Alameda County Sued Over Racial Preferences In Government Contracting

ALAMEDA COUNTY, CA -- San Diego-based nonprofit Californians for Equal Rights Foundation (CFER) and two individual co-plaintiffs represented by Libertarian law firm Pacific Legal Foundation (PLF) of Sacramento, have filed a lawsuit challenging two Alameda County public contracting programs that impose race-based preferences for minority-owned enterprises.

The suit was filed July 25 and specifically mentions the Alameda County Public Works Agency's implementation of the “Construction Compliance Program,” and the General Services Agency's “Enhanced Construction Outreach Program.” Each program imposes a 15% “participation goal,” which operates essentially as set-asides, for companies certified as minority-owned businesses for county construction projects.

The set-asides force general contractors to discriminate against subcontractors according to the lawsuit.

"In many cases, they work to exclude subcontractors in certain fields from obtaining jobs just because they are not minority-owned," the PLF said in a statement.

The suit maintains that both programs violate the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and California’s constitutional ban on racial preferences (Article I, Section 31, codified through Proposition 209).

“Racial quotas in public contracting, just as racial quotas elsewhere, are wrong and unconstitutional,” PLF senior attorney Wen Fa said. “The government should not be depriving opportunities for small businesses engaged in public contracting — and the Alameda County public contracting programs are particularly pernicious because they deprive opportunities based on race.”

“California’s voters sent a strong message that they are serious about protecting the time-honored right of equality before the law, in 1996 when they approved Proposition 209, and again in 2020 when they defeated its repeal,” CFER Executive Vice President Gail Heriot said. “Government favors on racial grounds have a pernicious past and do not belong in the 21st century.”

“The government should not be picking winners and losers on the basis of race or color,” Chunhua Liao, co-plaintiff in the lawsuit and an Alameda County taxpayer, said. “Furthermore, no public agency should expend taxpayers’ money to hand out race-preferential construction contracts. Alameda County is clearly violating the California Constitution.”

CFER says that its lawsuit is the first ever to defend California’s constitutional guarantee of equal treatment in the court of law since the resounding success of efforts to safeguard it on the 2020 state ballot.

The case is Californians for Equal Rights Foundation v. Alameda County, filed in the Superior Court of California in Alameda County.