Affirmative action battle turns costly

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By MELISSA LEE / Lincoln Journal Star

The battle over whether to end race- and gender-based affirmative action in Nebraska will be a costly one.

That much is made clear in new campaign filings with the Nebraska Accountability and Disclosure Commission, which show both supporters and opponents of an affirmative-action ban raked in the cash during May.

The Nebraska Civil Rights Initiative, which is sponsoring the effort to end affirmative action, collected $117,000 last month. All of that came from the California-based American Civil Rights Initiative, the national effort to ban racial and gender preferences in hiring and admissions decisions.

Meanwhile, Nebraskans United, the coalition opposing an affirmative-action ban, raised more than $263,000 last month.

All of that came from Nebraska residents and organizations, including $50,000 from Warren Buffett and $25,000 from the University of Nebraska Foundation.

Affirmative-action supporters say those numbers are evidence Nebraska voters aren’t letting themselves be swayed by out-of-state interests.

The Nebraska Civil Rights Initiative “literally is an out-of-state effort,” said Nic Swiercek, a UNL graduate student and member of Students United for Nebraska, an arm of Nebraskans United.

“Nebraskans don’t like people from out of state trying to come in and change our Constitution.”

Other organizations contributing to Nebraskans United include the ACLU Nebraska and Greater Omaha Chamber of Commerce.

On the other side, the American Civil Rights Initiative accounts for more than $120,000 of the $181,000 raised by the Nebraska Civil Rights Initiative thus far.

Another $50,000 has come from New York businessman Paul Singer.

An Omaha man has chipped in $5,000, and initiative treasurer Marc Schniederjans has said smaller donations have flowed in from other Nebraskans as well.

Supporters of the Nebraska Civil Rights Initiative need to collect about 115,000 petition signatures by July 4 to get the affirmative-action ban on the November ballot. The initiative’s executive director, Doug Tietz, declined Monday to say how many signatures the group has collected so far, but said the effort is going well.

Further, Tietz dismissed the notion the Nebraska Civil Rights Initiative isn’t home-grown.

“That’s kind of insulting to the signers of the petitions,” he said. “It’s Nebraska citizens who are signing. There’s no one else.”

Reach Melissa Lee at 473-2682 or mlee@journalstar.com.