The state of Washington's Initiative 200 is next round in the national struggle over affirmative action

Seattle -- Activists seeking to roll back affirmative action programs won a 1996 election victory in California, but stalled in Houston in 1997. Now, they are seeking to jump-start their national campaign with an initiative on the Washington state ballot this November.

Initiative 200 would bar state and local governments from, "discriminating or granting preferential treatment based on race, sex, color, ethnicity, or national origin in public employment, education, and contracting."

Its proponents advertise it as "The Washington State Civil Rights Initiative." A virtual replay of California's Proposition 209, I-200 received $178,000 -- money that helped fund paid signature gatherers -- from Prop 209 supporter Ward Connerly's American Civil Rights Institute.

According to Michelle Ackerman, the communications director for NO! 200, anti-affirmative action forces have targeted Washington state to re-start what is perceived to be a stalled national agenda.

"It's very clear that's what this would do," she said.

John Carlson, the chairman of Yes on Initiative 200, said victory would "hasten the pace of change, [although] change is coming anyway."

As in the California ballot, where Connerly was a high-visibility figure, 1200 has an African American among its four co-chairs, Mary A. Radcliffe.

"I'm against discrimination of any kind," said Radcliffe, who cites a background as co-chair of an Olympia Episcopal Diocese racial issues committee and with diversity groups at U.S. West, where she retired as assistant to the president of the phone company's Washington branch.

"It's really very troublesome when people achieve and then someone slaps them in the face and says, `Did affirmative action get you there?'" she added. "Coming from the South, going to high school in the fifties, we didn't have to worry about what someone achieved. People knew you did it on your own."