Connerly denies preferential treatment
Report claims UC Regent used federal minority contracts
By Ann Bancroft
The Associated Press
SACRAMENTO -- University of California Regent Ward Connerly, an outspoken opponent of affirmative action, denied Monday he benefited from minority preferences while contracting with the Energy Commission.
Connerly, who is African American, has appeared on national television and news magazines calling for an end to race-based affirmative action programs in university admissions and public contracting and hiring.
He is a close ally of Gov. Pete Wilson, whose opposition to affirmative action is expected to be a key issue in his presidential campaign.
The San Francisco Chronicle reported Monday that Connerly's Sacramento consulting firm received more than $1 million in state business during the past six years by signing up as a minority contractor.
"I have never gone out of my way to certify as a minority contractor," insisted Connerly. "My only point is, if I am benefiting to the tune of $1 million as they're saying, why am I calling for the end of the program?"
Connerly conceded that since 1988, when state agencies were required to make efforts to let 15 percent of all contracts to minority-owned businesses, he began checking the "yes" box certifying that his firm is owned by a minority on Energy Commission contracts he won for his client, California Building Officials.
His 17-employee firm also administers federal Community Development Block Grants, and 15 communities that hired Connerly and Associates in the past two years told regulators they complied with affirmative action requirements by hiring a minority-owned firm.
Although Connerly's firm is owned in equal partnership with his wife, who is white, he said his attorney advised him he could claim 51 percent ownership for purposes of the contract bid forms. State law requires that 51 percent must be owned by a minority to certify as a minority-owned firm.
At the same time, Connerly said, he declined to include Connerly & Associates on a list of the Energy Commission's certified minority contractors.
Had he not designated his firm as minority-owned on the contract bids, Connerly said, he would have "had to find a minority to turn over 15 percent of a contract which has an 8 percent profit at best."
"Since I am a minority I don't deny that I don't go out and find another minority," Connerly said.
The non-profit association of city and county building officials "had been receiving contracts with the Energy Commission since 1979 with no reference at all to the race or ethnicity of our firm," Connerly said. "Those contracts were flowing for eight years prior (to his designating his firm as minority-owned), and I had nothing to do with it."
Since the minority certification program began, Connerly's firm won Energy Commission contracts for the building officials association for $1.1. million in 1989, for $105,227 in 1992 and for $35,000 in 1994, according to state records.
Connerly said the suggestion that he is being hypocritical in his opposition to affirmative action so angers him that he'll refuse to fill out the form relating to minority contracting goals when the contract renewal comes up next week.
"If you don't fill out the form you are prohibited from bidding," he explained. "We're going to refuse to fill out the form, force the Energy Commission to reject us, and we're going to take them to court, because I'm really tired of this crap," Connerly said.
Wilson spokesman Paul Kranhold said the governor "thinks (Connerly's) motives are pure, and that he makes a good case for ending racial and gender-based preferences in state government."