Carpetbaggers wanted
Ward Connerly, the California-based anti-affirmative action crusader, is looking for “circulators” willing to travel to Missouri “to earn big bucks” collecting signatures on his petitions to end affirmative action programs here.
In an e-mail posted Friday in a blog on the National Review Online, Mr. Connerly says opponents of his deceptively named Missouri Civil Rights Initiative “are going to extremes to stop petitioners; including intimidation, screaming and stealing petitions.” He asks that anyone wanting to help the petition drive “call to find out how you can have your travel expenses covered. Circulators have the potential to earn $1,000 per week (going rate $1.25 per signature collected).”
Boy, there’s a grass-roots effort for you. A guy from California e-mails a New York-based conservative website trying to recruit a couple dozen more carpetbaggers to join his false flag operation. Things must not be going too well. Good.
Mr. Connerly, an African-American business executive, rose to prominence in 1995 when, as a member of the University of California Board of Regents, he led a successful anti-affirmative action drive in his home state. Since then, he has tried, with varying degrees of success, to expand his efforts into other states. Missouri was one of five states targeted this year. Last week, the organization dropped its effort in Oklahoma when the secretary of state’s office there found too many duplicate signatures on petitions.
To get his amendment on the ballot in Missouri in November, Mr. Connerly must collect about 140,000 valid signatures across at least six of the state’s nine congressional districts before May 4.
Mr. Connerly’s effort in Missouri is opposed by a coalition of good government, civil rights and business organizations. They say that his group not only is deceptively named, but that it also would cause great harm to the state’s business climate. Affirmative action doesn’t guarantee anyone a job, merely the chance to compete fairly for a job.
If one of Mr. Connerly’s carpetbaggers asks you to sign a petition “ensuring civil rights,” just say no and wish him a nice trip back to wherever he came from.
Where can I find these people? I want to vote for it and give them a donation.
There we are again… The Post doesn’t trust the voters to well actually vote!
sing the petition, and let the people vote!
ps: for some reason Ward Connerly’s money is not as good as George Soros is…
This is illegal; to circulate petitions you have to be a voter; to be a voter you have to be a resident; to have no intention to stay is fraud; they did this with term-limit petitions; I know cause I talked to some at Bread Company in UCity, then Eric Vickers and I investigated; most petitions circulated by four people who showed library cards to register to vote and all gave the same address on S Grand; three others at another apartment; and circulated 60% of the petitions or so; essentially impossible; from a company out of sacramento; Eric and I took to the media and no one followed up; Eric was running for Congress at the time and I was helping him, but it was me who discovered it and did most of the research; it was done nationally; most of term-limit laws are illegal for the same reason; Talked to Sacramento Bee about it, and forget what they said; knew about it but couldnt prove it or something.
Mr Haas,
Money = speech. At least according to the Supreme Court. So I should be able to pay someone else to circulate a petition on my behalf whether or not they are a voter. I don’t see anything wrong with this.
Personally, I think people who have suffered at the hands of the government should be compensated. Where do you prove that — in the courts. So why is the legislature or executive even involved in the first place? And can any of the contractors show they have suffered?
Of course all of this shouldn’t matter — government should not be providing anyone with jobs.
I remember being asked to sign a petition a couple of years ago to put Amendment 2 on the ballot. I declined, but had a nice conversation with the petitioner. She was from Michigan and was being paid for her work.
I don’t recall the Post-Dispatch complaining about the process back then, or having much to say about the $30 + million given by a donor, who stood to benefit from the passage of the amendment.
By the way, any cures yet?
The PD Editorial Board seems to be in denial about the true nature of affirmative action. If based on race it is racist. If based on gender it is sexist. Whether based on age, origin, ethnicity, native language, or any other grouping, affirmative action is discriminatory and devalues individual merit.
If your emotions say life should be graded on the curve, fine. Just don’t invert the results.
Good for Mr Connerly. Affirmative action is one of the most ineffectual and hypocritical frauds perpretrated on minorities and other citizens in decades. Where can I sign a petition?
Does the PD get upset with ACORN’s fraud in KC during the last election? Do they get upset with the “walking around money” that Dems give to their volunteers to collect signatures. That is a pretty big business in Chicago and Philly I know.
No, I think PDs faux outrage is somehow always directly to conservatives….and especially to those that threaten liberal sacred cows. I’m sure the PD is scared to death of Mr Connerly’s efforts since he was so successful in Michigan
.
Yeah, the Post has no problem with paid circulators for stem cell research, casino expansion, darn near anything else the left can come up with … but let a conservative group pay a few bucks for signature gathering, THAT is a scandal worth commenting on.
I want to know who wrote this drivel. Can anyone justify the double standard already pointed out by other posters. How do you not criticize the same actions for the “stem cell” Amendment ? Could it be explained by blatant hypocrisy, perhaps. Or is it just Editorial Privilege.
Steve Shull
it’s just the law in Missouri, Holmes, you have to be registered voter to circulate petition on state ballot in most states, have to be resident to be voter; no one’s even been dumb enough to challenge the law constitutionally (until now?
); I dont make them, I just report them, and their violations;
and paid circulators should be illegal, period! and that will survive constitutional challenge, also.
Mr. Haas…. How about a trade off, Holmes? We agree to enforcement of residency for petitioners and you guys agree to enforcement of immigration law. Deal?
I’m a Caucasian-American (just call it plain American) who has made an effort to advance the cause of Afro-Americans for most of my life. Dad set that example during his long career with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Dwight Eisenhower, whom he worked for during WW2, did the same, both as a commanding general officer and later as President.
Both Dad and I experienced a problem in trying to hire or promote Afro-Americans. Many simply weren’t sufficiently educated or experienced for anything above common laborer status. That situation is gradually improving, and the next two generations of my family have already proved that they will help too, whenever possible.
By the way, Dad voted Republican, and so do the next three generations.
Now, on the other subject that has bben mentioned:
EMBRYONIC stem cell research was the point of the blatantly unfair “constitutional amendment #2″. UNFAIR because no constitutional amendment should EVER be allowed to pass by a simple majority vote: UNFAIR because it was almost totally supported financially by ONE organization that hoped to be the prime beneficiary: UNFAIR because it was presented in such a long-winded and poorly written manner that many physicians admitted that they hadn’t read it, hadn’t understood it, and wouldn’t have voted for it if they had understood its real purpose.
Science has now shown pretty definitively that EMBRYONIC stem cell research is probably unnecessary, and it is still so controversial that many experimental labs have avoided it. To the best of my knowledge, they have not even spent the federal money that was authorized long ago by President G.W. Bush for work on the original 20 lines of embryonic stem cells.