Petitions submitted to ban race, gender preferences

Backer applauds Obama for not pushing race issue

By David Montero, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)

Published March 11, 2008 at 12:30 a.m.

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Photo by Ken Papaleo / The Rocky

Equal rights advocate Ward Connerly joined members of Colorado Civil Rights Initiative on Monday to announce the submission of 128,744 signatures to put the measure on the ballot.

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Ward Connerly, a black Republican who has been vilified by civil rights groups for supporting anti- affirmative action policies, shocked a few people at the state Capitol on Monday.

Connerly said he gave "a token" amount of money to Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama.

"I like the message he is sending that he is a post-racial candidate," said Connerly, a former University of California regent who is pushing a ballot measure in Colorado that would ban race and gender-based hiring preferences.

"Others have tried to exploit the color of his skin, but to his credit, he has not," Connerly said of Obama. "And my token support is saying I don't agree with you on a lot of policy issues, but I applaud as an American his effort to keep race out of the occasion."

Connerly was in Denver to announce the submission of 128,744 signatures on petitions to place the Colorado Civil Rights Initiative on the November ballot. The group needed to collect 76,047 valid signatures, which must be verified by the Secretary of State's Office.

Connerly was joined at the Capitol news conference by former state Sen. Ed Jones, a Republican from El Paso County, Valary Pech Orr, who is a supporter of the initiative, and state Sen. Dave Schultheis, R-Colorado Springs.

Jones, who is black, said Connerly's donation to Obama was not surprising - though Jones said he isn't supporting the Democrat.

"I'm just glad to see that I live in a country where he could be considered to lead the free world without consideration to his skin color," Jones said. "It just so happens he's not the one I'd pick to be our leader."

Connerly said Obama was "not a black candidate, but I think he deserves credit for trying to extract race explicitly from the body politic and deserves to be considered on his merits."

If the initiative qualifies for the November ballot, Connerly said Colorado would be one of five states to consider such a measure this year. The others are Arizona, Missouri, Nebraska and Oklahoma.

Backers of the measure say it would put into the Colorado Constitution language that mirrors the 1964 Civil Rights Act and says that "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."

Cathy Hazouri, executive director of the ACLU of Colorado, said the bill does not reflect the spirit of the Civil Rights Act, however.

"It's about going back to the bad old days where if you weren't a member of the right club, you didn't get promoted or get the government contracts," she said. "The 1964 Civil Rights Act is obliterated by this ballot initiative."

Jones, who grew up in the segregated South, said he remembered seeing the Ku Klux Klan walking down the street without their hoods - "they wanted us to know who they were. "

He also said until the passage of the Civil Rights Act and the work of Martin Luther King Jr., a lot needed to change.

But once those things were in place, Jones said he felt that blacks needed to make it on their merits.

"If I ever was told I got a job because of my skin color, I'd quit that job," he said. "I don't need that kind of help. I'll find another job."

And Connerly said that even though he supports the measure, he doesn't believe racism has been eliminated from society and that it goes beyond whites and blacks.

"Nobody has a franchise on discrimination," he said.

monterod@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-954-5236

Other victories

Ward Connerly has led similar successful ballot initiatives in:

* California 1996

* Washington 1998

* Michigan 2006

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Comments

March 11, 2008

3:14 a.m.

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Domino writes:

Obama should denounce Connerly and reject his support, just as he did with Farrakhan. Connerly is a tool of white racists.
March 11, 2008

4:02 a.m.

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angryman1n writes:

Smart man. Make skin color a non-issue, and make it on your own. That is the American Spirit.
March 11, 2008

6:33 a.m.

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Mtnsjohn writes:

Just how does one level the playing field by unleveling the playing field?

Just send me $29.95 and I will send a certificate that grants you victim status, and the right to butt in line in front of those equally or better qualified.
March 11, 2008

9:32 a.m.

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Marshdale writes:

Quit frankly even as a "LIBERAL" I understand the problems with race and gender preferances for hiring purposes. I don't care for them much myself. I have been a casualty of the law myself, but I'm not bitter about it, and here is why. I have worked for companies, primarilly family owned businesses who have flat out told me they would not hire a latino, or an African American simply because they are of a differrent race, even though they might be better qualified. So, untill we solve that problem minorities will continue to be pushed asside. I cant figure out what people are affraid of when hiring a minority. It is simply a mindset I don't understand.
March 11, 2008

8:17 p.m.

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American100 writes:

Can't tell you how many people have suggested I use the minority preference programs to further my construction company.

Don't need to. I compete on my own merits but some people still suspect I had help.

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