Ward Connerly, the chief backer of a campaign to ban affirmative action in five states, said that he was abandoning the Oklahoma campaign due to a lack of signatures on petitions to get the issue on the November voting ballot. This is, essentially, a blow for his campaign. Connerly opponents, a coalition of traditional civil rights advocates including the American Civil Liberties Union and NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, hailed the his camp's decision, filed in court papers last Friday. They had contested the validity of petition signatures turned into and accepted by the secretary of state.
“We knew it was going to be a problematic campaign in Oklahoma, but we decided to roll the dice anyway,” Connerly said Monday in a telephone interview. “It was just a miscalculation. We’re not going to waste anymore time or money on it,” this year, he said. “We’ll be back.”
The decision to bail out of Oklahoma, where Connerly’s ballot initiative was expected to easily win approval this fall by the state’s overwhelmingly conservative voters, narrows his “Super Tuesday Equal Rights Campaign” to four states — Arizona, Colorado, Missouri and Nebraska. Voters would be asked to ban race and gender “preferences” in public college admissions and awarding of government contracts. This occurrence in Oklahoma may be an omen of things to come for the rest of the states.
The one state in the ‘safe’ column to date is Colorado, Connerly said. The other three are engaged in petition drives and, in the case of Missouri, a court fight. Connerly said he would now focus his money and energy on those states, in hopes of having proposed constitutional amendments on ballots in at least three states.
The surprise move in Oklahoma followed an early March court challenge by the ACLU and its coalition of Connerly opponents. In papers filed with the Oklahoma Supreme Court, the coalition objected to the “signature count verified by the secretary of state.”
The Secretary of State said the Connerly forces appeared to have sufficient signatures to get on the ballot based on a numerical count, although there were “large numbers of duplicate names and addresses discovered well into the signature counting process” and that there were likely to be more.
The coalition charged the signature count was “defective” for a number of reasons. Some of the names were of people who were not legal voters in Oklahoma, they charged. Some of the signatures were from people who signed more than once. Some petitions were circulated by people who were not legal residents of Oklahoma, a violation of state law. Also, some signatures were not properly verified or notarized, the group claimed.
Connerly said Oklahoma laws are far more rigid that those of his other ballot initiative states and that made Oklahoma “problematic” for several reasons. There was the 90-day time frame the state set for getting signatures. Most states allow at least 120 days. The state requires all circulators of petitions be residents of the state. Most states don’t, he said. Oklahoma requires petitioners to secure enough valid signatures to equal at least 15 percent of the number of votes received by the highest vote-getter in the state’s last general election. Most states require a smaller percentage.
“Hell no, they didn’t defeat us,” Connerly said, when asked if the Oklahoma decision represented a defeat of his efforts by his opponents. “The process defeated us.” No, I don't think he will manage to get this initiative on all the remaining states.
Personally, I think that a person should be judged on their qualifications, which included experience, education and ability to get the job done, but we live in a society where it is sometimes who you know and not what you know that gets you the job. I will venture to say that most companies are fair in their hiring practices, but there are people who work for these organization who are not. The same holds true for education. Some black youths are at an economic disadvantage than their white counterparts and need some assistance to get into the best colleges and universities. For me, when I applied to Ohio University, I did not disclose my race because I wanted to be accepted based on my educational credentials, and I was. This is how it should be, but this is not the case many times. So, while affirmative action is very controversial, it is nonetheless needed in many cases in this country. We have come a long way, and have a long way yet to travel. Just my thoughts, you be the judge.....
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“We knew it was going to be a problematic campaign in Oklahoma, but we decided to roll the dice anyway,” Connerly said Monday in a telephone interview. “It was just a miscalculation. We’re not going to waste anymore time or money on it,” this year, he said. “We’ll be back.”
The decision to bail out of Oklahoma, where Connerly’s ballot initiative was expected to easily win approval this fall by the state’s overwhelmingly conservative voters, narrows his “Super Tuesday Equal Rights Campaign” to four states — Arizona, Colorado, Missouri and Nebraska. Voters would be asked to ban race and gender “preferences” in public college admissions and awarding of government contracts. This occurrence in Oklahoma may be an omen of things to come for the rest of the states.
The one state in the ‘safe’ column to date is Colorado, Connerly said. The other three are engaged in petition drives and, in the case of Missouri, a court fight. Connerly said he would now focus his money and energy on those states, in hopes of having proposed constitutional amendments on ballots in at least three states.
The surprise move in Oklahoma followed an early March court challenge by the ACLU and its coalition of Connerly opponents. In papers filed with the Oklahoma Supreme Court, the coalition objected to the “signature count verified by the secretary of state.”
The Secretary of State said the Connerly forces appeared to have sufficient signatures to get on the ballot based on a numerical count, although there were “large numbers of duplicate names and addresses discovered well into the signature counting process” and that there were likely to be more.
The coalition charged the signature count was “defective” for a number of reasons. Some of the names were of people who were not legal voters in Oklahoma, they charged. Some of the signatures were from people who signed more than once. Some petitions were circulated by people who were not legal residents of Oklahoma, a violation of state law. Also, some signatures were not properly verified or notarized, the group claimed.
Connerly said Oklahoma laws are far more rigid that those of his other ballot initiative states and that made Oklahoma “problematic” for several reasons. There was the 90-day time frame the state set for getting signatures. Most states allow at least 120 days. The state requires all circulators of petitions be residents of the state. Most states don’t, he said. Oklahoma requires petitioners to secure enough valid signatures to equal at least 15 percent of the number of votes received by the highest vote-getter in the state’s last general election. Most states require a smaller percentage.
“Hell no, they didn’t defeat us,” Connerly said, when asked if the Oklahoma decision represented a defeat of his efforts by his opponents. “The process defeated us.” No, I don't think he will manage to get this initiative on all the remaining states.
Personally, I think that a person should be judged on their qualifications, which included experience, education and ability to get the job done, but we live in a society where it is sometimes who you know and not what you know that gets you the job. I will venture to say that most companies are fair in their hiring practices, but there are people who work for these organization who are not. The same holds true for education. Some black youths are at an economic disadvantage than their white counterparts and need some assistance to get into the best colleges and universities. For me, when I applied to Ohio University, I did not disclose my race because I wanted to be accepted based on my educational credentials, and I was. This is how it should be, but this is not the case many times. So, while affirmative action is very controversial, it is nonetheless needed in many cases in this country. We have come a long way, and have a long way yet to travel. Just my thoughts, you be the judge.....
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