By Kevin Simpson Medianews staff
Article Launched: 06/07/2008 09:54:13 PM PDT
DENVER — Ward Connerly's critics often blame the success of the millionaire businessman's anti-affirmative-action campaign on some dubious political sleight of hand.
Now they'd like to make the former UC regent's controversial initiative disappear before it reaches the ballot in five states.
Connerly's measure won handily in his home state of California and in Washington and Michigan, affecting race- or gender-based programs in public employment, education and contracting.
Connerly spearheaded California's Proposition 209 in 1996, which amended the state constitution to outlaw race and gender-based preferences in state hiring and state university admissions. His twelve-year tenure on the Board of Regents ended March 1, 2005.
He has subsequently exported his initiative — and the financing behind it — to Colorado, Nebraska, Arizona, Missouri and Oklahoma.
His opponents have embraced a pre-emptive strategy.
By challenging the petition process on sidewalks, where they claim circulators mislead people into signing, and in court, they've managed to thwart his early momentum and hope to deal a major blow to his national campaign.
"The concern is that the entire Connerly operation is deceptive and I'd say fraudulent — how they gather signatures, how they wrote ballot language and how they say what it could and could not do," said Craig Hughes, whose Denver-based political-consulting firm has aided a court challenge to the petitions.
Although initiative supporters submitted more than enough signatures to put it on Colorado's ballot, opponents are trying to invalidate at least 53,000 of them to knock it off.
Efforts in four other states also have focused on the petition process and have opponents claiming some early victories.
Connerly withdrew from Oklahoma and Missouri once it appeared signature collection would fall short. Organizers in Nebraska say they're behind schedule to meet a July 4 deadline to submit signatures. Arizona proponents remain optimistic they'll make a July 3 deadline, but say it will be close.
"They don't want to have a discussion about the merits, because when they do, they lose," said Jessica Peck Corry, executive director of the Colorado Civil Rights Initiative. "We can have policy debates. But to allege that our argument is fraud is an outright lie."
Corry remains confident the measure will survive the legal challenge and remain on the ballot in Colorado.
Connerly's detractors suggest that the wheels are falling off his bandwagon and that what he projected as "Super Tuesday for Equal Rights" in November won't live up to its billing.
He maintains all that has changed is the timetable.
"Our staff said at the outset that doing five states in a year and a half is overly ambitious," said Connerly, a former University of California regent and architect of the anti-affirmative-action campaign. "But I said go ahead — and if we don't make it, we'll go in 2010. Everything is on track, as far as I'm concerned." [To read the entire story, go to: http://www.contracostatimes.com/nationandworld/ci_9518027 ]
Showing posts with label Super Tuesday. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Super Tuesday. Show all posts
Monday, June 9, 2008
Tuesday, February 5, 2008
Ward Connerly's Super Tuesday for Segregation
BlackCommentator.com: Ward Connerly's Super Tuesday for Segregation
by David A. Love Thursday Jan 31st, 2008 10:50 AM
"Supporting segregation need not be racist. One can believe in segregation and believe in equality of the races." - Ward Connerly, on CNN's "Wolf Blitzer Reports," Dec. 13, 2002 Ward Connerly, that high profile opponent for affirmative action and Black water carrier for the new Jim Crow, has returned. He wants to eliminate affirmative action everywhere, and make a buck at the same time. And with the help of corporate philanthropy and hate groups, he wants to take us back to the future we know too well. Connerly is plotting and planning for what he calls a Super Tuesday for Equal Rights. The purpose of his campaign is to promote ballot initiatives throughout the country that would eliminate tax dollars to affirmative action programs based on race and gender. Following similar initiatives in California, Michigan and Washington, he has targeted five states for this year's November ballot - Arizona, Colorado, Missouri, Nebraska and Oklahoma. Targeting states with relatively low numbers of people of color - and undoubtedly relying on the longstanding effectiveness of racial scapegoating, particularly in hard economic times, Connerly might very well succeed in the absence of a determined and coordinated campaign to quash his efforts. Although the anti-affirmative action forces seek to eliminate public funding of diversity based on gender as well as race, thereby harming White women as well, it is the so-called "racial preferences" that stick in the minds of people. Part of the time-tested Southern Strategy, anti-diversity campaigns is to appeal to disaffected Whites, who will act against their own interests, if it means the elimination of programs they believe are unfairly benefiting Black and Brown folks. Destroying the King Legacy is Profitable So, what's in it for Connerly? The dollars, of course. Apparently, there is much money to be made in dismantling the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and the civil rights movement, and Connerly is first in line to get paid. In 1993, he was given a platform by California Gov. Pete Wilson with a seat on the California Board of Regents. Soon, he became a crusader against all that is important to Black people. That crusade was made possible through the support of extreme right-wing corporate philanthropy and alliances with White supremacist hate groups. Certainly, behind every puppet there is a puppet master who controls the strings, and Ward Connerly is no exception. In 1996, Connerly, himself a beneficiary of affirmative action through a California set-aside program for minority contractors, was responsible for the passage of Proposition 209, which eliminated the use of affirmative action by the state government in hiring and university admissions. On the eve of Dr. King's birthday in 1997, thanks to the generosity of the ultra-conservative Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation and others, he formed the American Civil Rights Institute (ACRI). (The Bradley Foundation has funded organizations that seek to destroy civil rights, such as the Center for Individual Rights. Charles Murray, author of the infamous book The Bell Curve, is a Bradley fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.) That same year, Connerly also formed the American Civil Rights Coalition (ACRC), the lobbying arm of ACRI. In true Orwellian fashion, these organizations embrace the antithesis of what their names suggest. The Equal Justice Society reports that in 2003, based on IRS records, Connerly received $1 million in compensation for his anti-civil rights efforts at ACRI and ACRC. This does not include compensation he received as CEO of Connerly & Associates, his Sacramento-based real estate business. The group Media Transparency has detailed the bankrolling of Ward Connerly's segregationist operations by the Bradley, Olin and Scaife Foundations. When he was unwilling to disclose the funding sources of his failed Proposition 54 - which would have prevented California from collecting important racial data, thereby crippling any efforts to address racial disparities in healthcare and education - a coalition of civil rights organizations sued him. Connerly, who raised $1.6 million for the 2003 Prop 54 effort, was fined $95,000 for breaking campaign financing disclosure laws. According to the Equal Justice Society, some of his largest contributors included John Moores, Sr., University of California Regents board member and owner of the San Diego Padres ($400,000); Rupert Murdoch, owner of Fox News ($300,000); Joseph Coors, the late Colorado beer baron and founding partner of the Heritage Foundation ($250,000), and William J. Hume, head of the anti-labor San Francisco-based company Basic American Foods ($200,000). White Supremacist Support for Anti-Affirmative Action Efforts If people are judged by the company they keep, then history will not show kindness to Connerly and the foes of civil rights. In his successful campaign to eliminate affirmative action in Michigan, he allied himself with Rev. John Raternik, head of the Michigan chapter of the Council of Conservative Citizens (CCC). The CCC, a White supremacist organization, descended from the White Citizens' Councils of the Jim Crow era and is listed as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center. The CCC, which has made the issue of non-White immigration a top priority, has declared America "a European country," opposes "all efforts to mix the races" and refers to Black people as "a retrograde species of humanity." Well-known figures with ties to the CCC include Presidential candidate Mike Huckabee (R-AR), ex-Senator Trent Lott (R-MI), Governor Haley Barbor (R-MI), the late Senator Jesse Helms of North Carolina, former Mississippi Governor Kirk Fordice, and former Alabama Governor Guy Hunt. Connerly, who supports segregation, welcomed the support of White racist groups in his fight against affirmative action. "If the Ku Klux Klan thinks that equality is right, God bless them," said Connerly. "Thank them for finally reaching the point where logic and reason are being applied, instead of hate." Dishonoring the movement Conservatives will point to individuals such as Clarence Thomas, Ward Connerly and others who are viewed as "brave" and "courageous" for bucking the Black establishment and taking unpopular views. But there is no bravery in what Connerly does, which is to cynically misappropriate Dr. King's vision for a colorblind society, in order to strike a blow against the nation's civil rights protections. There is no honor in desecrating the graves of the truly courageous martyrs, those such as Viola Liuzzo, a mother of five from Detroit who was gunned down like a dog by the KKK in Alabama in 1965, all for fighting for civil rights. There is no honor in spitting on the memory of voting rights crusader Fannie Lou Hamer, who was jailed and beaten nearly to death by police in Mississippi, and never recovered from her wounds. Nor is there any glory in dishonoring and mocking the name of Vernon Dahmer, who was killed in a terrorist bombing, not in Iraq or Afghanistan, but in his home in Hattiesbug, Mississippi, after volunteering to pay for Black voters' poll taxes. [To read the entire article, go to: http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2008/01/31/18476057.php]
by David A. Love Thursday Jan 31st, 2008 10:50 AM
"Supporting segregation need not be racist. One can believe in segregation and believe in equality of the races." - Ward Connerly, on CNN's "Wolf Blitzer Reports," Dec. 13, 2002 Ward Connerly, that high profile opponent for affirmative action and Black water carrier for the new Jim Crow, has returned. He wants to eliminate affirmative action everywhere, and make a buck at the same time. And with the help of corporate philanthropy and hate groups, he wants to take us back to the future we know too well. Connerly is plotting and planning for what he calls a Super Tuesday for Equal Rights. The purpose of his campaign is to promote ballot initiatives throughout the country that would eliminate tax dollars to affirmative action programs based on race and gender. Following similar initiatives in California, Michigan and Washington, he has targeted five states for this year's November ballot - Arizona, Colorado, Missouri, Nebraska and Oklahoma. Targeting states with relatively low numbers of people of color - and undoubtedly relying on the longstanding effectiveness of racial scapegoating, particularly in hard economic times, Connerly might very well succeed in the absence of a determined and coordinated campaign to quash his efforts. Although the anti-affirmative action forces seek to eliminate public funding of diversity based on gender as well as race, thereby harming White women as well, it is the so-called "racial preferences" that stick in the minds of people. Part of the time-tested Southern Strategy, anti-diversity campaigns is to appeal to disaffected Whites, who will act against their own interests, if it means the elimination of programs they believe are unfairly benefiting Black and Brown folks. Destroying the King Legacy is Profitable So, what's in it for Connerly? The dollars, of course. Apparently, there is much money to be made in dismantling the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and the civil rights movement, and Connerly is first in line to get paid. In 1993, he was given a platform by California Gov. Pete Wilson with a seat on the California Board of Regents. Soon, he became a crusader against all that is important to Black people. That crusade was made possible through the support of extreme right-wing corporate philanthropy and alliances with White supremacist hate groups. Certainly, behind every puppet there is a puppet master who controls the strings, and Ward Connerly is no exception. In 1996, Connerly, himself a beneficiary of affirmative action through a California set-aside program for minority contractors, was responsible for the passage of Proposition 209, which eliminated the use of affirmative action by the state government in hiring and university admissions. On the eve of Dr. King's birthday in 1997, thanks to the generosity of the ultra-conservative Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation and others, he formed the American Civil Rights Institute (ACRI). (The Bradley Foundation has funded organizations that seek to destroy civil rights, such as the Center for Individual Rights. Charles Murray, author of the infamous book The Bell Curve, is a Bradley fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.) That same year, Connerly also formed the American Civil Rights Coalition (ACRC), the lobbying arm of ACRI. In true Orwellian fashion, these organizations embrace the antithesis of what their names suggest. The Equal Justice Society reports that in 2003, based on IRS records, Connerly received $1 million in compensation for his anti-civil rights efforts at ACRI and ACRC. This does not include compensation he received as CEO of Connerly & Associates, his Sacramento-based real estate business. The group Media Transparency has detailed the bankrolling of Ward Connerly's segregationist operations by the Bradley, Olin and Scaife Foundations. When he was unwilling to disclose the funding sources of his failed Proposition 54 - which would have prevented California from collecting important racial data, thereby crippling any efforts to address racial disparities in healthcare and education - a coalition of civil rights organizations sued him. Connerly, who raised $1.6 million for the 2003 Prop 54 effort, was fined $95,000 for breaking campaign financing disclosure laws. According to the Equal Justice Society, some of his largest contributors included John Moores, Sr., University of California Regents board member and owner of the San Diego Padres ($400,000); Rupert Murdoch, owner of Fox News ($300,000); Joseph Coors, the late Colorado beer baron and founding partner of the Heritage Foundation ($250,000), and William J. Hume, head of the anti-labor San Francisco-based company Basic American Foods ($200,000). White Supremacist Support for Anti-Affirmative Action Efforts If people are judged by the company they keep, then history will not show kindness to Connerly and the foes of civil rights. In his successful campaign to eliminate affirmative action in Michigan, he allied himself with Rev. John Raternik, head of the Michigan chapter of the Council of Conservative Citizens (CCC). The CCC, a White supremacist organization, descended from the White Citizens' Councils of the Jim Crow era and is listed as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center. The CCC, which has made the issue of non-White immigration a top priority, has declared America "a European country," opposes "all efforts to mix the races" and refers to Black people as "a retrograde species of humanity." Well-known figures with ties to the CCC include Presidential candidate Mike Huckabee (R-AR), ex-Senator Trent Lott (R-MI), Governor Haley Barbor (R-MI), the late Senator Jesse Helms of North Carolina, former Mississippi Governor Kirk Fordice, and former Alabama Governor Guy Hunt. Connerly, who supports segregation, welcomed the support of White racist groups in his fight against affirmative action. "If the Ku Klux Klan thinks that equality is right, God bless them," said Connerly. "Thank them for finally reaching the point where logic and reason are being applied, instead of hate." Dishonoring the movement Conservatives will point to individuals such as Clarence Thomas, Ward Connerly and others who are viewed as "brave" and "courageous" for bucking the Black establishment and taking unpopular views. But there is no bravery in what Connerly does, which is to cynically misappropriate Dr. King's vision for a colorblind society, in order to strike a blow against the nation's civil rights protections. There is no honor in desecrating the graves of the truly courageous martyrs, those such as Viola Liuzzo, a mother of five from Detroit who was gunned down like a dog by the KKK in Alabama in 1965, all for fighting for civil rights. There is no honor in spitting on the memory of voting rights crusader Fannie Lou Hamer, who was jailed and beaten nearly to death by police in Mississippi, and never recovered from her wounds. Nor is there any glory in dishonoring and mocking the name of Vernon Dahmer, who was killed in a terrorist bombing, not in Iraq or Afghanistan, but in his home in Hattiesbug, Mississippi, after volunteering to pay for Black voters' poll taxes. [To read the entire article, go to: http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2008/01/31/18476057.php]
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