GOP shuns affirmative action voteState party denounces Connerly effort to put issue on ballot;
By Joel Kurth / The Detroit News
… California activist Ward Connerly is coming to the University of Michigan today to launch a $1 million campaign to collect at least 317,517 signatures and force a November 2004 referendum on whether race can be a factor in school admissions.
Public opinion polls consistently show a majority of Michigan and U.S. residents oppose the race-conscious policies, but the state Republican party is denouncing Connerly's effort as divisive and unnecessary.
"We don't think it's valuable to keep stirring the pot on this issue," said Greg McNeilly, spokesman for the Michigan Republican Party.
"Public policy should be focused on healing the racial divide, and that's not something accomplished by Mr. Connerly's initiative."
… Supporters of U-M's policies promise loud, angry resistance when Connerly appears at noon today on the steps of the Graduate Library. A multiracial businessman, Connerly is a villain to liberals, but a champion to many conservatives.
"Ward Connerly is making a very big mistake," said Agnes Mae Ikhiobe Aleobua, 22, of Detroit, a U-M senior and spokeswoman for the Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action, Integration and Fight for Equality by Any Means Necessary.
"He will be met by the force of the movement when he comes to Michigan. A lot of people are distancing themselves from him. But no matter how hard they try, he is still a pawn for the right wing."
…A referendum on affirmative action would attract large numbers of black, Democrat-leaning urban voters to the polls during President George Bush's re-election effort, said Bill Ballenger, a former state legislator and publisher of the Inside Michigan Politics newsletter.
What's more, dozens of corporations filed briefs in support of U-M's policies. The same businesses typically are major donors to Republicans, said Bill McMaster, a Sterling Heights public relations executive who is in discussions with Connerly's group to help run his campaign.
"The Republicans are in a box," McMaster said. "They're trying to have their cake and eat it, too."
Business, government and labor groups, meanwhile, already are beginning to form a coalition to oppose Connerly, said David Waymire, executive vice president of Marketing Resource Group, a Lansing lobbying firm that is helping spearhead the opposition.
