The Houston Civil Rights Initiative

by Marc Levin, Executive Director,
Campaign for a Color-Blind America

The Houston Civil Rights Initiative is a perfect example of why the initiative and referendum process is so vital to the health of our democracy. On a philosophical level, the need for the initiative process is obvious. Since democracy is based on the bedrock principle that the power of the government comes from the people, it is only logical that the people should have the right to directly influence the policies of their government.

While some might argue that electing politicians to express the will of the people somehow alleviates the need for direct democracy, the Houston Civil Rights Initiative is one of many instances in where citizens must act because politicians fail to respect the will of the people. The City of Houston uses racial preferences in its minority contracting program. Although these preferences are billed as helping the disadvantaged, they in fact line the pockets of a handful of wealthy minority insiders. The Texas Poll and other surveys have consistently shown that most Americans and most Texans oppose such preference programs.

Nevertheless, the establishment politicians like former Houston Mayor Bob Lanier and current Houston Mayor Lee Brown will do anything to preserve these preference programs that they can easily use to reward their cronies with fat city contracts. What happened with the Houston Civil Rights Initiative illustrates the lengths politicians will go to stifle the ability of citizens to effect the policies of their government.

Mayor Lanier manipulated the wording of the Houston Civil Rights Initiative to make it sound as if the proposition would deny minorities and women equal rights when, in fact, the proposition language as signed by 20,000 citizens was clearly worded to guarantee equal treatment for all and preferences for none. Unfortunately, Lanier steam rolled his misleading language through the
City Council and onto the ballot, which caused the initiative to fail by a 54 to 46 percent margin.

However, justice may yet prevail. Texas State Judge Sharolyn Wood, has ruled that the city government acted improperly by changing the wording. She overturned the mangled referendum and ordered the city to hold a new one. Of course, continuing its trend of trying to thwart the citizens wishes at every turn, the City is appealing Judge Wood's ruling. The likelihood is that their appeal will fail and that a new election with the original wording will be held in November 1998 or early 1999.

The entire experience of Houston Civil Rights Initiative should serve as a textbook case demonstrating why the initiative procedure is so important in our democracy. As if there was ever any doubt, we now have even more evidence that voters need the recourse of the initiative in order to reign in unresponsive and corrupt politicians and bureaucracies.