State Treasurer candidate Andria Simckes tried to rebut reports that she supported the controversial ballot initiative that seeks to outlaw most forms of affirmative action in Missouri.
In an email to supporters and the press Friday, Simckes, who is black, said clearly that she does not support the misleadingly titled “Missouri Civil Rights Initiative” or its chief spokesman, Ward Connerly.
I would like to talk about something that is extremely disturbing. Ward Connerly, a man from California, is putting together a ballot initiative on the November Ballot that would limit the rights of hundreds of thousands of Missourians. I do not support Ward Connerly and I do not support his Missouri Civil Rights Initiative. His initiative attempts to weaken civil rights by abolishing Affirmative Action in Missouri. Affirmative Action is one tool in the defense against discrimination and it is still an extremely important one.
The issue of Simckes’ position on the initiative stems from an April 13th story on the KY3 political blog in which Simckes is reported as saying “she believes in the non-partisan court plan and supports the Missouri Civil Rights Initiative.”
Simckes later posted a comment on that blog posting saying:
I support the right to equal opportunity for all Americans. I am living proof of that opportunity. My acceptances in the NASA-Lewis MARS Internship Program and Brown University are just two examples of how the right to equal opportunity has benefited me personally. Affirmative Action is one of the most effective tools in beginning to level the playing field for women and minorities. I have always and will continue to support everyone’s right to equal opportunity.
In her email Friday, she went on to say how much she has personally benefited from affirmative action.
In my own life, Affirmative Action has played a vital role in providing numerous opportunities for me… The year I entered Brown University, the school made the conscious decision to increase their talent pool to include more racial diversity by moving to need blind admission. Although, I was at the top of my high school graduating class, my family was a working class family and I would not have been able to afford all of the expenses associated with attending Brown.
Simckes took a few parting shots at Connerly before concluding her statement:
I stand against Ward Connerly’s values because he is against that which makes our country great. I am running for State Treasurer for that reason…
Let’s all come together as Democrats to defeat Ward Connerly and his initiative.
Andria Danine Simckes
April 18th, 2008 at 6:59 pm
I definitely believe Simckes when she speaks up about her support for affirmative action programs (of which the largest beneficiary are white women, numerically speaking.) But why did she say that she supported the MCRI in the first place? Did she misspeak, or was she misinformed as to the content of the ballot initiative?
April 18th, 2008 at 7:05 pm
I have a question. Is Affirmative Action a “right”? She continues to refer to it as a “right”. She says Affirmative Action results in “equal opportunity”. How does a program that discriminates provide equal opportunity? That is simply an illogical statement. I agree with her it is a “tool” for social engineering, however, I disagree it is a right. A “right” implies it is constitutional and would endure throughout the ages. America is a strange place. Its the only place I’ve seen that tries to correct discrimination by discriminating. In a global economy, such discrimination makes us anti-compettitive with countries like China where everyone is Chinese. We can’t compete by forcing ourselves to hire less qualified people when they hire the most qualified. I hope this amendment passes. Two generations of Affirmative Action are enough. If not now, when?
April 18th, 2008 at 8:53 pm
Andrea has good intentions, but is definitely having a tough time with being a candidate. In addition to this snafu, and her ill conceived pronouncement that she is being supported by democratic leaders, her campaign expenditure report needs to be amended because she listed no employment information for any of her contributors. She’s a nice person, but no doubt will be challenging Charles Wheeler in the vote tally for last place in the election results.
April 18th, 2008 at 10:31 pm
I think it is safe to assume she was misquoted. It happens every day in in the political world.
April 19th, 2008 at 9:33 am
Perculator,
why didnt she say that in the first place? If she was misquoted, wouldnt she ahve called the rporter and told him? I think she just didnt know what it was and wouldnt admit it.
April 21st, 2008 at 12:28 pm
I don’t think being State Treasurer is any place for a candidate who says she supports the Missouri Civil Rights Initiative just because it sounds like something that she should support. She needs to know these things before she speaks out about them….or maybe she thought it might slip by and not be noticed and then had to back peddle when she got jumped on by so many people. I agree with Dave….she and Charlie duking it out for last place.
April 21st, 2008 at 2:42 pm
And what does being Treasurer have to do with any political position? How about whether she is good with money and numbers, that might be sort of important. Every elected office doesn’t require someone to take a stand on every little thing. This is why competent people don’t run for stuff, because they are expected to take political stances on everything instead of just doing the job for which they were elected.
April 22nd, 2008 at 12:01 pm
So, need-blind admission to Brown was a good thing but color-blind admission isn’t?
I don’t get it.
Any type of discrimination eliminates equal opportunity.
April 22nd, 2008 at 1:44 pm
Need blind doesn’t promote discrimination, it avoids it. Those who Brown would weed out for being poor don’t have that strike against them anymore, and are judged on their record and achievements, not their parent’s income.
May 4th, 2008 at 3:09 pm
THE CLASSIFICATION OF AMERICANS BY RACE AND ETHNICITY MUST END
The Racial and Ethnic classification of Americans is nothing more than institutionalized racism and must be ended. The United States of America has been known as a country of rugged individualism based on individual freedom and liberty. Why has America become a country obsessed with classifying its citizens into different racial and ethnic sub-groups?
The only groups that actively support the continued collection of racial and ethnic data are big government bureaucrats and “racial and ethnic special interest groups” that also happen to receive significant funding from the federal government. These organizations argue that identifying people by race and ethnicity is necessary in order to redress some past injustice and that the federal government must continue to collect and use this information in order to set up special racial and ethnic programs, affirmative action quotas and other set-asides for these groups, some of whom consist of new immigrants, illegal aliens and non-citizens. Nothing can be further from the truth. In a country where we can no longer ask people what religion they are, what their party affiliation is or what their sexual orientation is, why are we still asking them about their racial and ethnic background?
Americans are beginning to realize that racial and ethnic identification is more a matter of personal choice than anything else. In the 2000 Census, seven million American citizens refused to place themselves into a single category by refusing to describe themselves as only white, black, Asian, Latino or any one of the other specific categories listed, because they were of mixed race. Attempts by the government to create a “mixed race” box for the 2000 Census was met with resistance by racial and ethnic special interest groups like the NAACP and the National Council of La Raza, because they feared that a mixed-race box could pose a danger to the justification for their existence. The fuzzier such racial and ethnic categories become, the harder it will be for these racial and ethnic special interest groups and the government to traffic in them. If a mixed-race category were to be added, every brown-skinned person of mixed race registered in this category would shrink the government’s official count of Blacks, Latinos, Asians or American Indians, eventually reducing their political influence and ultimately the amount of money these groups receive from the federal government, which amounts to approximately $185 billion a year.
Through the mandated collection and use of racial and ethnic specific information, more and more of American taxpayers’ hard earned money is being routinely distributed to these racial and ethnic special interest groups at the expense of all other Americans who may or may not be members of these groups. Through executive orders, congressional legislation, affirmative action programs, racial set-asides, quotas and other programs based solely on race and ethnicity, our federal government is playing the key role that pits one racial and ethnic group against another, which could eventually lead to our destruction as a country.
Rather than helping a diverse population become assimilated and united as one nation, the Federal government is doing what the Nazi government of Germany did in the 1930’s and 40’s; creating government supported institutionalized racism by the intentional classification of it’s citizens by race and ethnicity.
With the support of racial and ethnic special interest groups, our federal government seems to view our citizens not just as Americans, but rather as “pawns” in some social science experiment to be classified and separated into different racial or ethnic sub-groups for some unknown purpose. By mandating the classification of Americans into specific racial and ethnic sub-groups, the federal government and the advocates of “diversity” are actually perpetuating institutionalized racism and keeping Americans divided. Maybe the real purpose of collecting this data is to justify the continuing flow of government money to these racial and ethnic special interest groups.
If we want to help poor Americans escape poverty, get better health care, find a job or get a good education, why should it matter what their race or ethnic background is? The answer is: It should not! Americans need to come together as members of one country and remember that we are all individual Americans, regardless of race or ethnic background. Martin Luther King, Jr., inspired a nation when he voiced his dream for a color-blind nation, a nation in which people would be judged by the content of their characters, “not the color of their skin.” The answer to this government encouraged racism is the concept of Liberty with a limited, constitutional government that is devoted to the protection of individual rights rather than the claims of different racial and ethnic special interest groups. Where Liberty is present, individual achievement and competence are rewarded, not people’s skin color or ethnicity.
I will support legislation barring the federal government from the collection of racial and ethnic information about the American people and/or the classification of American citizens by race and ethnicity, including the collection of census information. Exceptions should be made for law enforcement, hospitals and medical research purposes.
I will also support legislation that bans affirmative action programs, racial set-asides, quotas and any other programs that give special preferences based on race and ethnicity.
By:
JOHN W. WALLACE
Candidate for Congress
New York’s 20th Congressional District
http://www.FreedomCandidate.com