Court Asked to Kill Affirmative Action Suit : Government: Women’s and civil rights groups ask appellate justices to throw out Wilson’s bid to gut such programs.

The legal future of California’s affirmative action programs grew ever more murky Tuesday as a statewide coalition of women’s and civil rights groups asked the state Court of Appeal to toss out Gov. Pete Wilson’s lawsuit aimed at gutting the programs.

At the same time, Atty. Gen. Dan Lungren announced that he cannot defend the seven state agencies named as defendants in Wilson’s lawsuit against California--meaning that taxpayers will have to pick up the tab for the governor’s court action.

In a letter to the presiding justice of the state Court of Appeal in Sacramento, Lungren cited a conflict of interest because his office represents both the plaintiff--Wilson--and the defendants in a range of other lawsuits.

The attorney general said he wanted to ensure that “this office’s availability to all concerned remains unimpaired now and in the future.”

The decision means that private lawyers will have to be brought into the case, at a cost that outside attorneys estimated could reach millions of dollars. Wilson’s critics scored the governor at a Los Angeles press conference, saying he was sticking the taxpayers for the costs of a lawsuit intended to bolster his presidential campaign.

“As with everything else with this governor, his lawsuit sacrifices democratic principles to political expediency,” said Mark Rosenbaum, legal director of the ACLU Foundation of Southern California. “His action will cost taxpayers of this state millions and millions of dollars in the transparent pursuit of his sagging presidential ambitions.”

The ACLU and 14 other organizations, including the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF), the California Women’s Law Center and the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, filed a brief Tuesday with the appeals court in Sacramento asking justices to throw out Wilson’s suit.

The brief argued three basic points--that Wilson has not been damaged by the state’s affirmative action laws and thus has no standing to sue, that he sued the wrong people and that the suit should have been filed with the Superior Court, not the Court of Appeal.

Legal aides for the governor disagreed. They said Wilson has standing to ask that the affirmative action statutes be ruled unconstitutional because he is charged with enforcing those laws. They said that the suit accurately targeted the state agencies that are pushing the affirmative action programs, and that it was filed with the appellate court because it is the only court that can overturn statutes.

A spokesman for Wilson said the lawsuit’s cost to the taxpayers will be far less than the $12.7 million the state currently spends to enforce affirmative action programs.

“Any costs, I think, will be a drop in the bucket,” said Paul Kranhold.

The Pacific Legal Foundation, a Sacramento-based nonprofit group that is handling the suit for Wilson, will not charge the state for legal costs. Kranhold said that on Wilson’s side of the case, the state would only be liable for non-legal costs.

The governor, a supporter of affirmative action until very recently, has made his opposition to racial- and gender-based programs a hallmark of his presidential campaign. Aides credit his recent high profile on the issue for boosting his standing in recent polls into the double digits, although still well behind those of front-runner and Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole.

Earlier this year, Wilson signed an executive order ending race- and gender-based preferences in all state programs not covered by statute.

Last month, he engineered a vote by the University of California Board of Regents to eliminate consideration of race and gender in school admissions and hiring.

And last Thursday, he filed suit against the state he governs, arguing that statutes which make up the core of California’s affirmative action programs are unconstitutional. Those sued included the State Personnel Board, the chancellor and board of governors of the state’s community colleges, the state treasurer and controller, the director of the state lottery, the Lottery Commission and the Department of General Services.

In making his legal argument, the governor leaned heavily on a 1989 U.S. Supreme Court decision, Richmond vs. Croson, which held that affirmative action programs were only constitutional if they sought to cure specific past discrimination, and that the remedy had to be narrowly tailored to victims. That ruling threw programs across the nation, including California’s, into question.

Critics said the fact that Wilson, who has held office since 1991, only objected to the state’s affirmative action programs as he decided to run for President proves that his intentions are less than pure.

“The law in California has been the same for the last six years,” said Theresa Fay-Bustillos, the vice president of legal programs for MALDEF. “The only thing that has changed in six years that prompted Gov. Wilson to file this lawsuit is his intention to run for President--and nothing else.”

Wilson spokesman Kranhold denied her assertion, saying the governor had been unaware until this spring that the state’s affirmative action programs were operating contrary to the 1989 court decision.

“There is a remedy for racial discrimination,” he said. “Those are the civil rights protections Gov. Wilson has been an adamant supporter of over the years.”