Taking race out of hiring and more

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By Valerie Richardson

Steve Montenegro was not quite 4 when he and his family emigrated from El Salvador. He grew up speaking English and Spanish, earned a bachelor's degree from Arizona State University and was elected to the Arizona Legislature last year at age 27.

Not surprisingly, he's a big believer in the American dream. What he doesn't believe in are government-sponsored racial and gender preferences, also known as affirmative action.

"It sends out a message that Hispanics or other minorities aren't good enough to compete at the same level," said Mr. Montenegro, a Republican from Litchfield Park, about 15 miles west of Phoenix. "Personally, I'm offended by the government telling me, 'You're not good enough.'"

Arizona voters will soon have an opportunity to decide whether they agree. The Arizona Legislature recently voted to place an anti-affirmative-action measure sponsored by Mr. Montenegro on the November 2010 ballot.

Known as the Arizona Civil Rights Initiative, the proposed constitutional amendment would ban discrimination based on race, gender, color, ethnicity or national origin in government hiring, contracting and education.

Four states have passed similar ballot measures, most recently Nebraska last year. What makes Arizona's unique is that it qualified for the ballot by a vote of the Legislature instead of a signature-gathering campaign.

The Senate approved the proposal 17-11 on June 22, a week after House passage. Both chambers are controlled by Republicans, and both approved the measure in straight party-line votes, with Republicans unanimously in favor and Democrats uniformly opposed.

Lending support to the Arizona effort is Ward Connerly, chairman of the American Civil Rights Institute in Sacramento, who has been on a quest to dismantle government-sponsored preference programs since his days as a regent for the University of California system.

In 1996, he sponsored California's Proposition 209 after witnessing race-based admissions policies that resulted in higher-achieving students being rejected in favor of students with lower grades and test scores. The initiative passed with 54 percent of the vote.

Since then, Washington and Michigan voters have approved their own Proposition 209 clones.