Ward Connerly plans for 2008:
Ward Connerly, who led the successful ballot measure campaign in November to bar the use of racial preferences in Michigan, offered a few more hints in a speech Friday about which states would be next on his list of targets. In a speech at the Heritage Foundation, Connerly said that his American Civil Rights Initiative would sponsor ballot initiatives in five states on election day in 2008, and that the states would be chosen by April from among a current list of nine: Arizona, Colorado, Missouri, Oklahoma, Nevada, South Dakota, Nebraska, Wyoming and Utah. Connerly said the group’s decision would rest on the states in which there was the strongest local support, so that it would not be “subject to the carpetbagger characterization, too much,” and that it was “leaning very strongly in the direction of Colorado and Oklahoma” as two likely targets. Connerly, whose track record in taking aim at affirmative action dates to his days as a regent at the University of California and includes passage of a statewide initiative in Washington State, said he believed November’s successful drive in Michigan would make future efforts “a lot easier,” given that it overcame almost unanimous opposition from university and government officials, business leaders and even the clergy.
Watch Connerly’s speech here.