Until recently, affirmative action had enjoyed bipartisan
support in the nation's capital. As William Bradford Reynolds
pointed out earlier, the Reagan revolution of the 1980s was
determined to "end the proliferating race- and gender-based
preferences." Nevertheless, "as long as the Democrats con-
trolled Congress," observes the political scientist Linda Faye
Williams, "Republican presidents could not completely wipe
out affirmative action."

Two things changed that. In November 1994, Republi-
cans recaptured both the House and the Senate for the first
time in forty years. In the following year the Supreme Court's
decision in Adarand v. Pena applied new rules to federal affir-
mative action policies. In response to this judicial mandate and
political pressure, President Bill Clinton asked his administra-
tion to review all affirmative action policies. His speech "Mend
It, Don't End It," made at the National Archives at the conclu-
sion of that process, on July 19, 1995, appears here.

Affirmative action is being challenged legislatively in the
Senate by majority leader Bob Dole and in the House by
Charles T. Canady, a Florida Republican who introduced
what he overconfidently named Equal Opportunity Act of 1995
(H.R. 2128). Canady, whose bill is identical to Dole's proposal
in the Senate, says his intent is to "put the federal government
out of the business of granting . . . preferences on the basis of
race and gender." In this selection he describes why his ap-

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