Epitaph: Minority Content in the American OEM Automotive Industry

Epitaph: Minority Content in the American OEM Auto Industry

General Motors chief of purchasing, Bo Andersson, recently admitted that GM did not meet its minority content “target” for 2005. He further stated that such targets would no longer be set, because they are not realistic anymore. GM has clearly abandoned its knee-jerk adherence to affirmative action in selecting—or outright creating—suppliers from the American black community.

It is our prediction that, when MCRI passes, GM will say it was “forced” to abandon its programs. This is simply not true. GM is bailing out of affirmative action in minority content and pretending that it is being forced to do so. The MCRI does not apply to private business!

The minority business enterprise as an American OEM auto industry supply “category” has peaked, and is shrinking along with the market share of the American auto industry. The MBE could disappear in the next two years. This will be due to globalization—to foreign owners and partners’ taking over. They would do this only as investment, and will not tolerate money-losing operations. MBE’s are money-losing social-engineering operations, not business decisions based on sound economics. (The auto industry started by trying to help American blacks, and ended up spending billions to avoid being called racists.)

The American OEM auto industry wants its hypocritical MBE racket to die quietly. A grateful government, which has long enjoyed having American business do its job while giving credit to elected officials, will not complain unless they get caught (for instance by RaceFreeZone). Then they will howl that they knew nothing about how the auto industry handled its program to “elevate” minorities by using old-fashioned racism—treating minorities like pets (to paraphrase Shelby Steele).

The auto industry handled the MBE mandates by creating the fronts and the mythology, but it no longer has the financial or personal resources to maintain this fifty-year fiction of creating auto supply businesses without training or educating anyone. A few people got rich on the hopes and dreams of others who never benefited at all.

We at RaceFreeZone do not want the MBE program to die quietly. We believe the death of minority content should be trumpeted far and wide as a victory for free enterprise.

Read More... Collapse...

An Exclusive Interview with Ward Connerly

A RaceFreeZone exclusive interview with Ward Connerly

Diane Carey interviews Ward Connerly about recent events:

From Diane: I’ve been working to pass the Michigan Civil Rights Initiative for more than 2 years now, first by participating in collecting signatures for the petition campaign. I knew who Ward Connerly was and admired him very much for his daring work to pass the California and Washington Civil Rights Initiatives, but did not meet him until very recently.

Many American revolutions are sparked by one person, and the revolution to finally put race relations out of their misery by treating all Americans as individuals has been led by Ward Connerly. Because of his unremitting devotion to equality, he has constantly come under fire by those who want to keep American divided by race. Ad hominem attacks on Connerly have been savage, accusing him of being an “Uncle Tom,” an “Oreo” and a white people’s patsy, all because he is black. Lately he has been attacked for fees he is paid by his non-profit organizations, the American Civil Rights Institute and the American Civil Rights Coalition.

The Interview:

RaceFreeZone: David Waymire of One United Michigan, an organization leading the fight against MCRI, trying to keep race preferences going, claims that “this campaign was developed and is being run by out-of-state millionaire using out-of-state money.” That means you. In fact, I am a native Michigan citizen, as were almost all the others who circulated the petition, and the petition had to be signed by Michigan registered voters. Over 500,000 Michigan voters signed the petition to get MCRI on the ballot. That is hardly an “outside” effort. I also know that you were asked by people in Michigan, specifically Jennifer Gratz, to help launch a ballot initiative. You didn’t come to us—we came to you.

Ward Connerly: I’m also fighting for an American Constitutional principle. I’m an American. We’re all Americans. I’m fighting for equality in our nation as a whole.

RaceFreeZone: I’ve read your book, Creating Equal. You grew up as a poor black boy in the true Jim Crow era. I was fascinated by your stories of having to wait in the car while your aunt went out to the back of restaurants to get food in paper bags, because blacks were not allowed in the restaurant itself. We’ve put several quotations from the book on RaceFreeZone, but recommend our readers to read the whole book, to see your story of growing up in a world of true segregation, yet coming out without the taint of victimhood that plagues so many minorities today.

Ward Connerly: I appreciate that very much. The adults in my life never allowed me to act the part of a victim.

RaceFreeZone: There has been much hay made by MCRI’s opponents that somehow we who support ending race and gender preferences are making money on the effort, and that’s why we’re doing it. They attacked the petition gatherers as being “hired” or “paid,” and while that’s a common practice in petition drives, I know that I did it completely because I believe in the result of true equality. I never made a dime, and in fact have invested my time and money into this effort. Thousands of others also collected signatures without any pay, may more than were ever paid to collect signatures. Now you’re being attacked because you are paid speaking fees. Congressmen John Conyers and Charles Rangel have asked the IRS to investigate your finances. This is meant to imply that you have collected monies without paying taxes, and that you are involved in the struggle against race preferences in order to make money.

Ward Connerly: Like every public speaker, I receive speaking fees. Those fees could go to me directly, and no one would ever know about them except the IRS and me. However, to ensure that everything is above board, I route all of my speaking engagements through ACRI, which reimburses me when they receive the fees. This inflates my “compensation,” but is the height of ethical behavior. Our opponents are just looking for something to attack me about because they feat that I might be successful in eliminating their way of life.

The only way that Conyers and Rangel would know that I have received such fees is by looking at ACRI tax returns, which fully disclosed all payments to me. Neither ACRI nor I have anything to hide. That is why we included all of this on our form 990s.

RaceFreeZone: Also there was recently an IRS complaint filed against One United Michigan for running contributions through a non-profit façade, so this rings of retaliation to my ears.

Ward Connerly: Of course it is. One United Michigan, a 501 C (4) organization, is having contributions sent to a 501 C (3) organization called Michigan United, to evade having its contributors pay taxes on their donations. As soon as a complaint was made and it started showing up in the media, suddenly they were interested in my finances.

RaceFreeZone: Your detractors have claimed that you are paid $1 million dollars for working only about 30 hours a week. Is that true?

Ward Connerly: I give about 100 speeches annually, many of them pro bono. I travel 80% of the time. During August (2006) I will be home four days for the entire month. The contention that I work 30 hours a week is ludicrous. My typical week of work is over 80 hours. Ask Jennifer Gratz and Doug Tietz, the MCRI campaign staff, what a typical week is like for me when I come to Michigan.

RaceFreeZone: Have you been paid for being involved in the California, Washington or Michigan Civil Rights Initiatives?

Ward Connerly: No, I don’t receive one penny from any initiative in which I’ve been involved. In fact, I have personally contributed substantial funds out of my own pocket toward those initiatives. As the campaign finance reports confirm, I contributed about $465,000 to help qualify MCRI for the ballot. If this is what that goofy guy Waymire characterizes as “lining my pockets,” then I need better lining.

RaceFreeZone: Conyers and Rangel’s letter to the IRS claims that the ACRI and ACRC organizations are “padding the pockets of its executives,” meaning you. The IRS complaint implies that there’s something being hidden.

Ward Connerly: Again, I personally contributed, out of my own pocket, $465,000 for the signature-gathering operation of MCRI. That is a matter of public record. That contribution is not tax-deductible, by the way, so I paid over $250,000 in taxes on that contribution. If you do the math, there’s not much left of that $1 million which they are complaining about.

RaceFreeZone: We at RaceFreeZone are challenging the Ford Motor Company to explain why it magically maintains the Jaguar dealership supposedly “owned” by John Conyers’ brother Nathan, even though the dealership has apparently never made money. Ford put up the money to build the Novi dealership, then to put its inventory there. They continue to support it, despite its lackluster record for actually selling cars. To us, that smacks of a pay-off to a powerful congressman. It’s interesting in light on Conyers’ sudden fascination with your “ethics.” Do you have a comment?

Ward Connerly: Also, what about the ethical behavior of Conyers’ having his taxpayer-paid staff doing his babysitting and other personal tasks? Who is investigating that? Every penny that I receive is accounted for, with an abundance of taxes paid on it.

RaceFreeZone: One United Michigan says that “without the Michigan ballot initiative, Ward Connerly would have trouble making that $1 million this year.” What do you have to say about that?

Ward Connerly: Over 10 years ago, before I ever got involved in this movement, my annual salary was $1.8 million. So, I don’t need this in order to earn a living. I can earn far more money, with a lot less grief, working for my firm at Connerly & Associates.

I recognize that an income of over $1.0 million annually is a lot of money to the average person. But, put this in context. I own my own firm, which enabled me to make far more than a million dollars per/year, as far back as ten years ago. The firm is still going strong. My income is now less than it was ten years ago; I give over 100 speeches a year and probably an equal number of interviews; I am on the road 80% of the time; I contributed $450,000 of personal funds to help qualify MCRI; and I suffer more public abuse – physical threats, name-calling – than anyone should have to endure. Does this sound like someone who is involved in this movement for his own personal financial gain? I sometimes believe that Waymire gets paid according to how many lies he can tell and the extent to which he distorts the record. His sneaky little footprints are all over the lawn leading up to Conyers’ doorstep on this issue. Consider the source.

RaceFreeZone wants it known openly that we agree with Ward Connerly’s efforts and believe that he is a true courageous American of the noble old-style, of which we need more in this nation. Ward Connerly rejects the categorization of Americans by race. He is a prime exemplar for America as a race-free zone.

Read More... Collapse...

Help to End the One-State Recession. Vote Yes on Proposition 2

I think that Michigan is in a kind of "One state recession," and in order to dig ourselves out of it we need to level the playing field and give everyone an opportunity to contribute to a recovery by eliminating arbitrary impediments to a market economy that were motivated to give power to narrow special interest groups in order to support one political party over another. Union work rules and affirmative action have both outlived their usefulness and both are a drag on the economy. It is critical to the future of Michigan that neither become institutionalized as that most dreaded of taxation motivators, the "entitlement." Lets begin the process of bringing Michigan's economy back with a first step: Vote yes on Proposition 2.

Louisiana had Katrina. Michigan has arbitrary work and hiring rules that drain the state's treasury and bankrupt its businesses all to benefit a minuscule proportion of those that the rules were intended to uplift. The system is broken, and if we don't fix it then Michigan will become the Mississippi of the 21st century, a forgotten backwater where wealthy outsiders and sovereign internal nation-states collect worker's paychecks and pay back as little as they can to the state. Vote Yes on Proposition 2 to start reversing the slide.

Read the following article from today's Washington Post and weep for Michigan:

Most States Have Budget Surpluses



Some Find Creative Uses for Cash



By Lois Romano Washington Post Staff Writer




It’s tantamount to finding an unexpected wad of cash buried in the pocket of an old jacket - utter euphoria at the windfall, mad money to splurge on a one-time extravagance.
Only this find is breathtakingly huge.
For first time since Sept. 11, 2001, the vast majority of states reported saving an average of 10 percent of their budgets, one of the highest percentages of unspent money in decades. The $57 billion in unexpected revenue has afforded states an opportunity to find all sorts of creative ways to spend and save their cash, according to a report released this week by the National Conference of State Legislators.
New Mexico has undoubtedly targeted the most unconventional project to lavish money upon - a space launchpad for future commuter orbital excursions. (No, the spaceport is not in Roswell, home of the rumored 1947 flying saucer.) Nationally, the states’ surplus money is a 25 percent increase from the previous fiscal year and a welcomed boost after a fiveyear slump. The report notes that year-end balances are “widely considered one of best indicators of state fiscal health.”
“It’s sort of breather . . . like the eye of the storm, before a lot of serious needs kick in,” said Corina Eckl, co-author of the report for NCSL. “Overall revenues are not keeping up with spending and these states are still in need of a lot of resources for items such as funding No Child Left Behind and aging prison facilities.”
Some states have earmarked the money for onetime expenditures, or they are using it bolster reserves and rainy-day funds. Across the board, education is the largest recipient, with 24 states sending money to kindergartenthrough-12th-grade education and 20 spending on higher education, the report said.
Alaska invested $300 million into its Public Education Fund and had another $300 million to place in a new reserve fund. Wyoming used its surplus for natural resources, putting $200 million toward its Permanent Mineral Trust Fund, while New Mexico placed $40 million of its $800 million windfall into its Water Trust Fund. Oklahoma invested some money into cancer and diabetes centers, and North Carolina found veterans nursing homes that needed money.
Arizona ended up with an extraordinary $1.5 billion more in revenue than expected, money that was generated largely from the real estate boom. The state used about a third of the money to reduce taxes, some to promote the state and some for highway construction, and it still had a solid chunk for the rainy-day fund. “It’s given us the opportunity spend money on things that we would normally let slide, such as ongoing repairs” for state property, said Richard Stavneak, director of the Joint Legislative Budget Committee.
A number of states chose to sock away the money in rainyday funds. Maryland sent $593 million. Connecticut added $440 million - and used an additional $250 million to catch up on contributions to the teachers pension fund. Georgia’s rainy-day fund will receive $430 million.
Nationwide, state lawmakers have been struggling with budgets since the 2001 attacks triggered an economic downturn. After several years of fast-declining revenues, states were conservatively planning based on scaled-back expenditures. Even as revenues started to climb, states were reluctant to count on the money and based budgets on lesser income. As a result, all but five states - Illinois, Kansas, Louisiana, Michigan and Wisconsin - reported surpluses.
The study noted that revenues had been projected to grow by only 2.7 percent for last budget year, but they ended up growing by nearly 7.7 percent. Because state budget drafts forecast 18 months in advance, it is often difficult to accurately predict actual revenue.
In New Mexico, the state was bestowed with unexpected revenues from oil and gas leases, and in Connecticut capital gains taxes proved more generous than expected.
“We saw it coming, but what we didn’t see coming was the bounce that we got through capital gains revenues,” said Susan Shimelman, director of Connecticut’s Office of Fiscal Analysis. “So it wasn’t budgeting. It’s sort of a largess.”
Overall, state budget directors are not ready to say that things have turned around such that states can depend on similar revenues in the current fiscal year. And some note that with the windfall comes a whole new set of issues.
New Mexico, a relatively poor state, has approved $100 million for a partnership with Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic to start orbital passenger flights from the state as early as 2009. While the public is solidly behind Democratic Gov. Bill Richardson’s push for the spaceport as a source of revenue for the state, there are always constituencies that wonder whether the money could have been better spent on immediate needs.
“Folks come out of the woodwork with all kinds of ideas and images of where we should spend,” said David Abbey, director of New Mexico’s Legislative Finance Committee. “It puts tremendous pressure in the legislature to fund everything. The challenge becomes separating the good ones from the gleam in someone’s eye.”

Read More... Collapse...

Racism and Sexism are Wrong. Vote Yes on Proposal 2

Reader Greg Brodeur has had the letter below publiswhed widely this week in Michigan newspapers. I don't see any way to refute its clear and compelling argument:


Racism and sexism are wrong. Is that so hard?

Is it so hard to understand that we can’t give a person benefits based on his race without denying another person that same benefit because of his race? That we can’t give a woman a contract because she’s a woman without denying a man just because he’s a man?

Racism and sexism were wrong 40 years ago. They’re still wrong, no matter which “side” gets favors. It’s time to pass the Michigan Civil Rights Initiative, to end government discrimination.

Here’s the truth: Affirmative action breaks us into groups and has our government dole out benefits. If we don’t stop it, we will be forever divided.
Anyone opposing MCRI is either a blatant racist or is tragically naïve. Yes, I’ll say it right out: they’re racists. Affirmative action is a racist, sexist policy. Let’s finally get rid of it.

Vote yes on Proposal 2.

Greg Brodeur

Read More... Collapse...

The Michigan Civil Rights Commission is biased

Today's Detroit Free Press has an excellent article by Dr.William Allen, professor of political science at Michigan State University. I note that he points to the bias displayed by the so-called Michigan Civil Rights Commission as a factor in understanding the allegations of fraud thrown at the bona fides of the MCRI petition.

I think that Dr. Allen and I are both incensed by organizations like BAMN that hold the position that blacks should be singled out as being unable to read or understand the petition they were being urged to sign. BAMN seems to be saying that hispanics, Asian-Amerticans, and native Americans are smarter than blacks. Why does anyone even think about supporting a racist organization like BAMN?

From today's, August 17, 2006, Detroit Free Press:

Black people are smart enough to vote on initiative

August 17, 2006


William Allen

Michigan's black voters are under assault in a calculated campaign of deception and disrespect by the group BAMN (By Any Means Necessary) and its political allies (including the Michigan Civil Rights Commission) who oppose the Michigan Civil Rights Initiative.

Using the big lie of "fraud and corruption" in the process of gathering signatures to put MCRI on the Michigan ballot in November, these organizations argue that black voters who signed or would have signed the petition are too dumb and corrupt to have done so knowingly and therefore should not be permitted to participate in the democratic process.

This political campaign is a repeat of historical efforts to deny the civil rights of black citizens.

These efforts mirror exactly the campaign of Hoke Smith for governor of Georgia 100 years ago. Smith began his political career running on the backs of blacks with an enfranchisement campaign. When he concluded that he could not win that way, he ran a campaign on the theme that blacks were too dumb and corrupt to be allowed to participate in the democratic process and therefore should be disfranchised. Smith's creation of a culture of disrespect for blacks led to the Hoke Smith effect -- the culture of violence that led to in the Atlanta pogrom of 1906 in which scores of black citizens were bludgeoned, shot and lynched.

This is a civil rights issue and not just an issue of political and legal maneuvering. The lawsuits against MCRI that allege fraud in signature collection have themselves been built upon fraudulent misrepresentation. Consider the testimony under oath of the Rev. Nathaniel Smith, who was induced by BAMN to testify that he was misled by MCRI contractors to represent the initiative as a civil rights initiative intended to perpetuate affirmative action preferences (squarely contradicting the very language of the initiative).

Smith's testimony is dubious on its face, since he claims to have induced hundreds of black citizens falsely to sign the petition but offered no testimony that he signed it himself. A black man who supposedly believed the initiative was good for black citizens, and so represented it, apparently did not consider that important enough to sign the petition himself.

To the contrary, as my own experience demonstrates, the initiative was honestly presented. It is in fact the case that black citizens, including myself, did sign the petition knowingly. Moreover, many black citizens believe that it deserves to be voted on. Therefore, the legal claims that black citizens could not knowingly wish to hold such a vote is an attempt on the basis of race to deny them the right to vote, against the guarantees of the 15th Amendment.

Citizens who truly desire to defend the participation of black citizens in politics will condemn and resist this means-justifies-the-end approach to politics, based on creating a culture of disrespect for black citizens. Our rights are too valuable to be left vulnerable to the tactics of political radicals.

The mission of our organization, Toward a Fair Michigan, is precisely to defend the democratic process and open, fully informed deliberations. TAFM therefore effectively condemns BAMN and its political allies who seek to undermine the democratic process. TAFM says, "just let us vote."

Dr. WILLIAM ALLEN is a professor of political science at Michigan State University and chairs Toward a Fair Michigan, which supports the Michigan Civil Rights Initiative. Write him in care of the Free Press Editorial Page, 600 W. Fort St., Detroit 48226 or

oped@freepress.com.

Read More... Collapse...

The Unintended Consequences of Affirmative Action

Blogger, Michael Barone, posted this article yesterday. Everyone going on about the potential for unintended consequences posed by the MCRI should think about what happens when:

Diversity outweighs freedom on campus; Faculty members win grant for law school diversity researchHere are a couple of observations from my assistant, Brian Sopp:

Diversity outweighs freedom on campus

On June 29, the National Association of Scholars released a study of university websites revealing what Stephen Balch, president of NAS, calls "an obsession with diversity unparalleled in any other sector of American opinion leadership." The report, entitled "Words to Live By: How Diversity Trumps Freedom on Academic Websites," found that the number of references to diversity on the websites of the top 100 universities in the "America's Best Colleges 2006" edition of U.S. News & World Report exceeds references to American ideals such as freedom, liberty, democracy, and equality. In contrast, a representative sample showed that the number of references to words such as freedom exceeds references to diversity on the websites of corporations, religious organizations, political parties, mainstream media, popular blogs, and labor unions.

Balch believes that these results illustrate "the great gulf that has opened between our universities and the rest of the country." He concludes the report with apprehension:

The onward march of diversity as an ideal, revealed in these data, may portend a profound transformation in America's conception of itself. Since its inception, America has seen itself as largely a community of individuals who, having put aside prior group loyalties, live together in equality under the law. If any nation has embodied a liberal, universalistic conception, it has surely been the United States. If we are currently moving toward a new vision, in which America becomes a congeries of groups, a collectivity of collectivities, a domain of many peoples and cultures, the consequences not only for what has been America, but for the entire world, will be vast.

The report has been heavily criticized for its simplicity and rhetoric. But even if this study does not prove Balch's assertions, it is difficult to deny that universities are obsessed with diversity. One illustration of this obsession is the creation of the position of "chief diversity officer" at more than 30 universities. Many of these positions are created in addition to existing diversity administrators and lack a clear job description.

While the findings of this study may not sound the death knell for American culture as we know it, they are further evidence that, at least in the realm of education, traditional American values are at risk of being sacrificed in academe's pursuit of diversity. As Michael Barone points out in his criticism of the American Bar Association Section of Legal Education and Admissions "Equal Opportunity and Diversity" standard, this is already happening.


Faculty members win grant for law school diversity research

Faculty members from the University of North Carolina campuses at Chapel Hill and Greensboro as well as from UCLA have received a $540,000 grant from the Law School Admission Council (LSAC) to continue their study of whether racial diversity in U.S. law schools results in educational benefits.

The grant is being given to the Educational Diversity Project at UNC-Chapel Hill. Law Prof. Charles E. Daye and psychology Prof. Abigail T. Panter of UNC-Chapel Hill; Walter R Allen, professor of sociology and education at UCLA; and Linda F. Wightman, emeritus professor of educational research at UNC-Greensboro, have already completed the first facet of the study, which involves following 8,500 students who entered about 70 law schools in the fall of 2004 and tracks their progress while taking into account their backgrounds and aspirations for law school. The grant was awarded by LSAC under its empirical research program, which awards grants for research about law schools, law students, and legal education. The council has awarded more than $1 million to the project's comprehensive research study since 2004. The latest grant funds the project through June 2008.

As highlighted by the Educational Diversity Project, "controversy exists as to whether racial diversity offers measurable educational benefits in the law school setting and in the increasingly diverse workforce and society beyond law school." So, it is important to discover the true effect of affirmative-action policies. However, the timing and the background of the study's authors suggest that LSAC may have commissioned professors to produce support for a valued position (that affirmative action is just and beneficial) rather than an answer to a perplexing question (is affirmative action beneficial?).

Charles Daye, former LSAC president, participated in the preparation of and cosigned the amicus brief that the University of North Carolina School of Law submitted to the U.S. Supreme Court in support of the University of Michigan School of Law in the Grutter case. Furthermore, one of his professional interests is "assuring access to the legal profession by members of under-represented minority groups." Linda F. Wightman, former vice president of operations, testing, and research at LSAC, has done extensive educational research. One of her studies, entitled "Are Other Things Essentially Equal? An Empirical Investigation of the Consequences of Including Race as a Factor in Law School Admission" and featured on LSAC's website, concludes that "the data provide compelling evidence disputing the claim that including race as a factor in law school admission decisions resulted either in admitting students unqualified for the academic rigor of a legal education or in undermining the academic standards of participating institutions." She came to this conclusion by avoiding "the misleading conclusions that can result from simple comparisons of total group performance, either on admission credentials or law school performance."

The Educational Diversity Project claims that its methods will "provide further nuance, depth, and richness" to the study. The nuance may be intended to eliminate "misleading conclusions" that can result from comparing "total group performance."

This grant comes shortly after Richard Sander, a law professor at UCLA, wrote his study, "The Racial Paradox of Corporate Law Firms," which will be in the next issue of the North Carolina Law Review. Sander concludes in his study that racial preferences in law firm hiring may actually hurt minority lawyers. Sander is also the author of "A Systemic Analysis of Affirmative Action in American Law Schools," published in 2004. This report concluded that affirmative action in law school admissions hurts minorities. By placing minority students in more elite schools than they should be attending, affirmative action has caused some of the disparity between minority and white law school dropout rates and bar passage rates. Sander suggests that without affirmative action, there may in fact be more minority lawyers. This study caused much controversy and led to the publication of many counter studies from what Sander calls "the affirmative action establishment."

While it is important to assess the effect affirmative action has on student performance and educational experience in law school, such an assessment is only valuable if it is unbiased and truthful. LSAC, as an administrative organization, should be pursuing truth rather than any specific agenda.

Unfortunately, commissioning a study to professors with a strong bias is a step in the wrong direction. It seems possible that this study's consideration of "nuance" and educational experience may suggest that it is being conducted to rebut studies, such as Sander's, that focus on more tangible factors such as law school performance.

Posted at 04:11 PM by Michael Barone

Read More... Collapse...

The Legitimacy of the MCRI Placement on the Ballot

Reader Steve Sutton has published in the Farmington (Mi) Observer newspaper a letter that says everything that needs to be said about the legitimacy of the MCRI placement on the November ballot. We reprint his excellent comments below:

To the editor:

In the debate over the Michigan Civil Rights Initiative (MCRI) appearing on the ballot in November, the Farmington Observer questioned the wrong group’s credibility (“MCRI's claims raise credibility questions”).



A few overlooked facts:



To gain ballot access, MCRI needed 317,757 signatures. 508,202 were submitted. To prevent it from appearing on the ballot, over 180,000 signatures would have to be proved invalid. BAMN alleged up to 125,000 were acquired fraudulently. Even if their most exaggerated guess was accurate, enough valid signatures remained for ballot access.



The Michigan Civil Rights Commission (MCRC) held hearings 18 months after people signed the petition asking them what the petition gatherer said. I challenge anyone to accurately recall a one-minute conversation that occurred over a year ago.

The MCRC claims it collected 500 – 1000 “affidavits” alleging petitioners misrepresented the petition. None of the “affidavits” are notarized and the MCRC has only released 75 of them to the public for viewing.

197 people spoke before the MCRC. At least 46 of them did not sign the petition and 12 are members of, or affiliated with, BAMN. In addition, a handful of political officials spoke. I leave it to readers to guess what their motivations may be in this election year.

Prior to the circulation of petitions in 2004, MCRC Chairman Mark Bernstein released a press release stating “The [MCRI] is a shameful attempt to confuse and manipulate unsuspecting voters…” At the same time, the MCRC adopted a resolution opposing the initiative. Two weeks after his commission released its report claiming fraud, Bernstein held a fundraiser for the campaign to oppose MCRI.

Finally, MCRI does not claim “that their opposition comes only from a radical fringe group (BAMN).” However, this extremist group is leading the charge. Since 2004, they have filed multiple complaints and lawsuits against MCRI. In fact, their frivolous filings delayed the initiative from appearing on the 2004 ballot. BAMN allegations have been rejected by the Secretary of State, the Court of Appeals, and the Michigan Supreme Court. In addition, they have used intimidation to try and prevent the MCRI from moving forward.

MCRI has conducted itself in a civil and professional manner. Opponents cannot make the same claim. I leave it to voters to decide who is credible in this debate.

Read More... Collapse...