The story so far: On Election Day, California voters approved Proposition 209, the California Civil Rights Initiative, by 54 to 46 percent. CCRI mandates that in state employment, contracting, and education, California treat all people alike — no matter their color and no matter whether they are men or women. In other words, no more “affirmative action” racial and gender preferences in state and state-funded activities.
Before the month was out (as detailed last week by Matthew Rees), Thelton E. Henderson, one of Jimmy Carter’s federal judges, put the new law on ice at the behest of the usual liberal litigants (the ACLU, et al.). With breathtaking arrogance and Orwellian hostility to the plain meaning of words, Henderson ruled that CCRI might violate the “equal protection” clause of the U.S. Constitution (to which clause, it can fairly be argued, CCRI is more faithful than federal law and federal judges).
Enter President Clinton, who weighed in, sort of, in a most curious way. On December 10, he took the occasion of remarks naming a new director of the Voice of America to say, more or less, that his administration is about to jump in head first and land like a ton of bricks on the side of Judge Henderson and his pet litigants, and against the voters of California.
“As all of you know,” the president said, “I opposed publicly and strongly [Prop.] 209. I thought it was bad policy for the people of California, and a bad example for America. Whether it is unconstitutional is a different question, and our people are working very hard [at the Justice Department and the White House counsel’s office] to work through the legal and constitutional issues to give me a recommendation about what we should do and how we should do it. And I am eager to get their recommendation.”
Mere seconds later, a reporter asked a seemingly unrelated question about what message the president would like to send to the Serbian dictator Slobodan Milosevic, who — how best to put this? — opposed publicly and strongly the victory of his political enemies in local elections last month, which victory he thought was bad policy for the people of Yugoslavia and a bad example for Greater Serbia. So he nullified it.
Said President Clinton to President Milosevic: “Elections should be respected and the voice of the people should be heard; and the human, political, and civil fights of the people should be respected. . . . Our sympathies are always with free people who are struggling to express their freedom and want to have the integrity of their elections respected.”
Hear, hear. And while you’re at it, Mr. President, tell it to your Justice Department; tell it to the federal judiciary; and then try telling it, with a straight face, to the free people of California.
