Killing California's Quotas: Can't Count on it
Lochhead, Carolyn
Killing California's Quotas: Can't Count on it By Carolyn Lochhead If the California Civil Rights Initiative were in a popularity contest, the judges could go ahead and hand out the award. As...
...if an initiative will hurt them, then they'll put up the cash to stop it...
...Democrats openly fear it as a classic party-splitter...
...Unless those numbers change, CCRI is a winner...
...Because other GOP fundraising campaigns are underway, there are an increasing number of political mouths to feed...
...The initiative's backers concede the point...
...The one politically viable response that the Democrats could muster-ignoring race and focusing on women-parallels the civil rights initiative in this respect: It is a wedge issue capable of dividing Republicans and pulling moderate Democrats back into the fold...
...Wilson's own keen political instincts have pointed the way before, and when the polls insist, Democrats are unafraid to be his allies...
...Name a company that's going to write a check for $100,000 and be the first one out of the box to boot," says a Democratic campaign veteran...
...They asked the legislature to put the initiative on the March ballot instead of November's, but Speaker Brown strong-armed a party-line vote to deny it...
...Our feeling is that regardless of how this debate comes out, we'll probably continue to promote diversity and use affirmative action efforts to get there...
...I don't think there are many initiatives that can pass on the sheer strength of being the right thing," he says...
...Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer, staunch liberals both, raced to prove themselves tough on illegals...
...Pete Wilson has a long history of identifying hot buttons and exploiting them to win," says Sragow, who has been in three losing campaigns against him...
...But funny things can happen on the way to passage of popular ballot measures in the Golden State...
...Besides, virtually every major corporation made affirmative action part of personnel policy a long time ago...
...If you don't perceive any major positive results and all you can see are negative consequences, your decision is made for you...
...We've spent a tremendous amount of time over the last eight months trying to put together a solid financial foundation and it's moved very slowly...
...If it doesn't do one or the other, they're not interested...
...The big money, the dependable money, the easy money, has to come through corporations...
...Nobody has ever accused Pete Wilson of winning a race on charisma...
...In 1990, the environmentalists' wish-list initiative known as Big Green was defeated because corporations believed it was a threat to their pocketbooks...
...Manager Joe Gelmen says they have raised over $400,000 so far, but acknowledges there is little more than $100,000 in the bank...
...The initiative needs money fast...
...Only what this operative calls "really liberal die-hard activists" are staunchly defending affirmative action, "and that language does not resonate outside the community...
...Defending affirmative action as reparations for past discrimination, or attacking opponents as racist, won't work, the aide argues...
...It's very difficult to get corporations very excited about giving large dollars to something they can be traced back to and asked, 'Well, wait a second, are you against affirmative action?'" He believes the initiative will have to survive on individual donations...
...The results are never reliable, and they are always costly...
...Some voters were even angry, believing they had been deceived...
...By doing so, a corporation or individual could claim to be supportive of the Republican agenda generally, while avoiding the dangers of backing a specific initiative that takes on the well-entrenched preference colossus...
...The problem is simply this: Initiatives are expensive, and the CCRI's backers are having trouble raising money...
...But corporate timidity is not the only problem...
...What it does offer is the likelihood that corporations which sponsor it will face bad publicity, boycotts, and on-site demonstrations...
...One public relations executive laughs at the idea of donating to CCRI: "Frankly, for companies, including mine, that make a very big deal about their efforts to diversify the workplace," he says, "the idea of putting one's name on an anti-affirmative action campaign sort of destroys all the good will we've been attempting to build by creating a diversified workplace...
...Ward Connerly, the University of California regent and black businessman pilloried for leading the move to ban racial preferences in university admissions, is also a board member of the state Chamber of Commerce...
...Support remains solid at almost 2 to 1 in favor...
...Do you know how much money the Democrats have spent on polling and focus groups on this issue...
...They may have the power to get their own community stirred up, but they don't have the power to reach the electorate...
...The public is making up its mind right now about affirmative action and opponents are offering only a vacuum, says a highly-placed state Democratic aide...
...Darrell Issa, a southern California auto-alarm manufacturer who is co-chairing the initiative's campaign, says that whatever one may think about the corporate instinct to play it safe, there's no changing it...
...Opponents of the civil rights initiative, on the other hand, have an established grass-roots network that has no difficulty mobilizing for the cause, and they will probably get money from unions and civil rights groups around the country who perceive the initiative as a national threat...
...And if all else fails, the initiative can count on Democratic Disarray, which has achieved the status of a proper noun...
...Historically, corporations have tended to finance only those initiatives in which they have a clear financial stake...
...Nothing scares the California business establishment more than talk of boycotts and charges of racism over a social issue that does not explicitly slash their taxes, cut their regulation, or minimize their exposure to litigation...
...Carolyn Lochhead is a Washington reporter for the San Francisco Chronicle...
...The Foundation paid for a Lou Harris poll that undergirds the opposition strategy of painting the initiative as a fraud which seeks to roll back all anti-discrimination efforts...
...California corporations take such punitive measures seriously...
...Few think Wilson would allow the initiative to fail to get on the ballot for lack of money...
...Its simple language contains a powerful appeal to equal-opportunity liberals...
...They're still holding meetings at the White House trying to come up with strategy...
...Everybody walked up afterward and said, 'We certainly agree with you,'" Connerly says, "but you ask somebody to write a check to put their money where their mouth is, and they get very shaky in their boots...
...You'd see moderate Republicans afraid to touch this issue...
...One of the most active-and, by some insider accounts, vehemently alarmist-opponents is Peg Yorkin, the former wife of a prominent Hollywood producer, who heads the Feminist Majority Foundation...
...Steinberg's reaction to such thinking is blunt: "There were companies in the South that were comfortable with Jim Crow," he says, "because that was the status quo...
...Still, if the initiative's popularity stays high, Democrats in marginal districts could end up backing it...
...And the cost of getting these signatures, he says, will be around $1.75 million...
...The highly regarded Field Poll in California shows no softening of support for the initiative, and most importantly, no gender gap, says pollster Merv Field...
...And whatever happened to Governor Wilson's welfare reforms and school vouchers...
...Democrats need to be out there right now, changing people's minds and giving them a reason to be for affirmative action," this operative says...
...In such an environment, it is all too easy for Republican sympathizers to evince loyalty simply by sending dollars to this or that GOP candidate instead of sending money to the CCRI...
...I've sort of been worried that they're not going to get the signatures, and that would be a disaster," he says...
...As initiatives go, CCRI- which would ban race and gender preferences in state employment, education, and contracting-is very popular, popular enough to receive a 65 percent approval rating in a recent (September 7-10) poll conducted by the Los Angeles Times...
...Ken Khachigian, a veteran California GOP campaign strategist, draws parallels with the failure last fall of a school-choice initiative that was also prominent nationally but a bust locally...
...It's not our issue," explains an official with a large California corporation, "and I think there are a lot of companies who feel that way...
...But popularity does not ensure the success of an initiative, and for all that CCRI has going for it, if it cannot generate as much cash as it has enthusiasm, it will end up a very popular initiative that failed...
...They do not necessarily equate it with preferences, and they generally favor policies to aid women and minorities...
...So far there is no easy money to come by, and the hour is late," says Arnold Steinberg, chief strategist for the CCRI campaign...
...Democrats have no coherent or persuasive counter message, and are bickering over whether to back an alternative ballot measure...
...The civil rights initiative, on the other hand, offers no immediate financial rewards if it passes...
...Tom Wood and Glynn Custred, the drafters of the initiative, are "front guys," Harris argues...
...I can't use it...
...Already, the National Urban League has pulled a $10 million conference out of Los Angeles and others are following...
...At this point, with Wilson and the CCRI on the same ballot, non-partisanship seems unlikely...
...Says Michael Harris of the San Francisco-based Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights, "Our strategy is going to be to point out the deceptiveness and dishonesty of the measure...
...We really need to get a chunk of money in September and October," he says...
...There's this blank wall, and the anti-affirmative action people and Republicans in particular are giving people the language to be against affirmative action...
...He further argues that with the CCRI, "what you have is no upside and all downside...
...And after his experience with the big regents battle, Connerly cautions against underestimating opponents...
...Donations made by individuals are solicited through direct-mail campaigns...
...I mean, they can't wage a zero-expenditure campaign...
...After a Chamber speech attacking preferences, Connerly says he got a standing ovation...
...But most corporations don't want to get anywhere near the civil rights initiative...
...On school choice it was rather simple," Khachigian says...
...There's no compelling business need to dismantle affirmative action," says a spokesman for another major California corporation...
...This is Wilson's deal, and when Wilson turns on the money, the money will be there," predicts the Democratic campaign veteran...
...And if I don't have the tools-the language-to go out and talk to my friends and debate my relatives at dinner on why this is a bad initiative, and why affirmative action is good, we will lose...
...A counter-initiative would be distracting at best, in her view...
...If the past is a predictor, however, Democrats will probably wait until three months before the election and throw $2 million of ads on television-after people have already decided...
...To collect the 640,000 valid signatures needed to place the initiative before voters, Steinberg estimates it will be necessary to gather more than one million total signatures by late February...
...The poll found voters confused about the definition of affirmative action...
...Initiative backers insist that they want to keep the measure non-partisan and multiracial to avoid fueling the bitter polarization it is intended to salve...
...It drives a wedge right between our policy base and the people we have to get votes from," says Darry Sragow, a California Democratic strategist...
...If an initiative will help them, they'll put up the cash...
...The competition for dollars is very, very high," says John Herrington, the state GOP chairman...
...It's a fact of life...
...They try to affect this appeal as a couple of homespun professors who worked on this Chevy in the backyard under the shade tree and came up with it together...
...On the contrary, Field argues that "what we have seen is that white women and successful minority women feel that they have gotten where they are-as lawyers, journalists, professional people-not so much by affirmative action but on their own merit...
...By October 1, our cash flow requirements could easily be $50,000 or more a week...
...Sens...
...He also attacks the initiative as a cynical, professionally-crafted GOP ploy, "tested, revised, polled and focus-grouped," a charge the sponsors vigorously deny...
...Most Democratic officeholders and consultants are uncertain at this point and simply do not know how they are going to handle the initiative...
...By the time they negotiate the language of that initiative with Maxine Waters," she says, "they're going to have two initiatives they can't support...
...The kind of money an initiative campaign needs is not likely to come through individual donations, either...
...But if they do get the signatures, they're going to need some seed money to get it going...
...Wilson, the state's fundraising heavyweight, is sucking up money for his presidential campaign, along with eight other GOP candidates, and 10 other initiatives, not to mention four assembly recall campaigns stemming from the chaos in that chamber inspired by former Speaker Willie Brown...
...The Democratic aide contends, "If you gave me $2 million, I'd do a long, slow media campaign in radio, newspapers, and cable TV in California, and make it a women's issue, and drive a wedge right back into the Republican party...
...The only way I could see it defeated is if white women got behind the 'no' side, but we haven't seen that," he says...
...Ron Unz, a Silicon Valley entrepreneur who made a strong bid against Pete Wilson in last year's gubernatorial primary, says the usual money sources, business-type Republicans, "are very cowardly on this issue...
...When voters were told that CCRI would outlaw all affirmative action, support for the initiative suddenly sank...
...Democrats thought they had a sure winner with Big Green, remember...
...Unlike a candidate who can do favors, the civil rights initiative addresses "a social issue that . . . establishment businesses have pretty much made their peace with," Unz says...
...We got outspent 10 to 1." He thinks the civil rights initiative could succumb to the same problem...
...With minorities making up just 20 percent of the vote, Field believes the CCRI is in good shape...
...I could use it for a bonfire...
Vol. 1 • October 1995 • No. 3
