Jackson Vows to Build Coalition to Sway Elections

The Rev. Jesse Jackson ended a weeklong series of California rallies here Monday, pledging to several thousand marchers that he will build a political coalition that could determine the state’s next governor or perhaps the nation’s next president.

Jackson said in an interview that it is “premature” to discuss whether he might run for the White House in 2000--”although we’ll keep all of our options open.” He also declined to critique the likely candidates in next year’s race for California governor.

But as he has done before, Jackson sharply criticized national Democratic Party leaders who he believes have been missing from the front-line battles regarding race relations.

“In the face of the trail of attacks on civil rights and retreats from both sides of the aisle, there has been silence and a conspicuous absence of dissent,” Jackson charged in his speech from the west steps of the Capitol. “It is as if we have one party with two names; or two parties with one assumption.”

Jackson singled out President Clinton and California’s two Democratic U.S. senators--Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer. He called on each of them to take more significant steps to stop what he called the immoral and illegal effects of California’s Proposition 209, the anti-affirmative action ballot initiative.

The measure was ordered into effect by a federal appellate court in August. An appeal is now pending before the U.S. Supreme Court. In the meantime, Jackson called on city and county leaders to disobey the state law.

“There is no moral imperative to cooperate with unjust, oppressive laws,” he said. “Elected officials, students, people of conscience, must defy, challenge, resist any law or set of laws that diminishes equal opportunity and federal civil rights afforded by many years of struggle.”

Jackson said Feinstein and Boxer should order hearings on the impact of Proposition 209. And, insisting that the measure violates U.S. civil rights laws, he demanded that Clinton order an investigation to determine whether billions of dollars of federal funds should be withheld from the state.

“This fundamental issue may define this period and his presidency,” Jackson said.

Jackson’s intervention in California politics is one more sign that the state has become a national stage for a highly charged debate about race relations.

In June, Clinton chose California as the backdrop for launching his yearlong national “dialogue” about race relations.

Like Jackson, Clinton said the state was an appropriate forum because of its increasingly diverse population and its recent attention to controversial solutions like Propositions 209 and 187, the 1994 measure that sought to end public benefits for illegal immigrants.

“California is pivotal to the nation,” Jackson said Monday. “We are setting a climate for America from California.”

Jackson referred to Monday’s event, called the Save the Dream March, as “phase two” in his effort to organize a political force in California. The first step was a march across the Golden Gate Bridge on Aug. 28. Next February he plans a major rally in Los Angeles.

He hopes by then to have enlisted 250,000 people in his organization.

“There will be enough fish in that net to determine who the next governor will be and perhaps the next president,” he told the crowd of labor union members, American Indians, university students and political protesters. “We are not marching for exercise.”

Organizers estimated the crowd at 8,000 to 15,000. Sacramento police, however, put the size at just over 5,000, and the California Highway Patrol declined to make a public estimate.

At the same time Monday, on the opposite side of the Capitol, the California College Republicans staged a rally supporting Proposition 209.

It drew about 75 people, some of whom joined in a chant of “Get a job,” aimed at Jackson and his backers. The featured speaker was Assemblyman Bernie Richter (R-Chico), who has led the anti-affirmative action debate in the Legislature.

“Basically,” said David Cordero, vice chairman of the College Republicans, “we want to provide an alternative message, emphasizing that Proposition 209 gave opportunity to all people, [and] provide a balance to the message that Californians are racists and stupid.”

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Times staff writer Dan Morain contributed to this story.