Today, proponents of the Colorado Civil Rights Initiative submitted signatures for a Initiative 31, a measure anticipated to end discrimination based on “race, sex, color, ethnicity or national origin” in public employment, education or contracting.
Jones (L), and ConnerlyFTS Staff Photo
Initiative 31 borrows its language nearly verbatim from the 1964 Civil Rights Act.
The CCRI turned in 128,744 signatures, a comfortable cushion above the minimum 76,000 required to place an initiative on the ballot and well ahead of the March 25 deadline for submission. Secretary of State Mike Coffman's office will now verify the signatures against a statewide database of voters.
Ward Connerly, a nationally recognized advocate for equal rights, says that the overwhelming signatures demonstrate Colorado’s readiness to deny racial and gender preferences.
“Civil rights belong to all of us,” Connerly said. Connerly has successfully supported similar initiatives in California, Michigan and Washington.
Initiative 31 has already faced opposition from pro-Affirmative Action groups who tried to place a similarly-worded question on the ballot which aims to neutralize Initiative 31's effects. That competing effort was stalled last week when the State Title-Setting Board rejected its language, saying it purposefully aims to mislead voters.
The petitionsFTS Staff Photo
CCRI plans to spend an estimated $2 million campaigning for Initiative 31, and Connerly's national group has similar measures on the ballot in Arizona, Missouri, Nebraska and Oklahoma, setting the stage for what he called the “super Tuesday of equal rights."
Former State Sen. Ed Jones, R-Colorado Springs, was in attendance at the press conference. Jones was thwarted five years ago when he tried to pass an analogous bill through the legislature that would end racial preference programs in state government. In hindsight Jones says that it is not the legislature who should make such a decision but that the people of Colorado deserve to vote on the issue.
Jones believes that in passing Initiative 31, voters would “say once and for all in Colorado that we are color-blind.”
This is an effort doomed to failure.
On March 10th, 2008 Socrates says:
Because anything that the corrupt, coke-deal-watching Ed Jones supports is doomed.