necessary funding. Working with local stakeholders for years, I fully understood the importance of the sand issue. When I got to Congress, I advocated day-and-night to secure this funding and, in the end, we successfully brought home over $23 million for the restoration of our world-class beaches.

My team helped over 3,000 constituents navigate federal agencies and returned over $19 million dollars directly to taxpayers.

Looking back on the last two years, I am proud to have kept my promises.

These are just some of the many wins we secured for Southern California families. However, high taxes, skyrocketing costs, and increasingly hostile foreign adversaries continue threatening our way of life.

Despite the new changes coming in this next session of Congress, my commitment to you remains the same: standing up for taxpayers and against higher taxes; doing everything we can to protect America from the Chinese Communist Party; and ensuring all Americans are on an even playing field.

Michelle Steel represents California’s 45th congressional district.

It’s estimated that the average family spends 23 hours on summer road trips. But this year during their travels, families are being hit with some of the highest gas prices they’ve ever seen. In fact, Californians are paying the highest gas prices in the country. The average price for a gallon of gas in our state – about $6.40 – has gone up more than 30% in the last year.

In some places across Southern California, gas is more than $7 a gallon. After months of higher prices at the pump, you don’t need to read national news headlines to know that people are fed up.

Included in the $6.40 gallon of gas is nearly $1.20 in taxes and fees, 51 cents of which is the state’s gas tax. This year the state of California has a budget surplus of almost $100 billion, thanks to state Democrats having collected an extra $55 billion in taxes. Those dollars belong in your pocket, not Gov. Gavin Newsom’s.

Despite bipartisan calls in Congress for Newsom to suspend the tax, and state lawmakers’ opportunity to provide relief for California families, nothing has been done to alleviate these skyrocketing costs. Instead, in just a few weeks on July 1, the gas tax is going to increase to 54 cents a gallon. This is on top of record-high inflation, which is costing the average American household an extra $5,200 this year. It’s time to repeal the state gas tax entirely and begin providing relief to hard-working Californians.

Inflation is just another tax on every American, and in California we already pay some of the highest taxes in the entire country. Repealing this tax could save families up to $10 every time they visit a gas station. But this tax repeal, though helpful, would ultimately be a band aid on a much bigger issue.

The reality is that the United States and California could be strong leaders in the energy independence movement, but liberal policies are holding us back and American families are the ones paying the price. The U.S. is the largest oil producing country in the world, responsible for almost 20% of worldwide crude oil production.

We have the resources and the tools to produce our own supply. Instead, we’re reliant on markets run by dictators like Vladimir Putin and Nicolás Maduro. The United States cannot be a leader on the world stage while beholden to foreign dictators’ oil.

Major U.S. refineries are shutting down while the Biden Administration moves further away from oil and gas production, completely halting new oil and gas leasing on federal lands.

40 years ago, California produced 61% of the oil that the state consumed. By 2019 that number had fallen by half, and now the state imports 37% of its oil from Saudi Arabia. We also receive major imports from Iraq. Shockingly, we produce less than 1% of the oil used within our state.

We have the resources right here at home to bring down costs and produce energy to supply our needs. President Biden and national Democrats have been leading the charge to close U.S. refineries by creating stricter regulations that are fueling the crisis we see today. California and the U.S. should use their state-of-the-art technology to be leaders in oil refining.

Unfortunately, the U.S. only has 18% of the world’s refineries, this hurts our economy in many ways, these are high skilled, high paying jobs that could be in California.

There is not one-size-fits-all solution to America’s energy needs. We need an all of the above energy policy to address the challenges that we face as a nation. That means wind, electric, solar, and yes – oil and gas.

Until we are truly energy independent, we will continue relying on these foreign countries and at the mercy of the global markets. Without realistic policies that address the current state of affairs at home and abroad, and embraces all forms of energy, there’s little relief in sight.

American families are tired of paying more and getting less, and this administration needs to drop its war on American energy so that they can have the security and stability they deserve.

Michelle Steel represents the 48th Congressional District.

I was born in South Korea, raised in Japan, and have spent the last 45 years in America. English is my third language. After moving to America at 19, I met my husband and raised our family in Southern California.

I am living the American Dream and proud every day to represent our community in Congress.

Some say my English is broken, but that implies there’s something wrong with how I, and millions of other Americans, speak. I often note that my accent is a result of reading, writing, and speaking in three languages, something that immigrants across our nation understand. That isn’t something we are ashamed of; it is something that makes us proud Americans.

Unfortunately, the worst of our society thinks an accent makes you un-American. I’ve experienced racism my whole life – having been called “Chairman Mao” and been told, “We don’t eat dogs like you do.”

And it happened again last week.

I was taken aback when a video surfaced of my opponent, Jay Chen, telling a town hall that people needed an “interpreter” to understand me when I spoke. What makes it worse, Mr. Chen himself is a child of immigrants and someone running for Congress. One would hope he would have a higher level of empathy for those whom English is not their first language. Additional videos then emerged showing this wasn’t the first time he criticized my accent and even went so far as to level sexist comments that I only take marching orders from my husband.

We must be better.

As an American who loves this country, I take the rise in hate crimes and racist language very seriously. Unfortunately, these are not new issues.

We’ve been fighting these racist and discriminatory issues for decades. In 1996, I supported and campaigned for California’s Proposition 209, which banned racial preferences in public hiring, education and contracting.

From March 2020 through December 2021, nearly 11,000 hate incidents against Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders were reported to Stop AAPI Hate.

When I served as chair of the Orange County Board of Supervisors, I introduced a resolution in 2020 to call for tolerance and compassion, and condemned discrimination against the AAPI community.

Now, as your representative in Congress, I have a larger platform and am proudly sharing my voice to make one thing clear: Hate has no home in this country or in this community.

In March, I joined United States Senator Tim Scott, R-South Carolina, to testify before the U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary for a hearing on combating hate crimes.

Last year, I joined my Democratic colleagues to testify in the House Committee on the Judiciary about the discrimination and violence faced by Asian Americans.

I recently hosted a self-defense workshop for AAPI seniors in my district. While it was well-attended, the workshop itself should not be necessary. Sadly, California is at the top of the list of hate incidents per state.

Though our parties may disagree on many issues, we can all agree that this hate and discrimination must stop. I was proud to support the COVID-19 Hate Crimes Act, which empowers federal law enforcement to attack this problem head on and put a stop to the rise in hate crimes.

Mr. Chen’s comments, while reprehensible, are far too common today.

I am not writing this seeking any kind of pity. On the contrary, I am hopeful that people will see Mr. Chen’s comments and have a better understanding of what so many immigrants experience regularly. We can learn from this. We can do better, and we must.

Michelle Steel represents the 48th congressional district.

That’s why we are working together with local stakeholders to bring awareness to an issue that is affecting our coastline every single day. Sand erosion threatens the safety of people, wildlife and vital infrastructure. For years, we have warned the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) and federal officials that a lack of action would have a direct and potentially devastating impact on our community.

Every major and minor storm diminishes the protective buffer between the Pacific Ocean and our homes, businesses, and public areas. Some areas have less than 100 feet of sand protecting them from the ocean. In July 2020, strong ocean waves combined with a high tide event in Newport Beach overpowered the coastline and flooded surrounding areas, including neighborhoods and parking lots. Officials had to rescue more than one hundred people and worked fast to limit the destabilizing impacts. That day the beach was closed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. But had 2020 been a normal year, the beach would have been full.

The erosion on Orange County’s beaches can be traced back to federal projects in the 1940s. The federal government widened Anaheim Bay and constructed breakwaters and jetties to service the new military bases that opened to boost military efforts for the U.S. Pacific Fleet. The USACE also created flood control projects along three local rivers, and breakwaters were constructed to create and protect the Los Angeles/Long Beach harbor. This new construction created narrowed beaches up and down the coastline that were now susceptible to extreme erosion.

The USACE and the federal government, realizing the damage that had been caused, took steps to repair the issue. The project was referred to as the “San Gabriel to Newport Bay Beach Renourishment Project (Surfside-Sunset),” and today it’s the Surfside-Sunset & Newport Beach Replenishment Project (Stage 13). The repair project, done in increments, began with in 1964 and saw eight more project stages through 1990. The project had a continued partnership between the federal government, which provided 67% of the financing, and local communities, which provided the remaining 33%. The local cost share was always covered when it was time for a new project stage.

Then in 1995, after planning Stage 10, the USACE abandoned their responsibilities to Orange County. In 2000, the USACE stated that it was no longer budgeting for any future stages in Orange County. This left the communities on the hook for the high costs and left the coast at a high risk for flooding and major storm damage.

Despite ongoing authorization and approval at the local level, the delay of federal construction funding has now made the next stage long overdue.

This project has a non-federal cost share agreement with local stakeholders including the state’s Department of Parks and Recreation, the city of Huntington Beach, city of Newport Beach, city of Seal Beach, and the Surfside Stormwater District have already paid their share of the $23.1 million cost associated with funding the project in 2018.

However, the delay of the project will most likely require additional quantities of sand to be deposited to augment the initial proposed 1.5 million cubic yards of sand, which will increase the cost of the project.

Our community cannot afford to wait any longer for these projects to restart. Further delaying action to mitigate the erosion on these beaches will continue to make Orange County more vulnerable to the change in sea level. As shown by the July 2020 Newport event, our communities are at a higher risk, even under normal conditions. If a major earthquake or tsunami were to strike the area, we could see major damage including loss of life.

It is imperative that the Army Corps immediately move forward on this project. This project – created by the federal government to fix a problem it caused – is a no-brainer. The safety, security and health of our communities depend on it.

Michelle Steel represents California’s 48th District in the U.S. Congress.  Jim Merid is the environmental services manager for the city of Huntington Beach.  Victor Kriss is the president of the Surfside Storm Water Protection District.

Proposition 209, passed by voters in 1996, adopted language from the 1964 Civil Rights Act to prohibit the state from discriminating against or giving preference to any individual or group on the basis race, sex, color, ethnicity or national origin in the areas of public employment, public contracts and public education admissions.

The Californians who voted to pass Prop. 209 knew that discrimination, though long entrenched in our society, is against the fundamental values of American culture. Prop. 209 applied to California the essence of Martin Luther King Jr.’s dream of a nation where individuals would be judged not by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

Both morality and data prove that this merit-based approach is working in its most controversial application – college admissions – and aiding minorities in the state. Hoping California voters ignore this, politicians in Sacramento recently approved Assembly Constitutional Amendment 5 (ACA 5), a ballot initiative repealing Prop. 209 and ensuring a return to racial discrimination.

Prop. 209 allows college applicants to be judged by their accomplishments in high school or community college in the admissions process, not by the color of their skin, where they come from, or by their gender. Because of this, we have seen an increase in both enrollments and graduation rates in California’s public colleges and universities.

Since the passage of Prop. 209, University of California schools have seen higher graduation rates. In the first ten years of Prop. 209, Black graduation rates at UC Berkeley saw a 6.5 percent increase. At UC San Diego, graduation rates for Black students rose from 26 percent to 52 percent. At UC Santa Cruz and UC Riverside, Black enrollment had a dramatic increase, and grades by Black students increased significantly as well.

Across the UC system, the four-year graduation rate for Black freshmen rose to 38 percent in the six years following Prop 209, from 22 percent in the six years prior to its passage.

Latino enrollment also increased in the UC system from 11.3 percent in 1998 to 20.7 percent in 2010. And while four-year graduation rates averaged 27 percent for Latino freshmen in the six years prior to Prop. 209, they rose to 40 percent in the six years after.

Asian American enrollment saw about a 5 percent increase from 36.1 to 41.3 percent over the ten-year period following passage of Prop. 209, with the percentage dropping to 39.8 percent in 2010.

In a press release announcing the UC Board of Regents support for ACA 5, Board Chair John A. Perez said –  without irony – “As we continue to explore all the University’s opportunities for action, I am proud UC endorsed giving California voters the chance to erase a stain, support opportunity and equality, and repeal Proposition 209.”

The text of Prop. 209 reads: The state shall not discriminate against, or grant preferential treatment to, any individual or group on the basis of race, sex, color, ethnicity, or national origin in the operation of public employment, public education, or public contracting.

And it works, even though there is still more to do.

What we cannot and should not do, in our ultimate quest for equality, is to reinstate racial discrimination. Particularly when we’ve seen that a policy of non-discrimination is actually lifting up Black, Hispanic and Asian Americans.

Eliminating Prop. 209 will divide us further along racial lines. It will reverse decades of merit-based advancement for all and promote unequal treatment based on race in California. This division is exactly what we seek to eliminate in the United States.

Michelle Steel is the chairwoman of the Orange County Board of Supervisors.