"Prop 209 may spur national trend:
Affirmative-action opponents are encouraged by the passage of the California initiative"

Sam Howe Verhovek Houston
Santa Barbara News-Press, November 10, 1996

Last year legislation was introduced in 26 states and in Congress to repeal or significantly roll back affirmative action programs, Not a single bill passed. Then on Tuesday voters in California were asked a question. Should the state "not discriminate against, or grant preferential treatment to" any person or group in public employment, education or contracting? And after a tumultuous campaign over Proposition 209, they answered yes, by 54 percent to 46 percent.

Quickly seizing on the path-breaking vote, affirmative-action opponents across the United States are pledging to bring the issue back to the table and predicting that the California vote will help spur movement toward their goal of dismantling the policy in their states. "We absolutely have the momentum now," said Earl Ehrhart the Republican whip in the Georgia House of Representatives, who for three gears has unsuccessfully sponsored a bill similar to Proposition 209. "This is no longer just some idea out in California. It's something that was actually passed, by the people in the most populous state in the nation. So that puts it right in the middle of the radar screen."

But while there is no question that the California vote will generate a flurry of activity on the controversial issue, the broader question of whether it heralds the end of affirmative action is far more complicated. For one thing, the political dynamics in many states are very different from those in California, where the measure was strongly backed by Gov. Pete Wilson, a Republican.

In New York, for example, Gov. George Pataki, a Republican, has resisted calls to eliminate state affirmative-action programs. His New Jersey counterpart, Christie Todd Whitman, also a Republican, is a staunch defender of the policy. "Government should set an example of inclusiveness for others to follow," she said in a speech on the issue !last year, arguing that New Jersey had benefited from programs that took race and sex into account in hiring and promotion decisions.

In some conservative-leaning states in the West, it is simply not a hot-button issue, because the minority population is relatively small. And in many Southern states where the Democrats still control either or both houses of the legislature, such as Georgia, fervent opposition from minority legislators has spurred party leaders to block bills to repeal affirmative action, even though Republicans contend they would pass if put to a popular vote.

The wording of the California measure would suggest that voters have struck down any state program offering any preference based on race or sex for any state job, contract or university admission; whether it will have such a broad effect will be settled in the courts.

Those who fought the measure will argue in court that it violates the U.S. Constitution, including the equal-protection clause. The Supreme Court has left the door open to affirmative action, although it has ruled that racial preference programs intended to remedy past discrimination should be subject to a strict set of criteria.

And other factors are at work. Some experts predict that movement to repeal affirmative action could stall as state leaders look to see how and whether President Clinton carries out his pledge to take a "mend it, don't end it" approach on the issue.

Defenders of affirmative action also may have just been handed a potent argument when tape recordings of derogatory comments made by senior Texaco officials about minority employees were reported last week.

Several proponents of affirmative action who were interviewed cited the scandal to dismiss the notion advanced by some opponents of the policy, that the United States has moved beyond racial discrimination. But there is little question that the California vote has sparked a movement that outside the state had been strangely dormant this year. At one point Speaker Newt Gingrich indicated he would push for a bill ending all federal affirmative action programs. The Republican presidential candidate, Bob Dole, signed on as a high profile leader of the movement. But when push came to shove, the anti-affirmative-action bandwagon did not exactly get rolling. Efforts in Florida, Michigan and several other states to launch a California-style initiative stalled.

Now that the measure has passed, though, in what is clearly the most far-reaching popular rollback of affirmative action since the policy was launched roughly 30 years ago, opponents outside California are roaring back with a vengeance.

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Carl Gutierrez-Jones
Department of English
University of California Santa Barbara, CA 93106
E-mail: carlgj@humanitas.ucsb.edu