Affirmative Action Supporters Develop Game Plan

November 17, 1999
Miami Herald

STEVE BOUSQUET
 sbousquet@herald.com

 ORLANDO -- Taking aim at both anti-affirmative action activist Ward Connerly and
 Gov. Jeb Bush, supporters of affirmative action huddled Saturday in a caucus
 timed to coincide with the annual rivalry on the gridiron between Florida's
 historically black schools.

 It was the largest meeting yet of FREE, Floridians Representing Equity and
 Equality. The loosely knit coalition of black legislators, civil rights activists and
 labor union members is fighting Connerly and Bush by organizing a statewide
 petition drive to put a pro-affirmative action constitutional amendment on the 2000
 ballot.

 They hope to electrify black voters to support affirmative action next year -- and to
 have a significant impact on political races from U.S. president to the state
 Legislature.

 Connerly, a California businessman, has spearheaded successful efforts to
 dismantle affirmative action laws in California and Washington State, and has set
 his sights on Florida, where polls show widespread antipathy to racial
 preferences.

 Even though Bush opposes Connerly's initiative and has answered with his own
 voluntary program for racial diversity, FREE said Saturday that Bush would undo
 the few legal protections minorities enjoy when they apply for state contracts.

 The day brought together more than 100 supporters of the campaign to save
 affirmative action laws. FREE is led by Florida NAACP president Leon Russell
 and its fund-raising chairman is Bill McBride, managing partner of Holland &
 Knight, the state's largest law firm.

 ``If you believe Florida ought to be No. 1, and you believe we ought to invest in
 human capital, then you have to support affirmative action,'' Russell said. He
 emphasized FREE would seek support from Hispanics, professional clubs,
 National Council of Jewish Women and others.

 ``It's not a black issue. It's a minority issue,'' Russell said.

 The session was in the same hotel where hundreds of football fans had gathered
 for the Florida Classic, a matchup between rivals Florida A&M University and
 Bethune-Cookman College that attracts black professionals from all over Florida
 and from much of the country.

 FREE members handed out petitions. They passed around a cardboard box,
 asking for checks on the spot. And with a captive audience of 70,000 at the Citrus
 Bowl, they dispatched a Ryder truck full of petitions to the stadium on Saturday
 night in search of support.

 DEBATE SHAPES UP

 As emotional as a church revival meeting and as stridently partisan as a political
 convention, the session gave the strongest hints yet of what may be the dominant
 Florida political issue in 2000: dueling referendum campaigns on both sides of the
 affirmative action debate.

 ``If we have any black Republicans in here, and I offend you, too bad,'' said Rep.
 Les Miller, D-Tampa, the House Democratic leader, before attacking Bush's
 motives behind his One Florida Initiative.

 Miller was one of a half-dozen black political leaders who took turns firing up the
 crowd. Another was Sen. Daryl Jones, D-South Dade, who last week spoke in
 upbeat terms about Bush's plan, but abruptly dropped his support when his
 colleagues began a movement to remove him as chairman of the Florida
 Conference of Black State Legislators.

 Jones also resigned as Bush's choice to lead a state panel that will research why
 schools in minority neighborhoods often get less money and less-experienced
 teachers than schools in more affluent areas. An insurgent anti-Jones movement
 fizzled this week, and Jones turned a drawback into an asset Saturday, telling the
 crowd he resigned in principle over the Bush executive order banning racial
 set-asides in the executive-branch agencies.

 ``Sen. Jones was man enough and leader enough to say, `I was wrong. I was
 hoodwinked.' Some people would say bamboozled,'' said Sen. Kendrick Meek,
 D-Miami, who earlier in the week was organizing a caucus conference call at
 which Jones might have been forced to resign. The meeting collapsed after two
 Herald reporters tried to join the call.

 `WE NEED IT'

 Others who spoke were U.S. Rep. Corrine Brown, D-Jacksonville; State Sen.
 Buddy Dyer, D-Orlando; and state Reps. Chris Smith, D-Fort Lauderdale, and
 Willie Logan, D-Opa-locka, a nonpartisan U.S. Senate candidate.

 ``I think we need it. We definitely need this movement,'' said Arcine Rasberry of
 Miami, a workers' rights organizer. ``They're trying to take back all the different
 laws that have been passed.''

 ``Bush is trying to put his brother in the White House. Bottom line,'' said Sherman
 Henry, a public employee union organizer from Miami. ``Politics is about who gets
 what.''

 Civil rights advocates spoke with a mistrust of state government. Russell belittled
 a plank in Bush's plan that seeks to make it easier to submit allegations of racial
 discrimination by state agencies.

 Noting that the plan calls for a five-year ban from state contracts for a minority
 business owner who makes a frivolous complaint, Russell said: ``If you're a
 minority business person, it means keep your mouth closed, and don't complain.''
 

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Carl Gutiérrez-Jones
Department of English
University of California, Santa Barbara
e-mail: carlgj@humanitas.ucsb.edu