Wilson Attacks Affirmative Action Laws : Bias: Governor says he favors abolishing preference rules for those entering government jobs and college admissions.

By VIRGINIA ELLIS

Dec. 31, 1994 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

SACRAMENTO — Gov. Pete Wilson has given new impetus to a movement to abolish the state’s affirmative action laws with the disclosure that he favors doing away with longstanding preference requirements for women and minorities entering government jobs and college.

Wilson, who has never before attacked affirmative action laws so directly, told local reporters during a round of year-end interviews that he now believes the efforts to compensate for decades of discrimination “have gone farther than perhaps most people would have intended.”

“I don’t think that it’s fair to give preference based upon race or gender,” the governor said. “I think what we should do is make those judgments based upon merit after affording real equality and opportunity of access.”

Although the governor did not endorse any proposal for eliminating affirmative action in state hiring and college admissions, supporters of legislative and initiative proposals said his remarks would give added momentum to their movement.

Assemblyman Bernie Richter (R-Chico), who has proposed a constitutional amendment to eliminate affirmative action laws, said the governor had not told him in advance of his plan to speak out on the issue and the remarks came as a “pleasant surprise.”

“I think it’s an indication of what will come,” Richter said. “I think there is massive support in the community for this, and it will be an issue at both the national and state levels.”

Richter said his strategy would be to first try to get the proposal through the Legislature, where a similar measure was defeated last year. He said he expected that the plan would pass committees in the Assembly in the coming session but he was pessimistic about its chances on the floor, where a two-thirds vote is needed for passage.

If it fails in the Legislature, he said his hopes rest with a statewide petition drive to place it on the ballot as a voter initiative.

Opponents attached political significance to Wilson’s remarks, suggesting that they provided further proof of the Republican governor’s ambitions to run for President.

“Governor Wilson was reelected by attacking immigrants,” said state Sen. Richard Polanco (D-Los Angeles), “and he’s gearing up for a presidential bid by demonizing equal opportunity for women and minorities.”

Polanco said it is irresponsible to consider abolishing affirmative action laws without determining if there is any statistical basis for such a move.

Juanita Ontiveros, an activist with the California Rural Legal Assistance Foundation, said Wilson’s attack on affirmative action represents another “horror” for the rural poor. She called it an “extension of Proposition 187,” the successful ballot measure backed by Wilson that proposed to deny education and most public health benefits to illegal immigrants. (Most aspects of Proposition 187 have been frozen by a federal court.)

Ontiveros said Wilson is at cross purposes with his own policies by trying to eliminate affirmative action. “He wants people to leave public assistance but he’s doing away with those programs that help them become part of the work force.”

In his remarks, Wilson said he believed that affirmative action goals are a misguided approach to the problems of the poor and underprivileged. He said a better way to deal with their problems is through programs that strengthen the family.

He said many poor people lack access to jobs not because of color or gender but because they have been “members of dysfunctional families and not really starting life with the kind of opportunity that is available to others in what we have been inclined to think of as a normal home.”