Proposal To Ban Affirmative Action Meets Stiff Opposition

A raucous crowd packed the House’s largest hearing room and spilled into hallways to protest a proposal to ban affirmative action policies in state and local governments.

“This is economic lynching,” Nat Jackson, a black businessman who served as an aide to former Republican Gov. Dan Evans, told the Republican House panel considering the bill Tuesday.

The fate of HB1999, even in the conservative Law and Justice Committee, is uncertain. Under House rules, the measure must pass the committee by late today or will be considered dead for the session.

The crowd of mostly black men and women gave civil rights leader Arthur Fletcher a standing ovation before and after his impassioned testimony against the bill. Opponents overwhelmed the sprinkling of bill backers both in number and eloquence.

Fletcher, a GOP moderate who served under four presidents, helped write federal affirmative action law intended to give economic opportunity to minorities shut out by built-in discrimination.

“You’re tampering with my footnote in history,” Fletcher told the committee of mostly white men and women.