Top Initiative on Colorado’s 2008 Ballot: Yes on Amendment 46

From the Rocky Mountain News today:

The secretary of state certified a measure for the Nov. 4 ballot Monday that would ban race and gender-based hiring preferences in Colorado.

Supporters of the the measure, Amendment 46, submitted 128,744 signatures March 10. On Monday, Secretary of State Mike Coffman declared that a random sampling showed that enough of them were valid.

The measure is pushed by Ward Connerly, a black Republican who has been vilified by civil rights groups for supporting anti-affirmative action policies. Connerly has led similar successful initiatives in California, Washington and Michigan. Supporters say that the measure’s language mirrors the 1964 Civil Rights Act.

This should mean Connerly’s Civil Rights Initiative appears as the first initiative on the November 2008 state ballot. Here’s the ballot language, embodying the timeless principle of Equality Under the Law, a principle which time has come.

LaShawn Barber reminds readers how the same initiative has succeeded at the ballot box in states that lean further Left than Colorado:

Liberal Californians voted against preferences in government hiring, contracting, and admissions by 54 percent in 1996. So did 58.3 percent of voters in Washington state in 1998 and 58 percent of Michigan voters in 2006.

The election is 32 weeks away, but here’s one of the very first recommendations to vote Yes on Amendment 46.