Marlon Meyer
Northwest Asia Weekly
Washington Equity Now Steering Committee: (back row from left) Dennis Worrell, Winona Hollins-Hauge, Dr. Dexter Gordon, Rev. Wilhemena Daniels, Julia Bobadilla-Melby, Attorney Karama Hawkins, Eric Silvers. (front row) Nat Jackson, Esther Huey, attorney/former state Rep. Jesse Wineberry
When is failure not failure?
Jesse Wineberry, one of the architects of Initiative 1000 (I-1000), an initiative to restore affirmative action in Washington State, was in Bellevue shortly after the initiative was overthrown by 1 percent of the vote in November 2019. FedEx Downtown. John Carlson, seen by some as one of the leading opponents of affirmative action, helped launch an earlier initiative, I-200, in 1998, which is widely seen as killing Washington state policy.
Wineberry, a Washington state House attorney and former majority whip, initially told Carlson he was busy with work, but decided to ask him directly a question he’d always wanted to ask.
“We were shocked to see each other but then decided to go get a coffee,” Wimbery said.
After they sat down at the Starbucks next door, Weinbury asked, “What happened in your life that made you such a devoutly racist?”
Winebury recalls Carlson’s insistence that he couldn’t be racist when he was the one writing the voter statement in support of I-200, which made clear what the initiative would not do — end affirmative action.
Carlson then quoted word-for-word text from voter ballots, Wineberry said.
“Initiative 200 does not end all affirmative action programs. It only prohibits those who use race and gender to select less qualified applicants than more deserving applicants for public jobs, contracts, or admission to a state college or university,” it wrote .
“But I need proof,” said Wimbrey, who hadn’t read the 1998 voter booklet that year because he was traveling and voting absentee.
Wineberry tried looking it up online, to no avail. He eventually found it on microfilm of the Pritchard Building in Olympia.
In the end, Wineberry’s questions to Carlson will lead to a chain of events that, through the determination and detective work of the Washington Equity Now Alliance (WENA), a nonprofit statewide equity advocacy group, will culminate in Governor Jay Inslee’s decision to admit a surprising fact— —Washington State has never eliminated affirmative action.
This week, at the urging of WENA, the Asia Pacific Cultural Center, the King County Council, the Seattle City Council and the Association of Washington Cities (AWC), Inslee pledged to make Washington abide by state law.
“Washington’s diversity is our greatest strength, and it is only through a level playing field that all Washingtonians have the potential to thrive and live healthy and successful lives,” Inslee said in a Jan. 7 release. Today’s The announcement is a systemic change aimed at breaking down barriers that have kept too many Washingtonians on the sidelines for too long. “
The impact would be revolutionary, Wineberry said in an interview, as it would overturn decades of discriminatory policies, conflicting rules and regulations, and institutional practices based on gross misunderstandings of state law.
strict interpretation
Shortly after the I-200 was passed in 1998, then-Governor Gary Locke was required to issue a gubernatorial directive to state agencies on how to interpret the new initiative.
Locke said in an interview that the directive he issued at the time (GD 98-01) depended on instructions from the Attorney General’s Office (AGO). As a result, the directive ended up being a relatively strict interpretation of I-200.
“Initiative 200 has been approved by voters and prohibits affirmative action, so we need to issue an executive order to provide guidance to state agencies on what Initiative 200 means, what they can or cannot do. This is based on the interpretations we received from the AGO and Guidance, they looked at the language of the initiative,” Locke said.
Washington state is known as one of nine states that prohibit affirmative action.
That’s why in 2019, Wineberry and others launched I-1000 to restore affirmative action. In their campaign — where Locke is co-chairman emeritus — they emphasized that the new initiative promotes advocacy for people of color, who are students, potential employees and contractors.
I-1000 was overwhelmingly passed into law by the Washington State Legislature. However, Referendum 88 was won by a 1 percent margin, and opponents voted affirmatively against I-1000.
After the loss, Wineberry asked his team if they wanted to continue. Given the 395,938 signatures they’ve garnered — more than any other initiative to the legislature in state history — and the intensity of the campaign, “they refused to back out,” he said.
But it was the conversation with Carlson that unlocked the keys to moving forward, Wineberry said.
To his surprise, WENA found two things in the original text attached to the initiative. The first is that I-200 is not intended to stifle affirmative action. The second is that it only serves to prohibit a less qualified person from being selected as a more qualified person for public education, public employment, or public contracts based on race or gender.
“When we saw in black and white that I-200 didn’t end affirmative action, we felt cheated that affirmative action had been stifled despite the will of the people,” Winbury said.
In January 2021, Wineberry and his colleagues decided to file a lawsuit against the state to end affirmative action for violating I-200.
When researching the lawsuit, however, they uncovered the 2003 Washington State Supreme Court case “Parents Involved in Community Schools vs. Seattle School District #1,” in which the court ruled that Washington allowed a racially conscious affirmative action state.
The state Supreme Court ruling has been ignored for decades. The case involved a white Ballard student who did not want to be sent to Franklin High School in Rainier Valley.
The case was brought in San Francisco’s 9th Circuit federal court, but the judge sent it to the Washington State Supreme Court through a certification issue, where the Washington Superior Court ruled that the I-200 only barred specifically advancing “less” affirmative action programs. Qualified applicants are preferred over more qualified applicants. “
Wineberry said WENA examined and re-examined the ruling and confirmed that the case was never appealed, overturned or denied.
“It’s the Holy Grail – we don’t want it to be defeated,” he said.
In 2017, Attorney General Bob Ferguson issued an advisory opinion affirming the same interpretation of I-200 by the state Supreme Court in 2003.
In April, WENA submitted their findings to the governor’s office, urging Governor Inslee to rescind the governor’s Order 98-01 and comply with the Washington state court ruling and Attorney General Ferguson’s recommendation.
New heroes and new despair
“Then a new hero came in and saved the day. Gary Locke came in and said I was the one who issued that order and it should be revoked,” Winbury said.
Locke said his directive was outdated given the AGO’s new interpretation of I-200.
“In the years since then, the AGO has indicated that some things are allowed, such as holding science camps for young girls – to get them interested in science and technology.
Previously, the AGO said it would not allow conduct such as targeting or recruiting women and minorities. They have since said that such promotions and recruitment efforts are allowed.
That’s why my executive order, based on the AGO’s initial interpretation, is out of date. This is inconsistent with recent interpretations,” he said. “Given the recent interpretation of the Initiative 200 ban, I support Governor Inslee’s decision to rescind Executive Order 98-01. “
After WENA submits their findings and recommendations to the Governor’s Office, they await his final decision.
Meanwhile, Democrats and Republicans from the King County Council, the entire Seattle City Council, the AWC and statewide Washington State Democrats urged Gov. Inslee to rescind Order 98-01.
Inslee has pledged to sign a new directive sometime before Jan. 17.
For many, it won’t be too soon.
The Washington State Office of Minority and Women-Owned Businesses estimates that small, women and minority-owned businesses have lost about $3.5 billion in job creation since 1998.
Gov. Inslee’s 2022 supplemental budget shows that nearly half of Washington’s black, Latino and Native American communities live in poverty, compared with only 23 percent of whites.
Asked if that was the cause of despair, Wimbrey said, “This is the perfect time for Governor Inslee to use the power of his pen to lift Washington State’s women and people of color out of the misery of poverty.”
Mahlon can be contacted by info@nwasianweekly.com.
