CAMPAIGN ’88 : Blacks Threaten Suit

“I think the Republican National Committee thinks we’re like Limburger cheese,” Lugenia Gordon, president of the Freedom Republicans told the Republican National Committee on Wednesday in complaining about its low black membership. “A little bit goes a long way.”

But despite the angry and impassioned protests of Gordon’s largely black group--and the threat of a lawsuit that could tie up federal funds for Bush’s presidential campaign--the national committee at its pre-convention meeting in New Orleans rejected a proposal to change rules governing the makeup of the committee and of the national convention.

The dissident group argues that the structures of the national committee--which has three members from each state--and of the convention both give disproportionate weight to small states and don’t allow big states enough delegates to reflect anything close to the true number of blacks and other minorities in their population. (A Los Angeles Times Poll survey of 1988 GOP delegates showed that 91% are white, 4% black, 4% Latino and 1% other, roughly similar to racial representation on the national committee.)

But party leaders argued that the proposal would create upheaval in the party and would not accomplish its purpose. After the rules change proposal was defeated, Gordon said her group was considering filing a lawsuit that would ask the federal government to hold up $46 million in funds for the GOP presidential campaign on grounds the party’s rules violate constitutional guarantees against discrimination.