<p>In the next month — and maybe as soon as within the next week — the Bush administration plans to submit to Congress its proposed reauthorization of the federal highway program, called TEA-21. The administration is now trying to decide whether the bill should include a requirement that the government's contractors and subcontractors be chosen not just on the basis of whether they are the low bidders, but also on the basis of race, ethnicity and sex. Yesterday, a number of leaders — including Linda Chavez, Clint Bolick, Ward Connerly and all four Republican appointees to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights — sent a letter to President Bush urging him not to include any such discrimination in his bill.</p>