High Court to Consider Reversing Federal Affirmative Action Rules : Judiciary: The justices agree to hear a case challenging the preferences given to minorities when competing for U.S. contracts.

WASHINGTON —  The Supreme Court, plunging back into the controversy over affirmative action, announced Monday it would consider barring the government from giving an edge to blacks and Latinos in competing for federal contracts.

In a separate case, the court also said it would decide whether to revive a California welfare regulation that treats all people living in a household as one unit for welfare purposes. That approach, which was invalidated by a judge two years ago, could save the state as much as $10 million a year in welfare costs, officials said.

In a brief order issued late Monday, the court agreed to hear an appeal that broadly challenges the use of affirmative action in federal contracts. The case, which likely will be argued before the court in January, could yield a ruling that cuts across scores of government programs. For the past four years, the court has uneasily tolerated a double standard for handing out government contracts.

States and municipalities may not reserve contracts for racial and ethnic minorities, except to remedy past discrimination, the court said on a 5-4 vote in 1989. Such blatant racial preferences violate the “equal protection” rights of whites, the justices said in Croson vs. Richmond.

However, on a separate 5-4 vote a year later, the court said in Metro Broadcasting vs. the FCC that federal agencies acting at the behest of Congress may give preferences to minorities and women.

That dual approach may be nearing an end. Four liberal justices who helped form the majority in the broadcasting case have left the court, and the five conservative justices have spoken out against the continued use of federal contract preferences for minorities and women. They are Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist and Justices Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas, Anthony M. Kennedy and Sandra Day O’Connor.

The court said Monday it would hear the case of Adarand Constructors vs. Federico Pena, 93-1841.

“This case offers them a chance to do a lot of things, including setting the same standard of review” for federal and state contracts, said Todd Welch, a Denver attorney who represents a white construction company owner who submitted the lowest bid but nonetheless lost a federal highway contract to the Gonzales Construction Co., a small minority-owned firm.

The white contractor sued and contended this sort of blatant race discrimination violates the Constitution. But two federal courts in Colorado ruled that the U.S. Department of Transportation is free to give such preferences.

In their appeal, the lawyers for the white contractor said that “race-based” contracts should be be barred, except when they are needed “to remedy prior state-sponsored discrimination.”

The case was one of eight granted a review during the court term, which officially begins next week. By long tradition, the court announces its first orders on its opening day, the first Monday of October. However, this year the justices have found themselves in the embarrassing spot of not having granted enough cases during the spring to fill up their argument schedule through December.

This week, the justices met to review 1,700 appeals that piled up over the summer. Rather than wait until next week, they decided to announce in advance that they would hear several cases so that lawyers will have an extra week to prepare for arguments in December or January.

The California welfare case challenges a longstanding state policy that treats all persons living in a house as “one assistance unit,” even if some of those people are not part of the immediate family.

Other states permit a “needy caretaker” to obtain a separate grant to raise other children, such as a niece. In such instances, the combined assistance usually is greater than for a household defined as “one assistance unit.”

While California’s approach is less costly, a U.S. district judge in Sacramento said it violates federal law. The justices agreed to hear the state’s appeal in Anderson vs. Edwards, 93-1883.