The juggernaut is in full gallop across Arizona, Oregon, Illinois, Missouri, Nevada, Utah, South Dakota and Colorado. Money is being raised, language is being finalized and initiative petitions to get constitutional amendments on the ballot are being readied.
Sponsors from the American Civil Rights Institute have dubbed Nov. 6, 2008, “Super Tuesday for Equal Rights.”
Their goal is to end affirmative action, though they rarely say it that plainly. And if their tactics in Michigan are any indication, a wave of voter fraud could be headed our way.
Then, by the time anybody can launch a court challenge, the election will be over, the amendments will be law and there will be no turning back.
It may not be the perfect crime but, hey, it got the job done.
Anti-affirmative action activist Ward Connerly is one of several defendants named in the court challenge of Proposal 2, the Michigan anti-affirmative action law, which was approved by voters there in 2006.
While the federal courts have said it’s too late to do anything about it, the evidence of voter fraud in getting the measure on the ballot was abundant.
“… Solicitation and procurement of signatures in support of placing Proposal 2 on the general election ballot was rife with fraud and deception,” said the opinion handed down last week by the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals in Michigan. “By all accounts, Proposal 2 found its way on the ballot through methods that undermine the integrity and fairness of our democratic processes.”
They lied and lied and lied.
The opinion said the Michigan Civil Rights Initiative engaged in a “highly coordinated, systematic strategy” of misrepresenting the ballot measure to “thousands of voters.”
Petition circulators were instructed “to tell potential signers that the petition was a pro-civil rights and pro-affirmative action petition.”
Witness after witness testified to the deceptive tactics when the case was heard in U.S. District Court last year.
One woman said she was told by a circulator that he was working “to keep affirmative action on the books.” He told her that if affirmative action were abolished, her son would not be allowed to attend the University of Michigan.
At a market in Detroit, circulators said that the petition supported affirmative action and signing it would help black kids get into college.
Ruthie Stevenson, president of the Macomb County chapter of the Michigan NAACP, said she was approached by a circulator who said the measure would “make civil rights fairer for everybody.” He also told her that Ruthie Stevenson, president of the NAACP, had endorsed it. When she told him that she was Ruthie Stevenson and she most assuredly did not support it, he walked away.
Even the mayor of Kalamazoo, Hanna McKinney, testified that she was misled and would never have signed the petition if she had known it supported a ban on affirmative action.
The court also criticized Jennifer Gratz, executive director of the Michigan Civil Rights Initiative, for “evasive testimony” and her group’s “use of deception and connivance to confuse the issues in the hopes of getting the proposal on the ballot.”
The court said, “It is difficult to determine where the line between wilful ignorance and deliberate deception could be drawn” in her testimony.
“They were very, very cynical,” said George Washington, an attorney for the plaintiffs.
Jonathan Tee, spokesman for the Colorado secretary of state’s office, said the measure, known here as Initiative 31, is moving through the bureaucratic meat grinder. It was approved by the state Title Board in June. Opponents have appealed that decision to the state Supreme Court. A decision is pending.
If it passes muster, proponents need 76,047 valid signatures to get it on the ballot.
Initiative 31 director Valery Pech Orr said she was not prepared to comment on the Michigan ruling, but there is “a lot of interest” in the measure here, and she is confident it will succeed.
For the record, the federal courts also cited state agencies in Michigan for “institutional indifference” and failure to investigate the “credible allegations of voter fraud” in their rulings.
So, consider it fair warning.
If Coloradans fall victim to the same cunning, we’ll only have ourselves to blame.
Diane Carman’s column appears Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday. Reach her at 303-954-1489 or dcarman@denverpost.com.
