Just as last year's anti-affirmative-action initiative in California set off a wave of similar campaigns across the country, so too Californian anti-unionism has national echoes.

ECONOMIST: The rising, falling trade unions

If minority admissions continue to fall at Texas's state universities, the state's attorney-general, Dan Morales, will be urged to mount an attack on the appeal court's anti-affirmative-action ruling, which he will probably lose.

ECONOMIST: Race and education

It may be that a kind of pendulum is built into American politics: if the gun lobby or the anti-affirmative-action movement scores a victory, its supporters grow complacent and its adversaries redouble their efforts, so that the victory is soon reversed.

ECONOMIST: Why are these Republicans smiling?