THE STATE : AFFIRMATIVE ACTION : How Democrats May Dodge Certain Defeat

The California civil rights initiative (CCRI), nearly two years before it is likely to be voted on, is already a hot political issue. The political damage--or reward--it produces for the state’s Democrats and Republicans may hinge on which of two ballots the measure appears.

Democrats are frantically looking for political shelter. Loathe to alienate their traditional support among minorities and labor unions, they are unable to embrace CCRI’s ban on the use of racial preferences in public hiring, contracting and college admissions. But chastened by last November’s rebuke, particularly on Proposition 187, they are frightened to take a stand against it. Their best chance for minimizing the potential political damage is for the initiative to appear on the March, 1996, primary ballot.

In a primary election, Democrats running against each other would be unlikely to use affirmative action as a defining issue. Democratic-leaning organizations such as the California State Employees Assn. and the California Teachers Assn.--unions whose oxen stand to be gored by the initiative--are too powerful, both in terms of their treasuries and number of votes controlled, for any Democrat to write off. An informal agreement not to exploit the measure as a campaign issue would allow Democrats to dodge this bullet, conceding an early victory to the anti-affirmative action side while eliminating a potentially devastating wedge issue that would favor their opponents in the general election.

But the fathers of the initiative, professors Glynn Custred and Tom Wood, have begun to lose control of their project. Qualifying an initiative by signature is almost purely a matter of money, and the measure will find no shortage of groups and individuals eager to invest in a likely winner. Just when this money will materialize, and under whose leadership the campaign for the initiative’s passage will be conducted, is far from clear.

The professors claim to have no problem with the CCRI appearing on the March ballot. Some of their Republican supporters concur, at least nominally, but many conservatives strongly object. They see racial preferences as a critical issue separating Republican from Democrat, conservative from liberal, and are intent on making this point to the electorate in the most dramatic fashion possible. In March, Republicans would be falling over each other to laud CCRI, while most Democrats would avoid committing themselves. But in November, with the parties set in opposition, positions on affirmative action could be decisive.

As titular campaign heads, Custred and Wood would be expected to be in a position to make the ballot decision. But because the money that drives initiative campaigns comes primarily from those with partisan interests, the professors find themselves hamstrung by their ideological companions. Those attracted to CCRI as a policy are, generally, those with a significant stake in the Republican Party. Given the chance to kill two birds with one stone--end state-sanctioned racial preferences and further weaken the state Democratic Party--it is hard to see conservative coffers opening up early enough to fund petition drives in time for the March ballot deadline.

Complicating these partisan positions are the rumored presidential aspirations of Gov. Pete Wilson. A politically vulnerable Bill Clinton in 1996 represents his best shot at the White House since, if he forgoes the chance and the Republicans regain control of the executive branch, he would not be a viable candidate until 2004, by which time he will be 71.

To beat out GOP front-runners, Wilson will have to generate momentum early, especially with a substantial victory in his home-state primary. Were Wilson to spearhead the drive to pass CCRI, making it a centerpiece of his primary campaign much as he did with Proposition 187 in his gubernatorial race, he could establish leadership credentials in a crowded field. He could claim, legitimately, that affirmative-action reforms are conspicuously absent on the ballots in the states of his major competitors. By November, Wilson will have either won or lost, and CCRI will become a club that any Republican nominee could use to beat his Democrat opponent.

The battle lines have thus been drawn, albeit somewhat crookedly. Most Republicans are happily anticipating the November elections armed with a powerful weapon. Some farsighted Democrats, possibly along with Wilson, are hoping for a March ballot slot; the rest of the Democrats, it seems, are just wishing that CCRI would go away. The real question is: Who is going to decide?

The onus is on the Democrats to take the lead. They cannot survive as an ideological monolith and must consider lending their support to this initiative. Just as Jack Kemp and Bill Bennett carved out room on the right for conservatives who opposed 187, California Democrats should allow for principled support of CCRI by liberals. Sustaining an uncritical allegiance to policies of racial preference, heedless that they sometimes benefit no one, Democrats risk falling out of touch with the electorate. Qualified support for CCRI represents not so much a Democrat “cave-in” for political expediency but, rather, an opportunity to reconsider a failing element of party orthodoxy.

There is still an opportunity--though not much of a possibility--for Republican and Democrat state legislators to compromise by voting to put CCRI on the March ballot. By doing so, conservatives get the justice they have been seeking, liberals avoid a dangerous wedge issue and move toward an accommodation on affirmative action, and the voters are spared yet another round of partisan, racially edged bickering.

Passage of CCRI with meaningful bipartisan support and minimal bitterness would do much to heal the wounds that 187 left in the electorate, and would provide the nation with a rare and heartening example of partisan cooperation, not to mention giving Californians a chance to elect as President their third favorite son in as many decades.*