Posted on 04/17/2008 7:56:10 AM PDT by Uncledave
Racial-Preference Ballots Go National Initiatives in four states could shape the presidential election. 16 April 2008
With race looming as a key issue in the fall elections—perhaps a pivotal one, assuming that Barack Obama is the Democratic nominee—diehard defenders of the racial status quo are going to unprecedented lengths to prevent voters from having their say on government-sponsored racial preferences. Leftist activists are lining up to fight four state ballot initiatives that, if passed on November 4, will outlaw preferential treatment based on race, gender, and national origin in public university admissions as well as government hiring and contracting. Knowing that such anti-preference initiatives enjoy strong public support—in fact, they have already passed overwhelmingly in three of the nation’s bluest states—the activists have zero interest in waging these fights on the merits. Rather, their goal is to keep the initiatives off the ballot by any means necessary, up to and including political chicanery and outright physical intimidation.
The states where anti-preferences forces are aiming to be on the ballot are Arizona, Colorado, Missouri, and Nebraska. Leading the campaign, dubbed “Super Tuesday for Equal Rights,” is California businessman Ward Connerly, long the nation’s leading advocate for colorblind government policies. In 1996, Connerly launched the first such measure, the California Civil Rights Initiative, or Proposition 209; he was drawn to the issue by his realization, as a trustee of the state’s university system, that race was routinely the key determinant in whether a student was accepted or rejected at California’s public colleges. Following a bruising campaign, marked by Prop. 209 opponents’ relentlessly attacking supporters as racist, the initiative passed by 8 points. Two years later, a near-identical measure won by 16 points in Washington State. And in 2006, despite a powerful Democratic tide, the Michigan Civil Rights Initiative likewise passed by a decisive 58 to 42 percent.
In fact, so powerfully does the issue resonate with voters as a matter of elementary fairness that its support everywhere cuts across traditional party lines. In liberal Washington State, for example, the anti-preferences initiative was backed not only by 80 percent of Republicans and 62 percent of independents, but by 41 percent of Democrats; this in the face of liberal opposition that—abetted by such local corporate behemoths as Eddie Bauer, Microsoft, and Starbucks—massively outspent supporters of the measure. The Michigan Civil Rights Initiative similarly passed despite the fierce opposition of a liberal-left coalition of 180 groups, ranging from the League of Women Voters and the United Auto Workers to the Arab-American Institute. After the Michigan initiative’s passage, the leader of the most radical of the opposition groups, By Any Means Necessary, declared that the only way to stop anti-preference measures was to ensure that they never reached the voters.
While Connerly’s troops have gone about the difficult and costly process of placing the state initiatives on the ballot this November, preference defenders have seized on unprincipled strategies to block them, focusing in particular on two swing states with large minority populations: Colorado and Missouri. In Colorado, the pro-preference side first mounted a series of challenges to the legal basis of the Colorado Civil Rights Initiative (CCRI), alleging that it deceptively misappropriated the term “civil rights” and also claiming that “preferences” did not in and of themselves equal “discrimination”—so that in seeking to outlaw both, the measure supposedly violated the state’s “single-subject” rule governing ballot initiatives.
When these arguments failed to pass muster with the electoral commission and state courts, preference defenders tried an even more novel approach, deceptive in intent yet heavy-handed in execution: a ballot initiative of their own, a shadow version of the anti-preference measure clearly intended to confuse voters. Indeed, its first sentence is identical to that of the anti-preference measure: “Shall there be an amendment to the Colorado Constitution concerning a prohibition against discrimination by the state, and, in connection therewith, prohibiting the state from discriminating against or granting 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, and public contracting?” But as Connerly notes, “it proceeds in the second sentence to say that, notwithstanding the first sentence, any public agency in Colorado would be free to leave preferences intact.”
After considerable back-and-forth, the state’s title board disallowed the language in the shadow amendment, and preference supporters are currently trying to come up with alternative wording. But given the need to submit upward of 76,000 valid signatures to place an initiative on the state ballot, the clock is running out. Meanwhile, CCRI supporters have already submitted 50,000 more signatures than required, so the genuine anti-preferences initiative will definitely be on the ballot.
So, almost certainly, will the measures in Nebraska and in John McCain’s home state of Arizona. Connerly remains confident about Missouri as well, though the opposition there has been even more aggressive in its tactics. Democratic secretary of state Robin Carnahan, charged with what is normally the routine certification of ballot measures, instead went to work on this one, eliminating its straightforward language, derived from that of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and substituting wording that pleads the other side’s case. The question, as she wanted to pose it to voters, was whether to amend the state’s constitution to “ban affirmative action programs designed to eliminate discrimination against, and improve opportunities for, women and minorities in public contracting, employment and education.” So egregious was this subterfuge that a liberal county circuit judge took the unprecedented step of throwing out Carnahan’s rewrite and reinstating the original language almost intact.
Still, as Connerly observes, “all the forces of the Left are converging in Missouri—Acorn and the rest of the race industry, the feminists, the unions, the contractors who feed off this stuff—and George Soros is providing a lot of the funding. They’re enlisting the whole vast left-wing conspiracy—and, believe me, it’s a lot vaster than the supposed right-wing one.” The ugliness is most evident on the streets, where supporters of the ballot initiative are busy gathering signatures. Opponents’ chief tactic is to use “blockers”—often burly union men—to shadow signature gatherers and scare off potential signers by charging not only that the initiative is racist and has the support of the Ku Klux Klan, but also that the signers risk identity theft. In addition, the pro-preferences sources have dispatched their people to sign petitions with false names and addresses, so that they will be invalidated later.
Earlier this year, such methods took their toll in Oklahoma, which was to be the fifth state holding such an initiative and where, with the measure polling at close to 90 percent, it would surely have won. In the end, though, the number of signatures gathered exceeded the required number by only a few thousand. Since typically only 72 percent of any petition’s signatures are valid, and since the ACLU and NAACP were importing teams to challenge every one, Connerly chose not to proceed. “We had a choice of spending a quarter of a million dollars to defend the signatures we had, with the likelihood of not succeeding,” he says, “or fight another day. Eventually we’ll have to sue to change that process.” But Oklahoma is a special case, with the toughest ballot requirements anywhere: all signature gatherers must be state residents, and they have a mere 90 days to get an unusually high number of signatures.
Connerly is taking no chances in Missouri. The fight against Carnahan’s rewrite of the initiative ate up considerable time, and with a May 4 deadline looming, he has put out a call for opponents of racial preferences to come to the state over the next few weeks and lend a hand. “I don’t blame the Democrats for being scared of these initiatives,” he says with understatement, “especially on the heels of Jeremiah Wright.”
Though the racial-preference ballot measures are officially nonpartisan, they stand to make a dramatic impact on the fall campaign. With the question of racial preferences effectively nationalized by its presence on multiple state ballots, neither party’s presidential candidate will be able to evade the issue. While this might pose a dilemma for McCain—who, like most Republicans, has long shied away from the topic and might worry about jeopardizing Hispanic support—it could be catastrophic for Obama. As Connerly says, “This is a guy who’s tried awfully hard for a long time not to appear what he is—just another left-winger who supports preferences.”
Harry Stein is a contributing editor of City Journal. A journalist and novelist, he is the author of How I Accidentally Joined the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy (and Found Inner Peace) and The Girl Watchers Club. He will be teaching this summer at the Brouzils Seminars in France (brouzils.org).
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Racial preferences are illegal. There is no obligation to obey the laws that violate the rights of Whites.
Interesting article, but I’m not so sure that racial quotas are always a bad thing. Take, for instance, law school admissions. I went to law school, and one of the things that has struck me ever since is how difficult it is to say what it is that makes for a successful lawyer, or a lawyer that serves the public interest. Can we really say that a student with a 3.3 gpa (in 17th century literature, for example, because law schools don’t care what you studied as an undergrad) is always more qualified than a student with a 3.0 gpa? When you have a population that is 15% Asian, don’t you think that a law school should be allowed to take that into consideration if it finds that its class only has 2% Asian? This is our justice system, after all. It is important that all people feel that it will be fair to them.
When you live in a city with a significant Hispanic population, you need a certain number of Hispanics involved in the courts, just like you need a certain number of Hispanic police. Law is not nuclear physics; it’s just not that complicated. Most anyone who can read at a 6th grade level can soon master what needs to be known in their area of practice. What matters most in making a good lawyer or a good judge are things that do not show up on LSAT scores or GPAs: kindness, a strong sense of fair plan, communication skills, and a determination that justice should be done.
I’m sick of filling in that little box on job apps and stuff.
Lately, I’ve been answering “decline to state” or “unknown”.
Entrance should go to the most qualified, regardless of criteria. Race and gender should not be part of the decision. Using objective standards like standardized tests and gpa provide measures that are more difficult to manipulate by both applicant and evaluator. I think that the application process should be blind for race and gender as much as possible.
Racial preferences in admissions, hiring, and contracting are inherently corrupt. They lead to less qualified workforces, higher costs for public services, racial separation, and an entitlement mentality.
Really? Why is that? Do you also need a certain number of Hispanic firefighters? How about a certain number of Hispanic-owned office supply firms? How about a certain number of Hispanic-owned municipal trash haulers?
So, in your opinion, such people should be selected on the basis of skin color alone?
There's nothing wrong with having multiple qualifications for entry to law school, etc. But there is no reason for one of them to be skin color -- a circumstance every bit as egregious as exclusion on the basis of skin color.
Racial preferences and quotas are flat un-American -- whether they favor the majority or the minority.
Uh...no you don't. If you continue with that logic and most of the Hispanics are illegal, should the lawyers be illegals too?
Put it this way. If you were a white person and had to go to court and there were only black lawyers and black judges, how comfortable would you feel about being treated fairly?
If I were a white person and absolutely no other white people had any interest in lawyering or any qualifications to judge, I'd pretty much have to trust myself to the people who do.
I would be better off doing that than trusting the services of unqualified representation who gained their position out of some sort of racial preference.
The professions are wide open to any minority who wants to make the effort. There is absolutely no reason why there should be quotas -- for anybody.
“I would be better off doing that than trusting the services of unqualified representation who gained their position out of some sort of racial preference.”
Just because you were not in the top 10% of your class doesn’t mean you are unqualified. Before 1960, my law school (University of Texas) took virtually all applicants who had a univeristy degree. It’s only become very competitive in the last few decades. Like I said before, practicing law is not like being a nuclear physicist. And there’s very little they teach you in law school that’s of much use anyay. And finally, from practicing with those older lawyers I can tell you that many of them were better lawyers, especially better trial lawyers, than the pencil-pushers that are being turned out these days.
Affirmative action is wrong no matter how you try to rationalize it. It doesn’t make any difference whether the judge was black or white or the lawyers where black or white. As long as they had EARNED their job by being the best lawyers and judges in their respective fields; then I could care less whether they were Black, Brown or Green. In any field whether it be Law, Medicine, or Basketball, people should be selected base on their ability above all else. If you do not feel comfortable with people of different color, that is your problem, but in a truly merit base society we get to where we are base on our ability. Until then, I hope you feel comfortable with having an affirmative action candidate perform heart surgery on you. AA can only undermine true equality and fuel racial animosity. Martin Luther King Jr. would be rolling in his grave if he knew how much his dream is being usurp by this evil notion of preference base on race, only this time, the color has changed.
“Put it this way. If you were a white person and had to go to court and there were only black lawyers and black judges, how comfortable would you feel about being treated fairly?”
I wouldn’t be comfortable at all. And, safe to say, neither would most of the posters in this forum, regardless of what they might post publicly.
And this is EXACTLY why - in the next 20-40 years - you will see a mass-migration of Euro-Americans like the country has never before seen, eclisping even the old “white flight” from cities to surrounding suburbs.
But it won’t be city-suburb this time, it will be state-to-state, as savvy whites flee “diversity” and multiculturalism to congregate in those remaining states with .... um... non-diverse majorities, and where “traditional culture”, values, and reason will prevail for at least a little while longer....
- John
I agree completely.
Just like the color of your skin doesn't mean you are qualified. Or unqualified.
“Just like the color of your skin doesn’t mean you are qualified. Or unqualified.”
No, it doesn’t have anything to do with being qualified or unqualified. What I am saying, though, is that I think it makes a difference to people when they go to the courthouse if they can see people of their race participating in the justice system—as lawyers, or judges, or administrators. I think it makes them believe in the system more. I think this is important, and I think the law schools should be allowed to address this concern in their admissions policy.
I think the same argument could be made about having cops of different races. When there’s trouble in the black part of town, I suspect sometimes it’s better to send in a black cop.
LOL!
For years, I've just checked 'other' and wrote American in the blank.
Oddly enough, no one has ever questioned it. :-)
Sorry counselor, but Brown v. Board of Education pretty much destroyed the concept of separate but equal.
Let's put it in very simple terms.
When I'm lying in an operating room, I want the guy holding the scalpel to be there because he's qualified, not because of his color.
And so do you.
But there is absolutely no call in either case to accept unqualified individuals into law school, the bar or the police force -- solely on the basis of skin color -- in order to accomplish this goal.
A competent, well-trained black cop would be the best solution. But better a competent well-trained white cop than a black cop who earned his position solely by virtue of affirmative action.
The so-called "soft bigotry of low expectations" has a corrosive effect on the entire society -- inevitably lowering expectations for all.
As a society, our standards should be uniformly high. Otherwise, they become bound to the lowest common denominator.
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