Given all the evidence that piled up in California, Washington, and Michigan (regarding the latter, most has been referenced here), my noting once again that opponents of colorblind equality habitually stoop to deviousness and duplicity is about as surprising (and about as vulnerable to successful contradiction) as noting that the sun rises in the east.
For example, if all the Breast Beating were justified, i.e., if it were true that passing MCRI “would mean gender-specific programs — like free breast, cervical and prostate cancer testing” would be “at risk,” and women could “forget about programs such as breast and cervical cancer screening, breast-feeding promotion, domestic violence treatment and prevention programs,” and “A ban on affirmative action could mean the end of state funding for gender-specific health services, including breast, prostate and cervical cancer screenings,” if all or any of those things were true, it should be easy for someone to point out women’s health services that have been eliminated in California, Washington, and now Michigan, all of which have passed initiatives banning race, ethnic, and gender preferences by the state. Where are they?
As noted here and elsewhere, this hysteria has already begun in Colorado, but the hysteria of preferentialists campaigning against colorblind equal opportunity pales into insignificance compared to the malfeasance of all too many state officials. Take Missouri, for example (no, you take it). As I’ve discussed several times — see here, here, and here — Democratic Secretary of State Robin Carnahan and Democratic Attorney General Jay Nixon so flagrantly disregarded their legal obligation to prepare ballot language that is “true and impartial” that their attempt to substitute biased language was thrown out by a state judge, the first time a Missouri secretary of state’s proposed language had been rejected in the state’s history.
But now Colorado preferentialists threaten to take the cake, leaving both the hysterics and the official miscreants in the dust of their devilishly clever duplicity. They have recognized, to their credit, that if citizens are give the opportunity they will vote in overwhelming numbers to enshrine the principle of colorblind equality in their state constitution. After California and Washington, preferentialists in Michigan recognized the same thing, and as a result launched a major effort to keep the initiative off the ballot, just as preferentialists are now doing in Missouri and Oklahoma. In Colorado, however, preferentialists are not trying so much to keep the colorblind non-discrimination off the ballot as to defeat it by dissembling and confusion.
They have decided that if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em. Or rather, give the (misleading and false) appearance of joining them. They have decided, in short, to launch what appears (falsely) to be an anti-discrimination initiative of their own. Make sure you’re sitting down, and then take a look at it:
Colorado Equal Opportunity Initiative
The State shall not discriminate against, or 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. Nothing in this section shall be interpreted as limiting the State’s authority to act consistently with standards sdet under the United States Constitution, as interpreted by the United States Supreme Court, in public employment, public education, or public contracting.
As proposed by the state title board, that language became:
Shall there be an amendment to the Colorado constitution concerning prohibiting the state from denying equal opportunity to persons, and, in connection therewith, prohibiting the state from discriminating against or granting preferential treatment to any individual or group on the basis of race, sex, color, ethnicity, or national origin in the operation of public employment, education, and contracting; preserving the state’s authority to take actions regarding public employment, education, and contracting that are consistent with the United States constitution and interpretations thereof by the United States supreme court….
If the first sentence (or in title board’s version, the first clause) of this proposed initiative sounds familiar, it’s because it’s virtually identical with the operative sentence of the Colorado Civil Rights Initiative, and the language that was passed in California, Washington, and Michigan. The second sentence/clause, however, obliterates the first, qualifying it into nothingness.
What this initiative would do, if passed, is … absolutely nothing, which is the clear intent and purpose of its proposers. It would prohibit all race/sex/ethnic preference programs by the state, except those that are consistent with any that the Supreme Court has not explicitly found unconstitutional. It would, in short, prohibit only preferential programs that are currently illegal.
In short, the proposed initiative is a fraud, clearly intended to deceive voters into thinking they are prohibiting preferences when the effect of the initiative would actually be to preserve them. (In fact, even this is much is not completely clear, since prohibiting all race preferences is also “consistent” with Supreme Court rulings, none of which requires states to offer race-based preferences.)
This proposed initiative still has to jump through some legal hoops before it makes its way to the ballot, and there is a possibility that the state title board or, if it passes that low hurdle, the state supreme court might recognize this proposal for the fraud it is. Either one of those bodies, for example, could find that its two sentences/clauses, the first prohibiting all preferential programs and the second preserving all of them, violates the state’s “single subject” requirement.
But don’t hold your breath. To see why not, set aside an hour and nine minutes and go here to listen the the proponents of this initiative, in the person of one Ms. Melissa Hart, defend it before the title board. At that site, choose Title Board Hearing 02-20-2008 Part 3. Really, it’ll be worth your time. Ms. Hart refused to give any examples whatsoever of any preference program that her “anti-discrimination” initiative would prohibit.
Some of you will be reminded, as I was, of Humpty Dumpty in Lewis Carroll’s THROUGH A LOOKING GLASS:
“‘When I use a word,’ Humpty Dumpty said in a rather scornful tone, ‘it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.’”
“‘The question is,’” said Alice, “‘whether you can make words mean so many different things.’”
“‘The question is,’” said Humpty Dumpty, “‘which is to be master — that’s all.’”
Supporters of the real Colorado Civil Rights Initiative will have an opportunity to object to the title board’s approval of this initiative, and if that fails we can appeal to the liberal Colorado Supreme Court. That seems unlikely to succeed, but sometimes even liberals can recognize a fraud when they see one.
