Wilson Takes Swipe at Affirmative Action : Politics: Governor acts to wipe out some programs. Foes doubt impact.

In a ceremony strong on symbolism with national political overtones, Gov. Pete Wilson signed an executive order Thursday that he said would help restore the American dream of people getting ahead on their own--without the need of government quotas or preferences.

Saying “we’re gathered here today to begin a new chapter in the journey toward a colorblind society,” Wilson moved to wipe out some of the state’s affirmative action programs. He took the action outside a state Department of Forestry fire station in the drizzle of a coastal canyon on the eastern edge of Malibu. Critics immediately ridiculed the event as political grandstanding.

Democrats and leaders of minority rights groups accused him of using the issue to pump fresh life into his campaign for the 1996 Republican presidential nomination, which has lagged in the six weeks since throat surgery rendered Wilson speechless in public.

State Assembly Speaker Willie Brown (D-San Francisco), said in Sacramento: “I think it is pure unadulterated politics. It has nothing to do with substance whatsoever.”

In signing the order, Wilson wiped out directives issued by his three immediate predecessors: Republicans Ronald Reagan and George Deukmejian and Democrat Edmund G. (Jerry) Brown Jr. Those longstanding orders promoted the concept of affirmative action in general terms, with no mention of the sort of preference programs attacked by Wilson.

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Wilson’s order abolishes all state government affirmative action advisory committees under his control and cuts back any preferences granted by the state to minority group members to the level required by state or federal law.

But it has no effect on local, state and federal statutes and court decisions that, over the last three decades, have established affirmative action programs with the declared purpose of overcoming discrimination against women, racial minorities and other groups in government hiring, contracting and educational programs.

Nor does it affect the state college and university systems, although Wilson wrote letters to their governing boards and the State Board of Education asking them to follow his example.

“But today’s action starts us down that road,” Wilson said in a statement read for him by one of his top female state executives, Joanne Corday Kozberg, secretary of the State and Consumer Services Agency. “It marks a fundamentally new course for our state and our nation.”

Wilson was forced to look on in silence as his comments were read, nodding here and there in affirmation. The 61-year-old governor is under orders from his doctors not to make any public speeches until he is fully recovered from an April 14 surgery to remove a nodule from a vocal cord.

Thursday’s action has been heavily promoted by the governor’s staff and campaign advisers for weeks--going back to Wilson’s address to the Republican State Convention in Sacramento in February.

On Wednesday, the governor issued an eight-page open letter to Californians setting forth his objections to affirmative action programs. In the letter, and in his brief comments at the ceremony Thursday, he said such programs “are now eroding the very foundation of the American dream.”

“Granting preferential treatment to one individual on the basis of race or gender at the expense of another is not only fundamentally unfair, it stigmatizes the achievement of those it was intended to help,” he said.

More than 15 television cameras were present to record the signing at the state Department of Forestry complex at the end of Los Liones Drive next to Topanga State Park. Scores of forestry workers and most of Wilson’s Cabinet officers were on hand.

But in Sacramento, Assemblywoman Marguerite Archie-Hudson (D-Los Angeles) called Wilson’s executive order a joke.

“The programs he is cutting out are small and ludicrous. This move is designed to give him a bump in the presidential sweepstakes,” said Archie-Hudson, an African American.

State Senate President Pro Tem Bill Lockyer (D-Hayward) accused Wilson of “pandering for political purposes.”

Wilson aides acknowledged that Thursday’s action had little immediate effect on the day-to-day operation of state government. No one would lose their jobs. The new policy would be implemented only as new employees are hired to fill vacancies and in making promotions.

The state still will be required to develop affirmative action plans with goals and timetables, said Leslie Goodman, Wilson’s director of communications. The difference would be in how those goals are reached, she said.

But Wilson aides emphasized that the governor is an enthusiastic supporter of a proposed 1996 state ballot initiative that would attempt to abolish all state affirmative action programs by amending the state Constitution.

Wilson was 33 minutes late for the scheduled 10 a.m. ceremony, arriving in a car following a red Department of Forestry firetruck with red lights flashing. A steady drizzle fell on the lush, thick greenery of the canyon--coincidentally on the first day of the official fire season.

The fire station was especially symbolic because affirmative action programs to bring more women into fire departments have been particularly controversial and high-profile.

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With Wilson as he signed Executive Order W-124-95 were seven uniformed department firefighters: five men and two women, including a recently promoted female division chief. Several were Latinos, one an African American and one a white male veteran who told the governor, “I think everybody looks up to me because I made it on merit.”

One of the programs affected is the hiring of about 1,600 seasonal firefighters. Wilson said the change would “ensure the taxpayers are getting the most qualified firefighters.”

A variety of groups throughout California argued that Wilson’s attack on affirmative action would send the message to the nation that California is racist and prompt groups to boycott the state as a convention and meeting site.

Felix De La Torre of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund said his group will monitor the implementation of the executive order and take legal action whenever evidence exists that “the governor has overstepped the scope of his authority.”

Margaret Burroughs, a member of one of the affirmative action advisory boards that Wilson’s order will eliminate, complained that the governor was removing the watchdogs that spurred government agencies to comply with diversity policies for hiring and contracting.

“The myth of less qualified people receiving contracts is untrue. The myth of less qualified people getting into college is untrue,” she said.

“All affirmative action has done is make it possible for us to get a small piece of the pie, and that piece is so small it barely melts in your mouth.”

Assemblywoman Sheila J. Kuehl (D-Santa Monica) said it was dishonest for Wilson to suggest that there were quotas in California when in reality state government has never used them.

“He creates a straw man that doesn’t exist and knocks it down for his own presidential campaign,” she said.

Stall reported from Los Angeles and Ellis from Sacramento. Also contributing were Times staff writers James Bornemeier in Washington, Jerry Gillam and Carl Ingram in Sacramento and Amy Wallace in Los Angeles.

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Wilson’s Order

The executive order on affirmative action signed Thursday by Gov. Pete Wilson is limited in its effect. The governor does not have the power to eliminate most preference programs, which are established by state and federal law. The order:

1. Repeals executive orders encouraging affirmative action programs by previous governors in 1971, 1981 and 1983.

2. Prohibits employment discrimination and declares that, “to the maximum extent allowed by law,” state hiring and consulting decisions “be based on merit.”

3. Dismantles “affirmative action bureaucracy” including 150 state advisory committees, changes hiring goals and standards for about 150,000 full-time state jobs and cuts racial and gender hiring goals in some summer and intern programs.

4. Requires the California Department of Transportation to reduce from 20% to 10% the amount of project contract money set aside for companies owned by women and minorities.

5. Asks other state officials and boards not under Wilson’s control, including California public colleges and universities, to comply with the new standards.