Pro-preference forces in Michigan have been striving mightily to keep the Michigan Civil Rights Initiative, which like California’s successful Proposition 209 would ban racial preferences, off the state ballot. The greatest fear of those who support preferences appears to be giving people the opportunity to vote them up or down.
It appeared that the pro-preferentialists had succeeded when a judge in a lower state court ruled last month that the ballot proposal was “misleading” and ordered the state elections panel to withdraw its approval of the ballot being circulated. The legal import of this ruling was unclear inasmuch as board approval was apparently not required, but in event a three judge appeals court has just suspended the lower court opinion and moved for an expedited hearing on the matter.
