Three bills intended to scuttle affirmative action in California were left in dry dock when an assembly committee refused to pass them on to the Legislature late Tuesday night.
After arguments from both sides, the six votes needed to launch the bills from the ten-member Assembly Higher Education Committee were not forthcoming.
But the bills, authored by Chico Republican Bernie Richter, are just one facet of a determined assault on affirmative action in California and the nation.
"I think these three bills are just one set of what will probably be other legislative initiatives," said Brian Murphy, SF State's director of external affairs.
Richter's bills -- AB 211, 727, and 833 -- are aimed at existing laws.
State agencies are required to set goals and timetables in hiring and promotion of minorities and women to ensure that these groups are not "under-utilized," according to a legislative counsel's office summary of AB 211. "This bill would repeal those affirmative action requirements," the summary said.
As SF State's voice in Sacramento, Murphy was at the meeting to argue against the legislation. "I felt it (AB 211) was a very serious attack against principles of fairness that people have fought hard for," he said.
The other two bills, AB 727 and 833, are aimed specifically at California colleges and universities. They would prohibit affirmative action programs in hiring, admissions, and financial aid decisions at state schools.
Each bill received only four votes, all coming from Republicans. Republican Bruce McPherson abstained from all three votes.
"I think something needs to be done, I just don't think this is the way to do it," McPherson said. "To eliminate a whole program, some of which has had some positive impacts in recognizing inequalities -- I don't think the total program needs destruction. Parts of it need attention."
Any changes to affirmative action in the legislature will require bipartisan support, McPherson said.
Murphy, as chief consultant to the Joint Committee for Review of the California Master Plan for Higher Education, helped write the state's policy on affirmative action programs for community colleges in 1989. As recently as six years ago, there was bipartisan support for affirmative action, he said.
"Equity and diversity were absolutely central positions," he said of the Master Plan review he helped author, which was approved by the 16-member committee, composed of an equal number of Democrats and Republicans.
The committee has until April 21 to reconsider voting on the bills again, but that will probably not happen unless Richter amends the bills, McPherson said.
Committee member Tom Bordonaro, a San Luis Obispo Republican, said that it is likely the bills will be voted on again April 18 but the vote will probably not change.
If the committee refuses to hear the matter again, Richter could call for a vote in the assembly to withdraw the bill from the committee -- forcing representatives to show their positions on the controversial issue.
And if the bills never see daylight, Richter is ready to introduce a constitutional amendment that would accomplish the same purpose.
Richter concedes that passage of the amendment in the Legislature is unlikely, according to yesterday's San Francisco Chronicle.
But California voters will have the opportunity to vote on the matter in a ballot resolution like Proposition 187 if a so-called Civil Rights Initiative seeking to end affirmative action gathers the necessary 650,000 signatures needed to appear on the ballot.
"The key struggle is not in the Legislature where similar bills would probably die," said Murphy of Tuesday's rejected bills, "but in the court of public opinion around the initiative process." He said the initiative could be on the ballot as soon as June. The Chronicle said the measure's backers are hoping to put the issue on the 1996 presidential ballot.
Murphy said he expected the eventual Republican nominee for president to make affirmative action a top campaign issue.