Republicans Seeking Black Votes Grapple With Quota System Warned That Focus On Affirmative Action Could Hurt In Campaigns

Republicans promised an unprecedented effort Friday to draw more blacks into their ranks but received a blunt warning that focusing on affirmative action in the 1996 campaign could hurt the initiative.

“Affirmative action is not an issue that we need to politicize,” Rep. J.C. Watts, a black freshman from Oklahoma, told a Republican National Committee forum for black GOP candidates and prospects.

“Let’s sit down like adults and not politicize this issue.”

Watts said increased black support for Republicans in 1994 had exposed “a fatal weakness in the Democratic Party - its most loyal voters do not share its liberal cultural values.”

Holding two fingers perhaps an inch apart, he said, “we are that close to breaking the back of the Democratic Party in the black community.”

His warning that the “highly, highly emotional issue” of affirmative action could stall GOP outreach efforts was echoed by several other black Republicans attending the campaign training seminar.

Marc Little, who lost a Florida House race and is considering running again in 1996, said he opposes racial quotas and set-asides and supports efforts to scale back affirmative action programs.

But in a campaign environment, “it will be a very tough issue” for Republicans if they are also trying to loosen the Democratic Party’s traditional grip on the black vote, he said.

Despite such warnings and worries, it appears inevitable that affirmative action will play a major role in 1996 campaigns.

Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole, a presidential hopeful, already has asked Senate committees to schedule hearings on the issue.

Another candidate, Texas Sen. Phil Gramm, has promised that as president he would issue an executive order eliminating federal hiring and contract preferences based solely on race or gender.

Also, California Gov. Pete Wilson, a likely White House contender, is backing a statewide ballot initiative that would repeal California’s hiring and contract preferences.

And House Speaker Newt Gingrich of Georgia, after speaking to the forum, said he was prepared to make the case against affirmative action, regardless of the risks.

“I think most African-Americans want to be helped as individuals,” he said. “They don’t want to be helped by quotas.”

Most black Republicans at the meeting agreed with Gingrich from a policy standpoint, even if they were concerned that Democrats might be able to turn the debate to political advantage.

“Affirmative action programs have not worked,” said Marvin Scott, who got 47 percent in losing an Indiana House race and already is raising money to run again. “We just have to be brave enough to stand up and make that case.”

But Georgia Parks of Massachusetts, who is considering a 1996 House run, said instead of retreating on affirmative action the government should “put more teeth in the laws.”

The debate comes as the GOP tries to build on the inroads made with black voters in the 1994 campaign, when 27 blacks ran for Congress as Republicans and six ran for statewide offices.

Two won statewide and two more won House seats: Watts and Rep. Gary Franks of Connecticut.

GOP officials used the seminar to urge those who fell short to try again, and to promise them organizational and financial help.

“You make it a little more difficult for people to stereotype the parties,” William Bennett, the former education secretary, told the gathering.

In an interview, RNC Chairman Haley Barbour said GOP candidates, white or black, who have campaigned for black votes have been rewarded. Ohio Gov. George Voinovich, for example, got 40 percent of the black vote last year. “Many African-Americans don’t buy into the Jesse Jackson agenda,” he said.

Still, despite reams of data showing blacks are among the most culturally conservative voters, Barbour said because of “stupid mistakes of many years” most Republicans didn’t bother to seek minority support.

As evidence of his commitment, Barbour convened the two-day seminar and persuaded an array of GOP leaders to attend, from Gingrich and House Majority Leader Dick Armey to a handful of GOP senators. “This is just a beginning,” Barbour promised.