Bread & circuses - Republican Party ambivalence over the elimination of federal race and gender preference practices

National Review, April 8, 1996 by Kate O'Beirne

Last spring the news that Senators Dole and Kennedy were co-sponsoring civil-rights legislation provoked dismay at one of Grover Norquist's weekly gatherings of conservative activists. Over bagels and coffee, the activists gloomily pondered what promised to be a conspiracy to maintain race and gender preferences in the name of reform. But it was a false alarm.

"Not Kennedy, Canady," corrected a latecomer, dispelling the gloom by informing the group that Bob Dole had teamed up with Rep. Charles Canady, the conservative sophomore from Florida, in a serious effort to eliminate all federal race and gender preferences.

This was a welcome surprise, but a year later the fate of the Equal Opportunity Act of 1996 remains fuzzy. Almost a hundred House Republicans have signed onto the Dole - Canady bill, and its co-sponsors seem determined to press on. But other Republicans are nervous about mounting an assault on government preferences, even though most Democrats are still more nervous about defending them.

A GOP leadership aide cautiously predicts the bill will be taken to the House floor later this spring. Rep. Canady believes that Republicans can't avoid the issue, because the current system of preferences in federal hiring and contracting offends "first principles and our basic values." He made this argument forcefully when the House Judiciary subcommittee he chairs considered the bill March 7. Nor was he surprised that subcommittee Democrats mounted no principled defense of preferences. "They want to talk about red herrings. They want to divert attention from the real issue," he recently told me.

The Democratic discomfort was exemplified by Melvin Watt of North Carolina. Canady asked him to explain "why anyone should receive an advantage of any kind because of race or gender." Watt ducked ungracefully: "I am not going to honor that with a response. I mean, I think the question is so ridiculous that it deserves no response." Michigan Democrat John Conyers's plaintive declaration that Dole - Canady represented "a serious retreat from the bipartisan spirit" that had been the hallmark of civil-rights legislation was borne out when the subcommittee approved the bill on an 8 to 5 party-line vote.

But Democrats aren't the only uncomfortable people around. Sophomore Republican Jack Kingston has been outspoken in declaring it would be a mistake for the GOP to bring Dole - Canady to the floor. He doubts whether Republicans could explain the anti-preference case in the face of "race-mongering" by Bill Clinton. If Republicans were unable to make their case for Medicare reform with all the time and resources devoted to studies, hearings, and focus groups, Kingston argues, what chance will they have in debating civil rights?

Kingston claims to have particular insights into the preference debate owing to the racial make-up of his Georgia district. Blacks account for about a third of his district, which he won with 76 per cent of the vote in 1994. He doesn't believe his GOP colleagues from districts with small black populations understand how blacks view either affirmative action or the beneficial role of the Federal Government. And he wonders whether there might not be a middle ground that would permit a gradual phase-out of preferences: "I would probably support Canady if that was all that was out there. But I think there might be something that is a little more win-win for us." In the meantime, he believes that "to give Bill Clinton another issue to mobilize his base on is no way to win the White House."

The Dole for President campaign disagrees. "Race and gender preferences are a big defining difference between Dole's campaign and Clinton's campaign," according to Dennis Shea, a senior policy advisor on the campaign. He looks forward to a debate on the topic, pointing out that Dole's opposition to preferences is one expression of his broader message that "We're one America." And even if Congress fails to act, Shea expects the elimination of preferences to be a national issue because the California Civil Rights Initiative (which Dole has endorsed) will be much debated in that key battleground state.

Ward Connerly, chairman of the CCRI, agrees that the issue is a defining one for the political parties. He recently gave a lecture on the subject at The Heritage Foundation in Washington. There weren't many people in the audience, demonstrating Capitol Hill's current lack of interest in the quota debate. But Connerly inspired them. He told them that the challenge for the GOP is to convince his fellow black Americans, who have "become addicted to the drug of a powerful central government, that . . . none of our rights are secure in a game of racial self-interest."

THIS is a message that black Republicans can put more persuasively than whites. But freshman Rep. J. C. Watts of Oklahoma, who leads GOP efforts to attract black support and who is listened to by Speaker Gingrich, is hesitant. He admits that he can't really argue with the California initiative. "I agree in principle," he says, but he wonders whether congressional Republicans ought to be launching a similar proposal in the middle of an outreach campaign to black voters. And many other freshmen, nervous on racial issues, defer to Watts on whether the timing is right for Dole - Canady.