Legal Commentary

Something Else To Celebrate!

Once again the invaluable Pacific Legal Foundation has won an important victory for civil rights.

In 1996 the voters of California passed Prop. 209, which amended the state constitution to prohibit the state or any of its agencies from discriminating against or giving preferential treatment to any individual on the base of race, ethnicity, or gender in public contracting, education, or employment.

The state, and many of its municipalities, attempted to ignore the new prohibition against preferential treatment, and left to their own devices would have ignored it forever. The Pacific Legal Foundation and plaintiffs such as Ward Connerly, however, did not leave the state to its own devices. In Connerly v. State Personnel Board, 92 Cal. App. 4th 16 (2001), the appellate court invalidated race and sex quotas that had been inserted in the state public contracting code.

In a dramatic demonstration of bipartisan irresponsibility, in July 2009 the legislature passed and Gov. Schwarzenegger signed new legislation, Assembly Bill 21, re-instituting the invalidated quotas.
Thus Connerly and the American Civil Rights Foundation, again ably represented by the Pacific Legal Foundation, sued again, in Connerly v. Schwarzenegger.

The state agreed, amazingly enough, that, yes, the challenged statutes were indeed unconstitutional, but that nevertheless the court should not issue a writ requiring adherence to Prop. 209 because the offending provisions were not being enforced.

That argument passed neither the laugh test nor judicial approval, and on July 2 the appellate court issued a tentative ruling awarding Connerly and the PLF (and the people of California) a %100 victory.

Thanks to Connerly and the Pacific Legal Foundation, now we have something else to celebrate this July 4.

Full post as published by Discriminations on July 03, 2010 (boomark / email).