Affirmative Action Battle Starts in State
Affirmative Action Battle Starts in Stateby Brad Bennett, Miami Herald Staff Writer
The Florida NAACP is vigorously planning to stop Ward Connerly's winning streak.
Connerly, the conservative black businessman who successfully campaigned for a ban on affirmative action in California and Washington state, has gathered half of the 55,000 signatures needed to get such a measure on the November 2000 ballot -- all within four months, since he announced that he was coming to Florida.
The NAACP is pushing to get its own countermeasure on the ballot, which seeks to preserve affirmative action and step up statewide enforcement.
The organization is joining other advocacy groups and launching a statewide campaign with radio and TV ads, town hall meetings and messages in churches and street corners to convince voters that preference programs for women and minorities must continue.
``When you talk about eliminating those, you talk about eliminating the opportunities that those programs create,'' said Leon Russell, president of the Florida NAACP. ``It's obvious that you have had discriminatory policies in the past which have led to insufficient numbers of minorities, of females. There are issues all across the state where we see the current evidence of failure to really diversify local government.''
To preserve affirmative action measures, NAACP leaders have created a coalition named Floridians Representing Equality and Equity, or FREE.
FREE will include, among others, Florida chapters of the National Organization for Women, National Bar Association, Hispanic Bar Association, Florida Women's Consortium, League of United Latin American Citizens and Florida Association of Minority Business Enterprises.
``We're open to working with the NAACP,'' said Terry Neese, public policy adviser for the National Association of Women Business Owners. ``Let's solve the problem of making sure we have women and minorities at the table. We have products and services that we can sell just as well as anyone else.''
NAACP leaders are also increasing their voter registration efforts and plan to drive voters to the polls on Election Day.
All of this is in response to Connerly's measure, which seeks to amend Florida's Constitution to ban preferences based on race and gender in state and local government contracts and in public university admissions.
``I think they're going to have a difficult time,'' Broward County pollster Jim Kane said of the NAACP's efforts.
Not only is Connerly's campaign well-financed, a poll Kane conducted two years ago showed that a majority of white Florida voters want to end preference programs.
Impetus for amendment
``There's a natural inclination for white voters, at least, that individuals should become successful on their own, regardless of race, gender or national origin,'' Kane said. ``That very well could propel this constitutional amendment into the 50 percent range.''
To some people, affirmative action reversed centuries of racism.
To others, like Connerly's supporters, it is simply discrimination.
``It is our position that we will never end discrimination by practicing discrimination,'' said William Stroop, executive manager of the South Florida chapter of the Associated General Contractors of America, whose goal is to raise more than $1 million to fund Connerly's efforts.
``There is no doubt that special preferences and quotas based on skin color, ethnicity, national origin or gender are in fact a form of discrimination,'' Stroop said.
Affirmative action actually hurts minorities and women, some Connerly supporters say.
``It's basically saying that they can't get work without a specific mandate giving the work to them,'' said Herb Harmon, senior advisor for the Florida Civil Rights Initiative, which is coordinating Connerly's ballot efforts statewide.
Already, Connerly's supporters have gathered more than half the 55,000 petition signatures they will need to meet the state's legal requirements for getting the proposal before the state Supreme Court.
How the petition shapes up
The group actually needs 43,000 signatures, but plans to collect about 25 percent more, since thousands of petitions normally fail to meet validation requirements.
If the high court approves the ballot measure, Connerly's group would need to gather as many as 440,000 signatures to put it on Florida's 2000 general election ballot.
If the measure does make it that far, it will most likely pass overwhelmingly, Kane said.
``If you've got the money, you can do it,'' Kane said, estimating that Connerly's campaign for petition signatures is costing about a dollar a name. ``So far, it's all a matter of money. These aren't volunteers that are doing this. These are paid individuals. Professional organizations that get paid by number of verified signatures.''
On the other hand, it will be difficult for the NAACP, a volunteer organization, to get its own countermeasure on the ballot, Kane said.
``I think it's a pipe dream,'' he said. ``I just don't see it happening. I don't see them raising a significant amount of cash.''
The places that have traditionally given the NAACP its biggest support -- churches, community groups and black fraternities and sororities -- don't have deep pockets.
NAACP leaders say they may not be able to raise a lot of money for their campaign, but that won't stop them.
A question of money
``We will not have the amount of money that a Ward Connerly will have,'' said Roosevelt Walters, president of the Fort Lauderdale NAACP branch and a member of the organization's statewide executive committee. ``But we have enough to make sure that the victory will be for most of the people, not the big people.''
Educating voters might persuade black voters to reject Connerly's measure, Kane said.
``To get out there and campaign against the amendment . . . will have some success,'' Kane said. ``It's a question of how many will change their minds, and will they get 50 percent?''
In Tampa, where Connerly started his petition campaign, NAACP leaders are trying to get the word out that the black community must support affirmative action by voting down Connerly's measure.
They are holding town hall meetings all over the Tampa area. Connerly's petitions sound good, they say, but actually will have a negative impact on women and minorities.
Kane agreed.
``The [ballot] language is so misleading, and there's so little information about it here in Florida at this point, that people don't fully understand the implications of this language,'' he said.
Less black representation
There will be fewer black doctors who will care for people in their own communities, and fewer black police officers, NAACP leaders say.
``It's more likely that doctors who come out of those communities will serve in those communities,'' Russell said. ``You can see the impact that having a good, diverse, representative police force has on a community. People are more likely to work with their police department if they feel as though it represents them.''
Diversity in the public sector will falter without affirmative action, NAACP leaders say.
Minority firms would be priced out of business because they could not compete with white firms, said Sam Horton, president of the Hillsborough County NAACP branch, which covers the Tampa area.
``Most minorities cannot compete against the larger organizations,'' Horton said. ``They just don't have the resources.''
At least right now, Horton said, minority firms have some legal avenues of appeal when they are locked out of opportunities.
But, Horton said, ``If there's no law on the books, you don't have any avenue to take it to the courts. Then the only recourse you have is to have a protest movement. We should be beyond that.''
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Carl
Gutiérrez-Jones
Department of English
University of California, Santa Barbara
e-mail: carlgj@humanitas.ucsb.edu