From Media Transparency: (excerpted)

In the aftermath of the recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling severely limiting the use of race in K-12 integration plans, Ward Connerly is feeling his oats. “I believe that we are now poised for a coup de grâce to say that race preferences in the eyes of the public should not be used,” Connerly, the chairman of the Sacramento, California-based American Civil Rights Institute (ACRI), said in response to the Supreme Court’s decision. Since 1997 ACRI has received more than $5.7 million from conservative philanthropies for its anti-affirmative action activities.

If Connerly’s new Super Tuesday for Equal Rights campaign is successful, the day after the November 2008 presidential election affirmative action will be one giant step closer to oblivion. The mastermind behind anti-affirmative action initiatives in California, Michigan, and Washington, has set his sights on five new states — Missouri, Arizona, Colorado, Nebraska, and Oklahoma. “This is going to be Super Tuesday for equal rights,” Connerly said. “I think it’s very clear that we are witnessing an end to an era.”

In Missouri, wealthy Kansas City businessman John Uhlmann “who,” Millman reported, “gave $190,000 to Connerly’s failed efforts to pass a 2003 bill that would have prohibited state and local government from classifying people on the basis of ‘race, ethnicity, color or national origin’ in California, is honorary chair of the MoCRI (website)” [Missouri Civil Rights Initiative]. Uhlmann was the co-founder of “a politicized media group that became known for producing and airing controversial radio ads with ‘reverse reparations’ messages aimed at African-American communities during the 2002 election cycle.”

Connerly has run up against a serious roadblock in Missouri; misleading initiative language that he has long used to deceive voters has been rewritten by Missouri state officials. The initiative submitted by Connerly states: “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 employment, public education, or public contracting.”

Democratic Attorney General Jay Nixon, who is also a Democratic candidate for governor, has proposed the ballot summary read as follows: “Shall the Missouri Constitution be amended to: ban affirmative action programs designed to eliminate discrimination against; and improve opportunities for woman and minorities in public contracting, employment and education; and allow preferential treatment based on race, sex, color, ethnicity, or national origin to meet federal program funds eligibility standards as well as preferential treatment for bona fide qualifications based on sex?”

“Connerly charged that Nixon’s ‘henchmen’ were ‘doing everything they can’ to keep the amendment off the ballot,” Cybercast News Service reported. “He noted, for instance, that a lead attorney in a lawsuit filed by Missouri residents opposed to the initiative is Charles Hatfield, a former Nixon chief-of-staff and now treasurer for the Nixon-for-governor campaign committee.” Read more…

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