bnd.com
Sunday, Sep. 28, 2008
Associated Press
A new television and online ad questions the motives of a California businessman who is pushing a ban on most types of affirmative action in Nebraska and Colorado.
Kristina Wilfore, executive director of the liberal Ballot Initiative Strategy Center, said the ads started running Wednesday in Omaha and Denver. They question Ward Connerly's salary and millions of dollars paid to him in speaking fees.
Wilfore said Connerly's compensation from his group, the American Civil Rights Coalition, is "out-of-whack with any nonprofit industry standards."
Her group bases its figures on IRS tax records between 1997 and 2006, concluding that Connerly "lined his own pockets with over $7.6 million."
Connerly points out that the money doesn't all go to him. The group's board sets compensation, and the $7.6 million referred to includes salaries for other staff including attorneys, Connerly said.
Before he started this job, Connerly said, he made more than $2 million a year with his consulting firm, so suggesting he's in it to make money is false.
And he questions what he calls a personal attack.
"You'd think that I was on the ballot," Connerly said.
Banner ads from the group were running on the Omaha World-Herald Web site. A representative of Omaha's NBC affiliate, WOWT, said the group had bought two spots this week.
[To read the entire story, go to: http://www.bnd.com/news/politics/story/485242.html ]
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