Court will not hear Prop. 209

The Washington Post

WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court yesterday removed the last significant legal hurdle to California's statewide ban on affirmative action, rejecting a challenge by civil rights groups who had argued that the law was unconstitutional.

Campaigns to eliminate preferences based on race and sex are underway in several states, and people on both sides of the issue predicted the court's action would reinvigorate those efforts. Voters in Houston, the nation's fourth-largest city, are deciding today whether the local government should abandon such long-standing preferences in the area of public contracting.

When the initiative passed last year, California became the first state in the country to abolish affirmative action in a variety of state programs, from hiring and college admissions to government contracting. The controversial measure drew national attention and was stopped from taking effect for nearly a year while it was challenged in court.

By deciding not to accept the case yesterday, the Supreme Court left in place a lower court ruling that found Proposition 209 constitutional. That ruling, by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, stressed that when the government gives an advantage to individuals based on their race, it penalizes people who belong to another race. Civil rights groups claimed the law unfairly stripped local governments in California of their traditional authority to help minorities.

Yesterday's Supreme Court action, while not a ruling on the merits of Proposition 209, was a powerful signal, especially in light of a recent string of high-court rulings that have served to limit the scope of race-based government policies.

"You would have to be living on a different planet not to think this is a very significant decision," said Ward Connerly, who spearheaded the fight for California's Proposition 209 and said he now spends about a third of his time traveling to other states to help activists with similar initiatives. He said efforts are blossoming particularly in Colorado, Florida and Washington state.

"This is a green light to all the other states that want to copy Proposition 209," said Stanford law professor Kathleen Sullivan, who had helped the American Civil Liberties Union in its challenge to the California measure. "At our count, there were 26 other states in some stage of progress."

In California, the state is just beginning the lengthy, but largely procedural, process of eliminating preference programs. At the municipal level, there are several state hurdles that must be crossed before the law can be imposed. Under California law, Republican Gov. Pete Wilson is required to file a lawsuit seeking a ruling that state affirmative action statutes are in conflict with Proposition 209. Hoping to speed up the process, Wilson in September asked the Democratic-controlled legislature to repeal or amend 30 statutes that he identified as granting illegal race or gender preferences. But the legislature adjourned for the year without acting.

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