Florida Gov. Jeb Bush has done everything he can to keep a voter
initiative banning racial preferences off the state ballot this November,
and it now appears he may succeed. "There is a high likelihood this won't
happen in the fall," says Kevin Nguyen of the American Civil Rights
Institute, a Sacramento-based group headed by Ward Connerly, champion of
California's Proposition 209 in 1996.
The problem is that the Florida Supreme Court must certify the
initiative's ballot language, and it won't do this for some time. Because
of Florida's strict ballot laws, the court probably won't allow a clone of
209 to go before voters. Connerly and his Florida backers have actually
filed four separate initiatives with the state. How they eventually move
forward — they won't pick all four at once — will be determined by what the
justices say.
But it may take the court a long time to find its voice. Oral arguments
aren't scheduled until March 6, and a decision won't come until some time
after that. To qualify for the November election, the initiative must
gather 443,000 signatures by July 8. Supporters understandably don't want
to spend money gathering names for an initiative that the court
invalidates.
"If the state court makes a decision within 30 days of the hearing, we
think we can qualify for the fall," says Nguyen. Yet it typically takes
the court two months to rule on such matters. And the fact that almost the
entire political establishment in the state is lined up against the effort
makes a little judicial foot-dragging a near-certainty. For what it's
worth, the court is allowing 54 days to elapse between the filing of
rebuttal briefs (which were due on Tuesday) and the oral arguments. Other
recent cases have required anywhere from 17 days to 43 days to accomplish
essentially the same business.
Even if Floridians don't get to vote on racial preferences in November,
the Connerly effort will have accomplished something: Bush is starting to
phase out his state's preferential policies. His reforms are not
sweeping — there's still a need for a broad-based initiative — and his plan
for college admissions is arguably worse than the current system (granting
automatic entry to the top 20 percent of each high school's graduates,
regardless of the school or the students' overall quality). But this
political movement nevertheless shows that even the threat of a ballot
initiative barring racial preferences can move stubborn governors.
