Individuals Join Campaign to Ban Affirmative Action
Individuals Join Campaign to Ban Affirmative Actionby Lesley Clark
Herald Capital Bureau
TALLAHASSEE -- A small group of retirees from Homestead to Margate are joining forces with deep-pocket building contractors to fuel a statewide campaign to ban affirmative action in Florida.
Responding to California businessman Ward Connerly's plea to stamp out preference programs based on race, gender or ethnic background in local and state government hiring and contracting, some 30 South Floridians have written checks for the cause ranging from $10 to $500.
Connerly's crusade appears to have touched a chord with some ordinary Floridians, people like Vera Letter, who mailed Connerly a check for $10. Letter said she believes there was a time when minorities needed a helping hand from government, but not anymore.
``I feel after 30 years and two generations it's time to put an end to it,'' said the 71-year-old grandmother and retired postal worker from Margate. ``It's not only no longer necessary but it's been misused. I think all minorities should be treated as fairly as possible without going overboard.''
Air Force retiree and Homestead resident Joseph Stringer sent along $20 after he received a fund-raising letter from Connerly.
``I'm against discrimination and affirmative action discriminates,'' said Stringer, 70. ``I don't think it's fair. I think that everyone should have an equal opportunity and no one should be guaranteed success.''
Some backers see it as a civil rights act.
``What Ward Connerly wants to do is get rid of quotas,'' said W. Adam Clatsoff of Coral Springs, 58, a financial planner who wrote a check for $500.
Clatsoff, a founding member of his city's Martin Luther King committee, compared Connerly to King, saying that both men worked to ensure that people were judged based on the content of their characters rather than their skin color.
``Sooner or later, people in this country will stop looking at the color of the people and start talking to the people inside,'' he said.
The support from individuals who have given small amounts is a tiny fraction of the amount the campaign has raised so far. Of the $77,652 the campaign reports getting as of June 30, more than $70,000 is from contractors and builders' trade groups across the state, including several prominent contractors in Miami-Dade and Broward counties.
The Hollywood-based South Florida chapter of the Associated General Contractors of America chipped in $20,000. The group did not return phone calls Tuesday. The statewide builders' group gave $34,600.
Fort Lauderdale builder James Cummings, a politically active Broward builder whose firm aggressively seeks government public works contracts, contributed $9,000. Cummings did not return phone calls seeking comment Tuesday.
Connerly said Tuesday that he was pleased with the fund-raising pace. The campaign hopes to raise $100,000 by mid-August to pay for the cost of gathering 45,000 voter signatures to clear its first hurdle: review of the proposed ballot language by the state Supreme Court.
``This is about where we wanted to be,'' said Connerly, who led similar ballot initiatives approved by voters in California and Washington state. ``It actually puts us a little ahead of schedule in terms of raising money.''
The building community has been criticized for spearheading the move, but that's because it's most affected by government preference programs, Connerly said.
``The contractors have a right to support this; they have a right to petition their government,'' Connerly said. ``The contractors are the ones who are bearing the burden.''
Connerly added that he wanted the initial effort to be home-grown.
``I wanted to make sure there was local support, that no one could make the claim that it was a carpetbag operation led by Connerly from California,'' he said.
But Connerly may be finding it more difficult to raise money that he first thought, given the Republican opposition in Florida, said Jim Kane, editor of Florida Voter, a nonpartisan, Broward-based polling service and newsletter.
Gov. Jeb Bush has said he does not support the measure and has criticized it as ``divisive.'' Florida's top legislative Republican leaders also have refused to support Connerly.
``They've certainly got enough to get the signatures to get to the Supreme Court, but they still have a long way to get the ballot,'' Kane said. ``It might be a problem for them that the Republican establishment has pretty much abandoned support due to the fact Jeb has it at an arm's length.''
If the high court approves the language, the campaign will face its most daunting task and will need to step up the fund-raising, Connerly said. The group would need to gather nearly a half-million signatures to get the measure before voters in November 2000.
Connerly said he will start raising money nationally once the measure clears the state Supreme Court and he expects volunteers to increase as the measure gains momentum. He estimated the fight could cost from $2 million to $10 million.
``But I made an agreement'' with the builders' groups, Connerly said. ``If you will raise the money to get on ballot, then I will help out by raising money from the national pool.''
Herald staff writers Steve Bousquet and Shari Rudavsky contributed to this report.
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Carl
Gutiérrez-Jones
Department of English
University of California, Santa Barbara
e-mail: carlgj@humanitas.ucsb.edu