Losing the Soul of the GOP: Republicans make a rotten peace with race preferences - in-depth look at affirmative action

National Review, Oct 1, 2001 by Ward Connerly

We learned recently that the Bush administration will defend a government contracting program that is an explicit system of preferences and quotas, based on race. I'm not the least surprised. Why? Because as governor of Texas and as a presidential candidate, George W. Bush avoided taking a position on affirmative action or "triangulated" on the issue in ways that would make Bill Clinton green with envy.

He was essentially silent about the Hopwood case, centering on the University of Texas. He took no position on Measure A in Houston, a ballot initiative patterned after California's Proposition 209 (banning preferences in public institutions). As a presidential candidate, he ducked questions concerning 209: What, after all, did he think about it? In his final debate with Al Gore, he seemed to pray silently that the moderator would step in and call "time" when a question about affirmative action was on the floor. He sought to please everyone and offend no one by expressing support for something named "affirmative access."

While in the White House, Bush and my good friend John Ashcroft, the attorney general, have seamlessly embraced the issue of "racial profiling" as if it were an epidemic threatening black America. Then we have the decision in support of continued discrimination in government contracting. When it comes to issues of race and preferences, Bush and a host of other Republican leaders have been drifting tragically leftward for about five years. Mesmerized by the quest for skin-color "diversity," and hoping to "broaden the base" of the party, they have been moving away from the Republican rank-and-file in ways that are fundamentally transforming the party-the party that should carry the banner of Equality for All.

Let's look at some facts, beginning with the 1996 Republican convention.

That year, the most important state ballot initiative was Proposition 209. The cause of getting rid of race preferences was deemed so important that the party included an endorsement of 209 in its platform. That action, sadly, marked the end of the party's clear and unequivocal commitment to true equality and the beginning of its current Jekyll-and-Hyde posture.

Perhaps significantly, even as the party was endorsing Prop. 209, it was denying the requests of then-California governor Pete Wilson and Bill Bennett that I, as chairman of the 209 campaign, address the convention. The reason given was that my appearance might "send the wrong message" to minorities about the GOP's commitment to "diversity." At the convention, I sat as a California delegate while Colin Powell took center stage and voiced his support for affirmative action, opposing the party on a key issue, an issue of principle and conscience.

Several months later, when a number of Republicans and others in Arizona sought to pass a bill in that state's legislature outlawing race preferences, we were told by several Republican legislators that they had received calls from Sen. John McCain urging them not to support such a measure because-again, as always-it might "send the wrong message."

When I met with Speaker Newt Gingrich in 1997 to enlist his support in getting Congress to act against preferences, he deferred to Rep. J. C. Watts (another good friend of mine). J. C. responded, "Not now, Ward. It's not the right time." He wanted Congress to approve more enterprise zones, school choice, and other initiatives before turning to race preferences.

When we sought the support of Florida governor Jeb Bush and the (Republican-controlled) Florida legislature in placing on the ballot an initiative ending preferences in the state, the governor opposed us by calling us (me, in particular) "divisive." He then tried to preempt our initiative by announcing his "One Florida" plan, a series of baby steps that ended preferences in university admissions while strengthening them through race-conscious "diversity" measures elsewhere.

To think politically for a moment: A full 70 percent of Florida voters indicated that they would vote to end preferences. Yet the chairman of the Florida Republican party said, "Mr. Connerly has a solution looking for a problem which does not exist in Florida."

When I was invited by the Michigan Republican party to address them in 1999, the invitation was suddenly withdrawn after the office of Gov. John Engler contacted my office to request more information about me. I received a letter of apology from the party a few days later with an oblique reference to "political considerations."

In 2000, George W. Bush spoke to the NAACP's convention, and he used the occasion to apologize for his party, saying that it had failed to conduct itself as "the party of Lincoln." I was not alone in wondering, "What is he apologizing for? What have we done to dishonor Lincoln?" Bush should have told the NAACP that Democrats take black Americans for granted, not seeing them and other "minorities" as individuals but as groups. The GOP should dedicate itself to individual rights-which is the ultimate definition of civil rights.