And the Obama admin scandals just keep on rolling
Bookworm on Jun 12 2009 at 8:06 am | Filed under: Barack Obama
This could be sour grapes or it could be something much more serious. Amusingly, the NAACP hopes the charges are true, even if that means the State and Feds acted illegally:
An association of contractors accused Caltrans in a lawsuit Thursday of colluding with the Obama administration to flout California’s ban on race and sex preferences by reserving some state road-building contracts for companies owned by minorities and women.
“Caltrans is sideswiping the important principle of equal opportunity by using race, not lowest cost by a responsible bidder, to decide who gets government road and highway contracts,” said Sharon Browne, a Pacific Legal Foundation attorney who filed the suit in U.S. District Court in Sacramento.
The plaintiffs, the Associated General Contractors’ San Diego chapter, seek to overturn the state Department of Transportation’s decision in March to set aside 6.75 percent of federally funded road contracts to minority- and female-owned firms or to require contractors to make good-faith efforts to reach that goal.
Caltrans scrapped race-conscious contracting programs in 2006, after a federal appeals court ruled against similar programs in Washington state. The court ruled that a law, comparable to Proposition 209, California’s 1996 ballot measure, forbade preferential treatment.
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Caltrans declined comment on the suit. The NAACP’s state president, Alice Huffman, said the contractor plaintiffs were trying to move the state backward.
“Caltrans needs more equal opportunity in contracting with businesses owned by people of color – not less,” she said.
We should all keep an eye open to see how this one turns out (and, if it turns out badly for the administration, how deeply it’s buried).
I have to admit to being kind of impressed. I might not have been paying attention, but it seems to me that it took longer for preceding administrations to start being mired in these kinds of scandalous accusations. Assuming all the allegations that have been arising are true, the little eager beavers in and around the White House apparently couldn’t wait to flex their politically muscle.
Related posts:
- California Supreme court looks at business affirmative action.
- And the dominoes just keep falling
- The preview of an Obama court
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They have the grace of an Eagle, Book, and the rapacious hunger of the tyrant.
In the raging fire of the world, there is no peace- Age of the Warring States
Who would dare? Obama, of course. For was it not God himself who created the Tyger?