Free Republic

Arizonans will decide next year if they want to outlaw affirmative action programs and any special programs or preferences for women and minorities. the Senate gave final approval to a proposed constitutional amendment to prohibit preferential treatment or discrimination by government on the basis of race, sex or ethnic origin. The measure, which already has been approved by the House, now goes on the 2010 ballot. It will be the first time Arizonans get to vote on the issue. A similar initiative drive in 2008 failed when backers did not get enough signatures. But Californian Ward Connerly, who helped craft...

Anti-affirmative action advocate Ward Connerly and a Sacramento-based legal foundation today blasted Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and President Barack Obama's administration for a recently-enacted California Department of Transportation policy that awards contracts based on a race- and gender-based quota system. The Pacific Legal Foundation, an individual rights and limited government watchdog group, said that it is filing a lawsuit today against Caltrans on behalf of Associated General Contractors of America to reverse the department's mandate that 6.75 percent of contracts receiving federal money go to women, African Americans, Asian-Pacific Americans and Native Americans. The foundation says that the policy violates federal...

I love Ward Connerly. Simple as that. Were he running for office on any party ticket, it would take some strong competition to tear my vote away. I'd even smile at a Ward Connerly/Bill "Fat Albert" Cosby ticket. Connerly is a powerhouse dedicated to tearing down the mentality of inequality in America that masquerades as "equality" under affirmative action. After successfully passing California's Prop 209, Connerly founded The American Civil Rights Institute together with President of National Review, Dusty Rhodes, back in 1996. The Institude was designed to educate the public on the harms of racial and gender preferences... calling...

The issue that troubled many Americans about the widely publicized sermons of Rev. Jeremiah Wright was his view that America is an "institutionally racist" society. This view lies at the heart of the defense advocates of race preferences make for "affirmative action." It is also at the core of Black Liberation Theology. By supporting race preferences, Mr. Obama is unmistakably attaching himself to despicable ideas like Rev. Wright's. Mr. Connerly is chairman of the American Civil Rights Coalition and author of "Creating Equal" (Encounter, 2000).

A California group is running a radio ad that uses Barack Obama’s former minister and Nebraska’s only black state senator to take aim at affirmative action in the state. The ad, which includes a clip of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright saying “God damn America,’’ says Wright and Nebraska Sen. Ernie Chambers believe in race preferences, but most Nebraskans don’t... The American Civil Rights Initiative, which is sponsoring the ad, is pushing measures in several states, including Nebraska, that oppose affirmative action, which the group says gives preferential treatment on the basis of race, sex, color, ethnicity or national origin. The...

Ward Connerly's critics often blame the success of the millionaire businessman's anti-affirmative-action campaign on some dubious political sleight of hand. Now they'd like to make the former UC regent's controversial initiative disappear before it reaches the ballot in five states. Connerly's measure won handily in his home state of California and in Washington and Michigan, affecting race- or gender-based programs in public employment, education and contracting. Connerly spearheaded California's Proposition 209 in 1996, which amended the state constitution to outlaw race and gender-based preferences in state hiring and state university admissions. His twelve-year tenure on the Board of Regents ended...

The University of Michigan announced Wednesday it will comply with a new voter-approved ban on affirmative action and immediately stop considering race and gender in admissions. ADVERTISEMENT The move came in the middle of the admissions process for next fall's freshman class. The university has already begun sending out acceptance and rejection letters. The state constitutional amendment approved by the voters in November bans the use of race and gender preferences in public university admissions and government hiring and contracting. After it passed, the university put its admission process on hold and asked the courts that it be given until...

Did anyone just see this? Why would they even put her on? She said 'everyone knows it is the President's responsiblity - even Hollywood knows... I could just spit.

Liberals have been beating their collective breast in recent years over the Bush administration's post-9/11 assault on civil liberties. But Michigan Democrats-- from Gov. Jennifer Granholm to the State Board of Canvassers-- have joined ranks with a radical, 1960s-style Trotskyite group to deny state residents the most basic of all rights: the right to vote. The group, which... calls itself By Any Means Necessary (BAMN), has been engaged in a long guerilla campaign to prevent the Michigan Civil Rights Initiative (MCRI) from getting on the state ballot. This initiative, backed by Ward Connerly, ...seeks to end, once and for all,...

California lawmakers improperly and unconstitutionally adopted legislation two years ago that violated the state's ban on race-based preferences, a Sacramento Superior Court judge ruled Thursday. Ward Connerly called the ruling by Superior Court Judge Thomas M. Cecil another "nail in the coffin of preferences" based on race, sex, color, ethnicity or national origin. Connerly had argued in the suit that Assembly Bill 703, signed into law by Gov. Gray Davis, was an "end run" around Proposition 209, a 1996 initiative banning preferences in state hiring, contracting and education. "This is a happy day for me, personally, and for all of...

SACRAMENTO (AP) - A 2003 law intended to help minorities win government contracts and employment was struck down Thursday by a superior court judge because it conflicts with Proposition 209, which bans consideration of race and gender in public employment, education and contracting. Sacramento County Judge Thomas Cecil issued the ruling after Ward Connerly, the author of Proposition 209, filed suit shortly after the bill was signed into law by former Gov. Gray Davis in 2003. The law, AB 703, was intended to allow government agencies authority to only perform outreach in order to help minority or women-owned business gain...

Connerly to step down as Regent Influential figure will pursue goal to end affirmative action WALNUT CREEK - Ward Connerly, the outspoken affirmative-action opponent who led the drive to end preferential college admissions in California, will not seek a second 12-year term as a University of California regent. Connerly, 65, said he plans to step down from the governor-appointed UC board when his term ends March 1. He will attend his final board meeting next month. A spokeswoman for Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who will appoint Connerly's replacement, declined to say whether Schwarzenegger had told Connerly that he would not be...

SACRAMENTO (AP) - The end-of-session rush will hit the California Legislature this week as lawmakers try to finish work on hundreds of bills before the end of the month. The deadline to pass most bills is Aug. 31, and both houses have floor sessions scheduled every day through Friday. Among the measures that could be voted on this week are bills that would: - Ban smoking on state beaches unless the local government with jurisdiction over the beach wanted to allow it. - Allow pharmacies to sell hypodermic needles without a doctor's prescription, a step supporters say would help stem...

The most hated man on America's college campuses is George W. Bush. On many campuses, Ward Connerly ranks a close second. Connerly, who is black, is founder and chairman of the American Civil Rights Institute. In March 1993, he was appointed by Gov. Pete Wilson to the University of California Board of Regents for a 12-year term. He chaired the Proposition 209 campaign in California; the proposition, which banned the use of race in government employment, education and contracting, passed by an overwhelming majority in November 1996. He designed Proposition 54, the Racial Privacy Initiative, which would have banned the state...

“Light” as in light weight Joe Guzzardi October 20, 2003 California’s most tarnished politician is Lieutenant Governor Cruz Bustamante. He is the only man in the state more discredited than Gray Davis. Having run an inept, lifeless campaign Bustamante not only failed to win over prospective voters, he instead made a long list of new enemies. To understand the totality of Bustamante’s failure, read the column by Steve Sailer on the webzine VDARE. Com. Political analysts agree that Bustamante is terminally damaged goods. According to Tony Quinn, “It's almost impossible two months ago to have thought of any way that...

In July 2002, the California secretary of state certified that enough signatures had been submitted to qualify the "Racial Privacy Initiative" (RPI) — an initiative to ban government classification based on race and skin color — for the ballot in the next statewide California election. Little did anyone know at the time that the next statewide election in California would be a special election in October 2003 to recall Governor Gray Davis. According to California's election code, any ballot initiative that has qualified for the ballot is automatically rolled over to the next statewide election, a fact that doomed RPI.A...

SACRAMENTO, CALIF.—Ward Connerly, chairman of the Yes on Proposition 54 campaign, today denounced Lieutenant Governor Cruz Bustamante’s graceless, shameful attempt to demonize Proposition 54 and its supporters in a concession speech Bustamante gave on October 7. Bustamante, who lost decisively in his bid to become California’s next governor, bitterly mischaracterized the initiative that was written to be a first, measured step towards a “color-blind” government and society as a racist plot, even though he claims to want a color-blind society himself.“Proposition 54 was bad for health care, public safety and education,” Bustamante said, despite Prop 54’s blanket exemption for all...

To You,I thank you for your help and support, your distribution and authorings of materials, your YES Vote in support of California's Proposition 54! As I'm sure you are aware -- Proposition 54 did not win; but certainly NOT for lack of heroes in all aspects of public and private life doing all within their power to assert "these truths" and against one of the most well-funded Political-Smear campaigns in California History. Compared to 54's approx $200K in funding -- opposition to 54 'acquired' approx $10 million to fight Prop 54. As far as the percentages in results went and...

<p>Proposition 54, a constitutional amendment proposed by UC Regent Ward Connerly to ban most state agencies from collecting racial and ethnic data died Tuesday night after opponents successfully focused the attention on its possible effects on health care.</p> <p>Connerly proposed the initiative, he said, because the practice of classifying people by race is antiquated and divisive.</p>

<p>If Proposition 54 fails in today's election, the author and leading proponent of the initiative said he will make another go at banning the state from collecting racial and ethnic data after cleaning up "flawed" and confusing language in the measure.</p>