Affirmative action may be bound for ballots

Colorado voters could be voting next year on abolishing affirmative action programs, including racial preferences in college admissions.

Led by a former Colorado Springs woman who fought an affirmative action case for years, the Colorado Civil Rights Initiative announced plans Monday to put the measure on the 2008 ballot.

The campaign, part of what is being termed a crusade for a colorblind America, is one of several being launched around the country.

“It’s all about our government getting out of the business of making decisions based on something we have no control over,” said Valery Pech Orr, executive director of the Colorado Civil Rights Initiative.

Colorado is ready for the issue, she said.

“We’ve had 40 years of these programs, and the pendulum has swerved so far in the other direction,” she said. “We’ve got to get past the point of making decisions based on race.”

In 1990, she and her then-husband, Randy Pech, the owners of Adarand Constructors Inc., filed suit against the Department of Transportation after it chose a Hispanic-owned firm that made a higher bid to install highway guardrails. The Pechs, who are white, argued that they were victims of reverse discrimination.

In 1995, they won a landmark U.S. Supreme Court ruling that established a new and tougher standard for using race as a factor in awarding federal government contracts.

In 2001, Randy Pech returned to the Supreme Court to argue for abolishing a federal contracting program that favors minority-owned firms, but the court dismissed the case.

The current proposal says the state may not discriminate against or grant preferential treatment to individuals or groups based on race, color, sex, ethnicity or national origin. It would apply to hiring, contracts and public education.

“The larger context is we are trying to purge race out of the body,” said Ward Connerly, a California businessman who is backing the proposal.

“The time to do that is now,” said Connerly, who also backed proposals in California, Washington and Michigan and is working with groups in Missouri, Oklahoma and Arizona.

He said the nation has come a long way since such programs were introduced in the 1960s, a point echoed by Sen. Dave Schultheis, R-Colorado Springs, who said he supports the initiative.

“I think the public has had it with the reverse discrimination that’s taken place,” Schultheis said.

Sen. John Morse, D-Colorado Springs, blasted the initiative as the product of people who do not understand what it means to be discriminated against.

“I would love it if we did not need any kind of affirmative action, if we all treated one another exactly the same,” he said. But because that’s not the case, he said, such programs remain necessary.

The issue was considered a factor in Morse’s victory over incumbent Sen. Ed Jones in 2006. Two years earlier, Jones sponsored a bill attempting to eliminate affirmative action programs. The bill, which failed by a single vote, angered many black leaders and minorities.

Morse said he welcomes the initiative as something that will draw Democrats to the polls in 2008.

“I think this is a great getout-the-vote tool,” he said.