The Sacremento Municipal Utility District (SMUD) is in clear violation of Proposition 209 which ended reverse discrimination and racial and gender preferences in California. Here is a roundup of the news stories surrounding the reverse discrimination lawsuit against SMUD by the Pacific Legal Foundation.
Suit challenges race, gender
weighting in SMUD contracting (06/22/00) "The suit, filed Tuesday in Sacramento Superior Court, makes SMUD the latest target of the Pacific Legal Foundation, which has also sued San Jose, San Francisco and a south state school district in defense of Proposition 209. "At issue is whether federal law, which allows special treatment by race or gender as a way to make up for proven bias in the past, can protect programs like SMUD's despite the 1996 statewide initiative. "By passing 209, "California citizens have set a higher level of protection of individual rights" than the U.S. government, and the state standard should prevail, said Pacific Legal Foundation lawyer Stephen McCutcheon. The foundation won a similar case against San Jose in lower courts and will be arguing it before the state Supreme Court later this year. "My judgment at the time was it would be difficult to defend [race and gender preferences in SMUD's business dealings], but that's why we have a legal staff. The fact that a lawsuit was filed does not necessarily mean they will prevail," said [SMUD] director Howard Posner. "The Sacramento-based Pacific Legal Foundation ... is asking a judge to declare SMUD's policy unconstitutional and order the utility to set up race-neutral contracting practices. "It brought the suit on behalf of United Utilities Inc. of Rancho Cordova and C&C Construction of Loomis. United Utilities was denied a subcontract based on race, and C&C nearly lost a contract until it protested, the suit said.
"In December, when United Utilities sought work from prime contractors who wanted to
operate SMUD's co-generation plants, "They all said, 'Gee Tom, we would love to have
you. But we have to meet these (race and gender) requirements. We can't use you,' "
said Thomas Wilbert, company president. 'We got discriminated against because we
were not a minority. It's not a level playing field,' he said." (Sacramento
Bee, 06/22/00, by Carrie Payton) California (Sacramento): SF
Utilities Continue Racial and Gender Quotas (10/02/98) (dead link) END News Summaries about the SMUD Preferences Case |
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| Sacramento: The Lawsuit filed by Pacific Legal Detail |
Sacramento: The Utility's Web Pages about Racial Preferences | Sacramento: News Summaries about the SMUD Case |
