I was a child who, when taken to the circus, spent all her time trying to see past the greasepaint and illusion. "The flipper-footed man in the Raggedy Andy wig looks worried about something," I'd whisper to my mother. It was an exasperating trait in a child but much more useful now that I'm old enough to vote. Whenever an election turns into a three-ring circus, I cast my baleful eye upon the proceedings and wonder what's really going on in the heart that beats beneath the fright wig. In California, there's a doozy of a show being staged these days, a veritable medieval joust for the governorship, with big brass bands and colorful sideshows featuring the World's Strongest Man, the World's Smallest Man, tattooed contortionists in skimpy costumes and a stream of clowns that just keep pouring out of a little toy car. It's so entertaining that it's almost sacrilege to wonder what else might be on the ballot.

Until the first weekend of September, in fact, you'd have been hard pressed to find any media mention of Proposition 54, which would limit the state's ability to collect data pertaining to race, ethnicity and national origin. But that was when candidate and Lieutenant Governor Cruz Bustamante donated $3.8 million of his campaign chest to the effort to defeat the proposition. That much money always raises the volume, I guess. CRECNO, or the Classification by Race, Ethnicity, Color, or National Origin Initiative, prohibits such classification "in the operation of public education, public contracting or public employment." The measure also prohibits the gathering of data by "any other state operations" unless there is a specific legislative as well as executive finding of "compelling state interest." The only exemptions to the law are compliance with federal law, data about specific medical research and the "assignment of prisoners and undercover law enforcement officers" or other "law enforcement duties."

Proposition 54 is the brainchild of businessman Ward Connerly and the American Civil Rights Institute. Connerly, who wants to create what he calls "race-blind government," is someone whose name is almost invariably followed in news accounts by the phrase "who is himself black." This is usually followed by a short quote from Connerly proclaiming that he's not only black, but also white, French, Irish and Native American. It is paradoxical: Connerly's blackness is almost always mentioned as a kind of rhetorical nod to his "authenticity" in proclaiming the stigma thereof--and always with the coda labeling every last one of his ancestors, as though to imply that he's oh-so-much more interesting than mere labels can convey.

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