Outlook grim for race data initiative

SACRAMENTO -- Backers of a ballot initiative to virtually ban state and local governments from collecting racial data were all but conceding defeat in the final days before California's election tomorrow.

The campaign for the initiative, known as Proposition 54, has run out of cash and out of steam in a state that at the moment seems less preoccupied with the issue of race than the possible recall of Governor Gray Davis, the main issue on the ballot in the special election. The initiative's sponsors have been vastly outspent by its organized opponents, a coalition of minority, labor, and health groups.

"We won't be running any ads. We're broke -- capital B-R-O-K-E," said Ward Connerly, a regent at the University of California who has led the campaign for what supporters call the "racial privacy initiative."

"The recall is this whole circus," Connerly said Thursday. "I would've preferred we not get caught in all that. I think we're in for a rough haul -- I am grim about it. We're not even fund-raising. What's the point?"

In recent weeks, a barrage of television commercials has flooded the airwaves denouncing the initiative as a blow to civil rights, a hindrance to sound public policy, and a threat to medical research. One commercial features a former surgeon general, C. Everett Koop, arguing that the initiative would hamper the field of medicine.

"We knew early on that the more voters learned about the initiative, the more likely they would turn against it," said Michael Harris, assistant director for the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights of the San Francisco Bay Area.

A Los Angeles Times poll published Wednesday indicated that 54 percent of voters opposed the ballot measure, a marked change from a Field Poll two months ago that indicated 50 percent of voters supported the initiative and 29 percent opposed it.

"We are very pleased in the way the information about this initiative has gotten out," said Maria Blanco, national senior counsel for the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund. "I think people began seeing the unintended consequences of the initiative. But I don't think anybody can assume this initiative has faded and will lose."

If Proposition 54 is defeated, it would reverse a recent string of setbacks that racial and ethnic groups have endured on ballot questions in California.

In 1994, voters approved an initiative that sought to deny state and local services to undocumented immigrants. Two years later, Connerly successfully led the campaign to pass another initiative that dismantled affirmative action in government hiring and public college admissions. In 1998, voters outlawed bilingual education in public schools despite opposition from many Latinos.

With the proposed ban on collecting racial data, many observers had expected another contentious campaign. But the battle has been virtually one-sided when it comes to fund-raising and advertising.

Supported by most of the state's top Democrats, labor unions, health care organizations, and minority-rights advocates, opponents have amassed nearly $9 million to fight the initiative, records filed with the secretary of state's office show. The total includes $4.6 million from fund-raising committees controlled by Lieutenant Governor Cruz Bustamante, the only prominent Democrat in the race to replace Davis, also a Democrat.

In comparison, supporters have collected a little more than $200,000 this year, after raising nearly $2 million in 2002 to collect enough signatures to get the initiative on the ballot, according to campaign records. The initiative originally was scheduled for a vote in March 2004 but has instead been caught in the whirlwind of the recall campaign.

The initiative would ban state and local agencies from asking about race and ethnicity on virtually all government forms, which supporters say would do away with a racial classification system that has no place in government and a truly colorblind society. But opponents say the initiative would set back civil rights by eliminating the data that can help track discrimination and hate crimes and would prevent policy makers from gaining demographic insights. The initiative would allow the use of racial data in describing crime suspects, assigning prisoners to cells, picking police officers for undercover assignments, and meeting requirements for federal funding.

All except one of the leading contenders vying to replace Davis -- if he is recalled -- have come out against the initiative. State Senator Tom McClintock, a Republican, said he supports it.