Ward Connerly Outs WA’s I-1000 Bill at Spokane Conservative Republicans’ Jan. Meeting

 
“There is no initiative that I’ve seen in all of my years that parallels or even comes close to what harm this initiative I-1000 would do.’
 

By Rich Loudenback

 
Spokane Conservative Republicans kicked off their 2019 agenda with a speaker of legendary national acclaim, Mr. Ward Connerly.

The website, BlackPast.org says about Connerly, “Anti-affirmative action activist, businessman and former University of California regent Wardell (Ward) Anthony Connerly is popularly known as the key figure responsible for passage of California Proposition 209 which outlawed race and gender based preferences in state college and university admission and hiring.

“Connerly continues his crusade against affirmative action in higher educ ation and employment. He argues that racial discrimination against people of color has been effectively eradicated and that now individuals can obtain success in colleges and in the workforce without preferential treatment. Connerly’s opinion is that affirmative action is a new form of racism.”

Mr. Connerly gave a most impressive speech without a single note on a looming threat to our freedom to an enthralled audience of concerned conservative republicans.

Ward Connerly:

“The left is beating us on so many fronts, and the real problem is, we don’t take Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and all the others as seriously as we should. They are like termites that crawl under the carpet and worm their way into our society and, before we realize it, they turn things upside down. I remember when Barack Hussein Obama was running for President for his first term, there were some that said he had socialist tendencies.

“Then when Bernie Sanders ran, it boggled my mind that this guy was an admitted socialist, although he was running as a Democrat socialist. He gained traction in our system of government partly because his primary opponent was a terrible candidate. But, reality is that our way of life and the things that we believe in are very gradually changing. And we don’t stand up to it the way we should, just like we don’t stand up to a lot of things the way we should.

“I remember when Maxine Waters admonished her supporters and told them if they saw someone who is from the Trump cabinet to get in their face and make them uncomfortable. We don’t fight back against that sort of thing, we’re civil, and I’m beginning to think that we need to find some tactical way to fight back. Because if we don’t, the nation that we have built and want to keep for our kids and grandkids isn’t going to be there.

“I’m a recent transplant from California in July of last year. We packed our bags and headed from California to a more hospitable environment and we don’t regret the journey, not one second.  We moved to Idaho.

“I thought I was escaping the insanity of California when we came here, but then I noticed that on the other side of the border from Idaho is a place called Washington.  And you guys are fighting some of the same problems we fought in California.  A legislature that is one party, illegal immigration that is taking control and although we say they don’t, I am absolutely convinced that they are voting.

“I had the good fortune of serving on the Board of Regents of the University of California, a 12 year sentence as I call it. I saw firsthand how the culture of our country is changing and were involved now in a culture war the likes of which you haven’t seen unless you’ve gotten involved in some of the issues that I’m involved in.

“I led the university in an effort to get rid of race-based affirmative action. You guys think you have some opponents, you haven’t seen them until you get involved in race issues. There are some mean people and people that don’t fight fair.

“In 1996 I chaired a statewide campaign in California known as proposition 209. My wife, Janice, and I were leading that effort and it passed with the margin of 55 to 45. The language was a mirror image of the 64 Civil Rights Act. It said, quote: ’The state (small s), the state shall not discriminate against or grant preferential treatment to any individual or group on the basis of race sex, color, ethnicity or national origin in the operation of public education, public employment or public contracting.’ It doesn’t get any more direct or simple than that.

“Even in a place like California the voters saw the wisdom of that. Of course that was in 1996. We then decided that we wanted to carry that message to other states and we came to the state of Washington in 1998 and put that same language on the ballot and it passed by a margin of 59 to 41.

“Now there is an effort that is underway to repeal that initiative, called I-200, and to put in its place affirmative action for people based on veteran status, based on race, sex, color, limited to women and excludes males. Sexual orientation is now included and they gathered enough signatures to put it on the ballot but the governor in this state says he wants the legislature to proceed with it without submitting it to the voters although that’s what they represented they would do.

“There is no initiative that I’ve seen in all of my years that parallels or even comes close to what this initiative I-1000 would do. I greatly fear that they’re going to slam-dunk this thing, and not only upset our initiative but to make affirmative action like a Christmas tree with everybody having some goodies.

“They’re not serious about veteran status, I have no problem with giving veterans extra benefits but it should not be mixed in with race. Nor should people who are deaf or blind be mixed in.

“You see there is a reason why civil rights legislation was exempted from many kinds of preferences when the Congress passed the Civil Rights Act of 64. The reason was race and color, these were so-called immutable traits. By including everything that falls under the umbrella of identity politics your giving the governor the power to engage in discrimination on a massive level. And everyone will look the other way sort of because there is a little present for them under the tree, it’s their own identity.

“I assure you, it’s my view, if the legislature passes this, it’s not going to be applied to veterans or some of the others, and it will be applied solely on the basis of race. And those that are pushing this are a number of minority contractors who saw their good thing taken away when our initiative I-200 passed in 1998. They want to restore the preferences that they were getting.

“So this is something that we need, if we care at all about the rule of equality under the law or equal treatment under the law, we’ve got to get interested in this. I think that the Republican Party, if it has a spine, should get very involved in this.

I’m a card-carrying Republican, a Ronald Reagan type Republican, I’ve been fortunate enough to receive the Ronald Reagan award for leadership from the California Republican Party. There is something about Republican beliefs… but my party sometimes is a little cowardly when it comes to dealing with issues that touch our lives. This is one I believe the party needs to be pounding the tables about and getting the people to understand the con that is being pulled off by those that have promoted I-1000.

“I think that if it’s handled properly it could be the salvation for the party’s fortunes in this state. Because I think instinctively most of us as Americans, we really don’t believe that anybody should get a preference. We feel that everybody should be treated equally under the law. I think that this could backfire on the Democrats.

“By the way this is promoted by the Washington Democrats along with some labor unions, the Indian tribes and a couple of other organizations. Interestingly enough, one group that has broken ranks with the so-called people of color coalition is Asians. Especially people of Chinese descent, because they realize that you go from a system of merit in college education to one based on preferences. Asians are going to get less admissions. It’s going to go to people based on the basis of skin color. But they’re standing alone.

“Those who were signed up as the opponents of this are Tim Eyman, Washington Asians for Equality and a guy named Ward Connerly. It’s not much of a fight when you’re going up against the likes of labor unions, NAACP, a bunch of Indian tribes and the veterans associations which are being conned into thinking there’s something in this for them. If you want veterans’ preferences fine, but don’t mix it in with race preferences. And for the life of me I don’t know how you are going to apply this based on sexual orientation. What do you do? Do you ask them? Is that the whole idea?

“Please take an interest in this and let’s lay down a stake here of what we’re going to fight for because this is something that goes to the heart of who we are as a people.”

When asked if he knew about the timeline for the legislature to look at this Connerly mentioned he does not know the timeline of the legislature but the signatures were turned in on January 4, and the governor, Governor Inslee, said that he was going to ask the legislature to put this on a fast track and support it with all dispatch.

Connerly went on to say, “Our first argument will be that you promised the people that they would get a chance to vote on this and by having the legislature to do this you’re denying the voters what you promised. That’s the first thing. I don’t know if that will prevail or not when you go on the basis of identity politics and you throw in all of those special interests like veterans, sexual orientation, race, and women.  I don’t know if we can defeat it if it the goes on the ballot but we have to try.

“The other thing is that Title 6 of the Civil Rights Act of 64 says that anyone receiving federal dollars runs the risk of having those dollars taken away if they engage in discriminatory practices. If you’re telegraphing that you’re going to do that, even though you call it, by the way, they redefined preferential treatment to say that it is not preferential treatment when you’re trying to achieve diversity. And so I’m not sure that if this got on the ballot if it will pass or fail, but that’s the other card that we have to play.

“We must try to convince the Trump administration to threaten the withholding of federal dollars. Jeff sessions was a friend and I talked to him about this and he was all in favor of playing that card. But I don’t know how the new AG is going to react to that. I don’t know how the President will react, he may get cold feet. He is not one ordinarily, whose afraid to take on issues. This issue is one fraught with a lot of peril for him as he approaches 2020.  If it’s played right, he could strengthen his hand for 2020 by coming out in favor of merit and equality for everybody.  So this is the other card we want to play.

“Now another thing I want to address. The state of where we are as a nation. Donald Trump was not my first choice and he wasn’t my second choice. But, I have gotten on the Trump train 100%.  I don’t know any other candidate, whether that candidate was an avowed conservative or whatever, who has delivered more accomplishments for conservatives than Donald Trump. If the choice is going to be Trump versus anybody else I can think of on the GOP side I for one support Trump. Then once it gets to the general campaign I clearly support Trump.

“I think we need to start rallying right now because he’s like a one-man band whose fighting all the enemies of his with very little support from his party. I think that we need to get off our duffs and start giving this man some support. Politics is a rough sport, but it is a team sport and he needs his team to rally behind him.

“Now there are those who say he’s not a true conservative, maybe not, probably not, but what’s going to be the choice? Trump versus Romney? It’s an easy call for me. Trump versus Kamala Harris? An equally easy call. Just anybody you can think of on the Democratic side, I can’t imagine anybody in this room going for them as opposed to Trump.  So if that’s probably where we’re going to end up, we probably need to get in there and help him close the deal because I think he is doing a great job.

“He’s still got his problems, but as I said politics is a team sport and we need to get him some support. He has kept the faith with our party, he’s kept the faith with conservatism and whether it’s his support of faith-based institutions, whether it’s his efforts to revitalize the economy, whether it’s the appointments of Supreme Court justices we could not have done better, in my opinion, if we’d picked a card-carrying conservative who had been a conservative all of his life.

“He needs our unbridled support, and we need to do everything that we can to defend him because right now he is not engaged in a fair fight. Some of the stuff I’m afraid he brought on himself with the use of Twitter and some other things, but notwithstanding that, Twitter has been his only weapon, just about, to defend himself. One reason some people say he is narcissistic.  One of the reasons he is, is if nobody else is extolling your virtues in politics, you better do it.

“The other narrative is that he lies a lot.  Well, while there are times when he is prone to some exaggeration, but there is a difference between lying and exaggerating. To say that I’m going to make America great is not a lie, it’s a political canard that a politician will use. And he should not be accused of lying when he says that. The Washington Post says that he has lied 6000 times. Now I don’t believe that.

“The bottom line is that he needs some support folks, if he doesn’t get it he is in trouble in 2020. If he’s in trouble we’re all in trouble.”

Ward Connerly is a pearl in the conservative republican movement and the inland northwest is very pleased that he chose to move here.  Now it is up to those of his ilk to not only carry the water but make things happen.  Like a favorite desktop paperweight of mine says, “Don’t Confuse Effort with Results.”

SPOKANE VALLEY MAYOR:

Spokane Valley Mayor Rod Higgins opened meeting with bringing members up-to-date on politics in the neighborhood.

He stated that there is going to be outside forces in the next election, some of the usual suspects that will be making some of the usual accusations and the same complaints. “It won’t be pretty.  I recommend that you don’t read the Spokesman, because as   Mark Twain famously said: If you don’t read the paper you’re not informed, if you do read the paper you’re mis-informed.”

CHURCH AND STATE RADIO

Politician Caleb Collier and Associate Pastor Gabe Blomgren of well-known Pastor Ken Peters’ Covenant Church in Spokane presented a new strategy on the fight for life, their on-going battle against abortion clinics.  The duo presents a weekly radio show named Church and State on ‘Displelling the myth of the separation of church and state” and can be seen on facebook.com/churchandstate1776.

The radio broadcasts are on American Christian Network’s (ACN) 106.5 FM and on KTW’s 630 AM and 96.5 FM scheduled on Fridays at 8:30 am, 12:30 pm and 2:00 pm and on Saturdays at 8:30 am.