ADVISORY/Proposition 209 Lawsuit Against S.F. and Mayor Willie Brown To Be Argued in Court of Appeal March 23.

News/Assignment Editors

ADVISORY...for Thursday (March 23)

--(BUSINESS WIRE)

FROM:        Pacific Legal Foundation
             Contact: Mark T. Gallagher, 916/362-2833

CASE:        Taber v. City and County of San Francisco and
             Mayor Willie Brown
             Case No. A087636

KEY DATE/
  TIME:      March 23, 2000, 9:00 a.m.

LOCATION:    First District Court of Appeal (Division 5),
             350 McAllister Street, San Francisco

Significance of the Case:

On March 23, 2000, at 9:00 a.m. Mark T. Gallagher, an attorney from the Sacramento-based Pacific Legal Foundation, will argue before the First District Court of Appeal that its lawsuit challenging San Francisco's public contracting policy as discriminatory should be reinstated and permitted to go forward. Last year, PLF sued San Francisco and Mayor Willie Brown alleging that the city's public contracting policy giving special preferences to minority- and women-owned businesses violated Proposition 209. Enacted by the voters in 1996, that measure prohibits California state and local agencies from discriminating against or granting preferential treatment to anyone on the basis of race and gender in public contracting.

Mr. Mark T. Gallagher will be available after the hearing to answer questions from the media.

Background

PLF's legal action against San Francisco's public contracting "set-aside" policy was filed on January 19, 1999, on behalf of a number of San Francisco taxpayers and Tom Taber, a sales representative for Ford Graphics in San Francisco. Taber was prohibited from bidding on a city project requiring reprographics services because the firm he worked for was not an "economically disadvantaged local business," which under the city's code means minority- or women-owned businesses. "Any government policy that outright prohibits certain people from bidding on a contract is, without question, discriminatory and therefore violates Proposition 209's equal treatment mandate," said Mark T. Gallagher, an attorney with PLF which helped win a major ruling in 1997 from the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals upholding the constitutionality of Proposition 209. "Equal treatment under the law is impossible in San Francisco so long as city officials continue to grant special privileges and preferences to politically favored groups," said Gallagher.

PLF's lawsuit was dismissed in May 1999 as being "premature," according to San Francisco Municipal Court Judge Ronald E. Quidachay. The trial court ruled that even though the city had used set-asides in the past and would use them again in the future, PLF would have to wait until there was an actual set-aside project currently pending before PLF could challenge it. A ruling favoring PLF in the Court Appeal will reinstate the legal action challenging the validity of the city's preferences for minority- and women-owned businesses.

Pacific Legal Foundation

Headquartered in Sacramento, California, PLF is a public interest, nonprofit organization that litigates nationwide in defense of individual and economic freedoms, limited government, and private property rights. PLF has opposed race and gender preferences, quotas, and set-asides in government contracting for 27 years. PLF successfully defended the constitutionality of Proposition 209 before the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in 1997. PLF also brought the first successful court challenge applying Proposition 209 against the City of San Jose. That case, Hi-Voltage Wire Works, Inc., dba Power Providers v. City of San Jose, is now pending in the California Supreme Court.