By Robert Salonga
Daily Bruin Staff
Backers of a state ballot initiative to ban the University of
California and other state agencies from maintaining racial data
are trying to move it from November’s election to March 2004
to improve its chance of passing.
The Racial Privacy Initiative is the brainchild of UC Regent
Ward Connerly, who in 1996 successfully spearheaded the passage of
Proposition 209, which banned the consideration of race in hiring
and admissions by state agencies.
The Connerly-led American Civil Rights Coalition has campaigned
the RPI since 2001, but funding shortages delayed its intended
placement on the March 5 state primary ballot to November.
Waiting until March 2004 serves several purposes for the RPI,
said ACRC Executive Director Kevin Nguyen. In the last five months,
the ACRC has raised and spent $2 million, and the added time will
allow them to replenish the campaign.
“We feel giving ourselves 18 months instead of seven
months is going to be better in terms of rebuilding our war
chest,” Nguyen said.
The additional time, he said, would also give them more time to
explain the ballot initiative to voters.
“It’s the first initiative of its kind anywhere in
the country,” Nguyen said. “We have to take care in
pressing our case to the people.”
Opponents to the RPI feel there is a good reason no one has
previously proposed such an initiative.
“We wouldn’t be able to track the students we are
working with, or identify if certain groups of students are doing
better than others,” said Student Regent Tracy Davis in a
March interview.
To be on the November ballot, the initiative needs 670,816
signatures of registered voters by April 19, said Shad Balch,
spokesman for Secretary of State Bill Jones.
Nguyen said the coalition has collected well over that amount,
and is pushing for upward of one million signatures.
But the ACRC plans to submit enough signatures to trigger a full
count of votes, which could take anywhere from 30 to 90 days. This
could be tricky, since Balch said initiatives registered with the
state cannot submit a partial count of signatures collected.
Nguyen hopes the full count will push the verification beyond
the Secretary office’s June 27 deadline for initiatives
looking for placement on the November ballot. In this case the RPI
would roll over to the next statewide election, in March 2004, also
the presidential primary.
Nguyen said the typically low poll numbers associated with the
primary elections will help the initiative’s approval.
“Low voter turnout means you’re capturing a small
universe,” he said. “We also want to avoid the partisan
politics of the upcoming gubernatorial race.”
The ACRC does not want the RPI to become an issue of contention
for the governorship, since he said the initiative is not intended
to be political, Nguyen said.