Reject Amendment 46, Hickenlooper tells voters

Rocky Mountain News

Published October 17, 2008 at 12:05 a.m.

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Mayor John Hickenlooper urged voters Thursday to reject Amendment 46, which would eliminate race- and gender- based affirmative action programs.

He said the proposal is "a solution in search of a problem."

Called the Colorado Civil Rights Initiative, Amendment 46 prohibits the state from granting preferential treatment to anyone on the basis of race, sex or ethnicity in hiring, education and contracts.

"Quotas and set-asides already are illegal," Hickenlooper said at a small rally at the City and County Building.

"The initiative is unnecessary because the courts have already carefully and narrowly defined the very limited, very restrictive circumstances under which public entities can take race and gender into account."

He said the programs that exist ensure equal opportunity for minority and female-owned businesses that historically have been discriminated against.

Jessica Corry, head of the campaign in favor of Amendment 46, disagreed.

"It is not 'narrowly tailored' to look a student in the eye, as our government does every day, and say, 'You can't participate in this program because you were born with the wrong skin color or gender,' " Corry said.

"Our opposition may have dozens of establishment types and special-interest groups but we've got hundreds of thousands of diverse voters supporting us."

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