Connerly guarantees
success -- in so many words

By TIM NICKENS Times Political Editor

© St. Petersburg Times, published February 7, 1999

Ward Connerly can win either way.

He ended affirmative action in sprawling, racially diverse California with the Republican governor's blessing and the Republican Party's money. And he ended it in smaller, more homogenous Washington state without Republican Party money or support from big business and the Democratic governor.

Now Connerly has his eye on Florida.

The smooth-talking California businessman says he will decide by March 15 whether to bring his campaign here.

"If he comes," said John Carlson, who ran the Washington campaign, "he'll win."

The reason, say Connerly's supporters and many of his opponents, is the wording of his question. He doesn't ask voters whether they want to end affirmative action, a concept many say they support. Instead, he asks whether it should be illegal to offer preferential treatment based on race and gender when awarding government jobs, contracts and college admissions.

The wording change makes all the difference in the world.

But first Connerly has to get his constitutional amendment on the ballot in 2000, and he would have to overcome more obstacles in Florida than in California or Washington. He would not have, for instance, Republican Gov. Jeb Bush's support or the state Republican Party's money. Business groups will not touch his idea, and Democrats and civil rights groups are ready to fight.

Still, Connerly has faced strong opposition before and won. And he relishes the thought of tackling the nation's fourth largest state in a presidential election year.

"Florida would be important, high-profile and complex," he said last week. "Florida is just as urban as Los Angeles, just as rural as parts of the Midwest. It is a microcosm of the nation."

'A very divisive battle'

Connerly's interest in Florida came to light last month when he visited with Bush in Tallahassee. Bush said he admires Connerly but does not want him to try to push a constitutional amendment here

"The people who would end up becoming active on both sides would create a very divisive battle," Bush said in an interview last week, "and this state does not need that."

Aside from building contractors, it is unclear where Connerly could turn for support and money. Affirmative action does not rank among education and tax cuts as a hot political issue in Florida.

Even U.S. Rep. Charles Canady of Lakeland is not on board, although he sponsored federal legislation in 1995 that mirrored Connerly's referendums and went nowhere.

"The political judgments about whether initiatives should be pursued or not I will leave to others," the Republican congressman said.

Connerly would need 435,000 signatures to get an amendment to the Florida Constitution on the ballot, fewer than California but far more than Washington. Its wording also would have to be approved by the state Supreme Court, a requirement Connerly did not have to meet elsewhere.

Besides Florida, Connerly also is considering Michigan, Oregon, Nebraska and Colorado. He could run referendum campaigns in two of those states for the price of a Florida campaign.

"If I were a betting man, I would think he is going to sidestep Florida," said M. Dane Waters, president of the nonpartisan Initiative and Referendum Institute, which tracks voter initiatives.

But Connerly is taking Florida's pulse.

One of his organizations, the Sacramento-based American Civil Rights Coalition, soon will conduct a statewide poll. Voters will be asked whether they support ballot language that would make it illegal to "grant preferential treatment to any individual or group on the basis of race, sex, color, ethnicity or national origin in the operation of public employment, public education or public contracting."

In California, that language won 54 percent of the vote. In Washington, 58 percent.

The nonpartisan Florida Voter poll asked the same question in a November 1997 survey. The startling result: 84 percent in favor, 12 percent against and 4 percent no opinion.

"The best strategy," said Florida NAACP President Leon Russell, who opposes Connerly, "is to keep it off the ballot."

Starting from scratch

As a University of California regent, Connerly led the successful effort to end racial preferences in admissions in 1995. Then Republican Gov. Pete Wilson talked him into taking over the Proposition 209 referendum drive

In Washington, a state legislator and a small business owner already had launched the petition drive and gathered about 17,000 signatures before turning to Connerly for help.

In Florida, Connerly would have to start from scratch.

A 1997 effort by Orlando consultant John Barry to gather signatures for a constitutional amendment that mirrored Connerly's never got off the ground. He said he could not raise any money.

The most serious effort to change the Florida Constitution has come from affirmative action's supporters. The Florida NAACP and others lobbied the Constitution Revision Commission last year to place an amendment on the ballot to provide constitutional protection.

Russell said the idea was dropped after supporters were convinced that affirmative action was not in danger. He said any effort by Connerly would be fought by the NAACP and by Floridians Representing Equality and Equity (FREE), a year-old coalition that includes the NAACP, the National Organization for Women and the Hispanic Bar Association.

If Connerly shows up, Russell said, supporters of affirmative action may launch a competing amendment drive to protect it.

"Either you are going to face your diversity and work with it and help everybody move forward," the NAACP president said, "or you are going to be in a perpetual state of confusion and conflict."

Connerly would have some assets to draw on in Florida.

Connerly does have solid support from one group: the Florida Associated General Contractors Council, which claims about 2,000 members and invited him to Tallahassee last month.

For starters, there is the new report by the nonprofit Lincoln Center for Public Service. It concludes the state's law and medical schools are admitting black students ahead of white students with higher grade point averages and standardized test scores.

But Thomas Dye, a retired Florida State University professor who runs the Lincoln Center from Delray Beach, said he would not work for a constitutional amendment.

"I'm really not sure myself, personally and separate from the Lincoln Center, that a referendum now would be particularly useful or successful," he said.

Connerly does have solid support from one group: the Florida Associated General Contractors Council, which claims about 2,000 members and invited him to Tallahassee last month.

Allen Douglas, the council's executive director, said the contractors think requirements to include minority firms in bids for government contracts should be revised to benefit all small businesses. He said they are prepared to back the initiative drive with endorsements and money.

"We can't afford to go around suing everybody," Douglas said. "We would like to see this issue put before the people of Florida."

Connerly also could enlist the help of the Tax Cap Committee, a grass-roots group based in New Smyrna Beach. It has been the driving force behind several successful anti-tax amendments to the state Constitution.

David Biddulph, head of the Tax Cap Committee, said he has offered Connerly the group's help in navigating Florida and collecting signatures.

"I have great admiration for anyone with the guts to take on anything like this," Biddulph said.

Where would money come from?

In 1994, the casino industry spent $16-million and won only 38 percent of the vote in a failed bid to legalize casino gambling. In 1996, the sugar industry spent $24-million to defeat a tax on sugar that would have raised money to restore the Everglades

Connerly estimated it would cost up to $5-million to hire signature gatherers and run a media campaign. That may be a conservative estimate.

Pat Roberts of Tallahassee, who has managed amendment campaigns both for and against casino gambling, said Connerly might need as much as $10-million. He also said too much out-of-state money would hurt Connerly's cause.

"You're painted as somebody trying to impose their beliefs from the outside on the people of Florida," Roberts said.

Connerly said he would not run the campaign himself or raise all of the money.

In California, Proposition 209 supporters raised more than $3-million and much of the money came from the state Republican Party.

In Washington, Connerly promised to raise a dollar outside the state for every dollar amendment supporters raised from within. Supporters in Washington raised about $500,000, and campaign chairman John Carlson said Connerly more than met his pledge.

But Washington only has two primary television markets. Florida has 10, and it is unclear where Connerly could turn for money besides the construction contractors.

Florida Republican Party Chairman Al Cardenas, said the state party would not support the referendum effort or give it money.

"At the end of the day the damage to society is so much more than the perceived benefits," he said of Connerly's referendum drives. "I will do what I can to discourage his coming to Florida."

Countered Connerly: "They can't keep the rank and file from contributing."

Officials with the Florida Chamber of Commerce, Associated Industries and the National Federation of Independent Businesses said they do not envision their organizations financially backing a constitutional amendment.

"I just don't see anybody in the business community being willing to stand up and take a pro-active position on a constitutional amendment like this," said Lee Hinkle, senior vice president for government affairs at the Florida Chamber.

Connerly and his supporters have heard such talk before.

Last year in Washington, they overcame opposition from civil rights groups and from Boeing, Microsoft and the Seattle Times. The opponents' better-financed campaign, which focused more on the initiative's impact on women than on race, failed.

The initiative's supporters ran television ads warning that the same pro-business and civil rights groups that opposed them had supported busing for integration. Another ad featured a woman who had filed a lawsuit claiming she was denied admission to the University of Washington law school because she was white.

But Connerly's best asset was the wording of the amendment, said Kelly Evans, a consultant who helped manage the opponents' campaign.

"What happened on Election Day is most of the undecideds voted yes," Evans said. "We had a much harder job because people are confused about what it is and what it isn't."

Carlson, who ran the pro-initiative campaign, said most Washington businesses remained quietly on the sidelines of the debate. While the state Republican Party contributed just one mailing and no money, he said local Republican clubs and other grass-roots groups worked for the effort.

Connerly predicts the same dynamics would occur here. While Bush might not openly support an amendment, he said, the governor also might not actively oppose it. He said Bush would not want to jeopardize the potential presidential campaign of his brother, Texas Gov. George W. Bush, by opposing an idea many Republicans support.

But the stakes are also high for Bush, whose campaign efforts to reach out to African American communities were unprecedented for a Florida Republican.

"If Bush would give any hint to endorsing this," said Susan MacManus, a University of South Florida political science professor, "all of the gains in the black community and the elderly community would be gone in a heartbeat."
-- Times Staff Writer Bill Duryea and researcher Kitty Bennett contributed to this report.

• He champions the cause against affirmative action