SAN FRANCISCO - NO WHITES NEED APPLY The Sacramento-based Pacific Legal Foundation sued the City of San Francisco and its mayor, Willie Brown, for violating Proposition 209 by allowing only minority- or women-owned businesses to bid on certain public contracts \doc\web\99\01\sfnowt.txt Date sent: Tue, 19 Jan 1999 22:12:41 -0800 Send reply to: AADAP-L-Request@HOME.EASE.LSOFT.COM From: ADP Subject: PLF sues San Francisco and Mayor Willie Brown for violating Prop. 209 To: AADAP-L@HOME.EASE.LSOFT.COM Note: a copy of PLF's complaint may be found at PLF's web site, www.pacificlegal.org. Tom Wood Moderator, AADAP-L ========== PACIFIC LEGAL FOUNDATION SUES SAN FRANCISCO AND MAYOR WILLIE BROWN FOR VIOLATING ANTI-BIAS INITIATIVE--PROP. 209 Contact: Mark T. Gallagher Sharon L. Browne John H. Findley 916.641.8888 Sacramento, California January 19, 1999 The Sacramento-based Pacific Legal Foundation sued the City of San Francisco and its mayor, Willie Brown, for violating Proposition 209 by allowing only minority- or women-owned businesses to bid on certain public contracts (Taber v. City and County of San Francisco). Modeled after the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Proposition 209 (now section 31 of Article 1 in the state constitution) prohibits state and local governments from discriminating against or granting preferential treatment to anyone on the basis of race and gender in public contracting. PLF's legal action against San Francisco's public contracting "set-asides" policy [Administrative Code S. 12D.6(B.7)] follows on the heels of the Board of Supervisors' recent endorsement of a plan to extend its race/gender preference policies into the year 2003. PLF's lawsuit was brought on behalf of a number of San Francisco taxpayers and Tom Taber, a sales representative for Ford Graphics in San Francisco. Taber was prohibited from bidding on a city project requiring reprographic services because the firm he worked for was not an "economically disadvantaged local business," which under the city's code means minority- or women-owned businesses. "Any government policy that outright prohibits certain people from bidding on a contract is, without question, discriminatory and therefore violates Proposition 209's equal treatment mandate," said Mark T. Gallagher, an attorney with PLF which helped win a major ruling in 1997 from the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals upholding the constitutionality of Proposition 209. "Equal treatment under the law is impossible in San Francisco so long as city officials continue to grant special privileges and preferences to politically favored groups," said Gallagher. A copy of PLF's complaint may be found at PLF's web site, www.pacificlegal.org. The San Francisco Board of Supervisors voted last September to expand its decade-old Minority-Women-Local Business Enterprise Program to Arab Americans and native Americans to increase the types of groups given contract preferences. Other groups given preferential treatment in contracting are African Americans, Asian Americans, Latinos and women. Headquartered in Sacramento, California, PLF is a public interest, nonprofit organization dedicated to litigating nationwide in defense of private property rights, individual and economic freedoms, and limited government. PLF has opposed race and gender preferences, quotas, and set-asides in government contracting for nearly 25 years. PLF is also participating in a case challenging San Francisco's race/gender preference program before the First District Court of Appeal in Schindler Elevator Company v. San Francisco. In addition, PLF successfully challenged San Jose's public contracting ordinance under Proposition 209 (Hi-Voltage Wire Works, Inc. v. City of San Jose), and is now before the Sixth District Court of Appeal seeking to uphold the trial court ruling in that case. PLF 2151 River Plaza Drive Suite 305 Sacramento, CA 95833-3881 ===================================== AADAP-L, a free, moderated email list with daily postings, is a project of Americans Against Discrimination and Preferences (http://www.aadap.org). You can subscribe, unsubscribe, or get information on AADAP-L by sending electronic mail to LISTSERV@HOME.EASE.LSOFT.COM. In the message body (not the header), type the following commands (capitalized text only): SUBSCRIBE AADAP-L [to subscribe] SIGNOFF AADAP-L [to unsubscribe] INFO AADAP-L [to receive more information on the list] Please feel free to forward this to anyone you think might be interested.