Question:
The city of Jacksonville, Florida, sought to increase the percentage of municipal contracts awarded to minority business enterprises (MBEs) and enacted an ordinance containing a 10 percent set aside. Members of the Association of General Contractors brought suit against the city because they thought the setaside program impermissibly favored one race over another. Such a race-based classification system in the awarding of municipal construction contracts, they contended, violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The trial court granted summary judgment in favor of the contractors’ association; however, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit vacated the judgment on the grounds that the contractors lacked standing to sue. The appeals court concluded that the contractors’ association had “not demonstrated that, but for the program, any member would have bid successfully for any of the contracts.” After the U.S. Supreme Court granted the contractors’ association’s petition for a writ of certiorari, the city repealed its MBE ordinance and enacted a second ordinance that was very similar in that it provided for contractual set-asides favoring women and black contractors. Is this case moot, inasmuch as the ordinance complained about has been repealed?