What will happen to affirmative action if Sen. Barack Obama or Sen. John McCain is elected president? Why is affirmative action still a key issue in this presidential election? 

"When we look at issues of full participation in our workforce, colleges and universities and governmental contracting, you see the representation of African Americans, other ethnic groups and women far under parity," says Hilary Shelton, director to the NAACP's Washington Bureau.

The civil-rights organization also rates congressional members according to their voting history. In 2006, the latest year for which data is available, Obama received a 100 percent rating by the NAACP, indicating a pro-affirmative-action stance. McCain received a 7 percent rating, indicating an anti-affirmative-action stance.

"Equal opportunity programs are necessary to help guide companies, corporations and governments to make sure they don't discriminate as they provide services," says Shelton.

Affirmative action has suffered as state legislation has limited the use of race, religion, sex and national origin to admit students to colleges and universities. It has been under attack by California businessman Ward Connerly for a decade. He is now using the success of Obama as his defense that affirmative action is no longer necessary.

"The primary rationale for affirmative action is that America is institutionally racist and institutionally sexist," said Connerly. "That rationale is undercut in a major way when you look at the success of Senator Clinton and Senator Obama."

Connerly, who is Black and a former Obama supporter, has waged a campaign against affirmative action in five states, successfully getting an initiative to ban it on the November ballot in three: Colorado, Arizona and Nebraska. The initiative failed to get enough signatures to qualify for the ballot in Missouri and Oklahoma. McCain, despite being the senator from Arizona, has remained mum about his state's ballot initiative.

"What had been a national policy is being dismantled, state by state," University of Washington President Mark A. Emmert wrote in the Christian Science Monitor last year. Emmert also says his campus has "ensure[d] diversity and access to higher education particularly by taking socio-economic factors into account."

So exactly how do Obama and McCain stack up on affirmative action? The answer is in their voting histories.

McCain believes affirmative action is OK for specific programs but does not support federal affirmative-action programs. He voted yes on banning affirmative-action hiring with federal funds.

"It also means rejecting affirmative-action plans and quotas that give weight to one group of Americans at the expense of another," said Tucker Bounds, a spokesperson for the McCain campaign, to The Associated Press, explaining McCain's position on affirmative action. "Plans that result in quotas, where such plans have not been judicially created to remedy a specific, proven act of discrimination, only result in more discrimination."

Obama, on the other hand, fully supports affirmative action and feels that it should be extended to include poor, white college applicants.

"I still believe in affirmative action as a means of overcoming both historic and potentially current discrimination," Obama said during an April debate. "But I think that it can't be a quota system and it can't be something that is simply applied without looking at the whole person, whether that person is Black, white, Hispanic, male or female."

McCain has supported some aspects of affirmative action. He voted no on ending special funding for minority- and women-owned businesses. Obama also voted no on ending special funding for minority and women businesses and pushed for legislation to better enforce women's pay equality via the Equal Pay Act. McCain did not vote on the Equal Pay Act.

Obama voted in support of affirmative action in colleges and government and also supported the 2003 Supreme Court decision on University of Michigan, which upheld the right of universities to consider race in their admissions processes to achieve a diverse student body.

"Affirmative action is an important tool, although a limited tool," Obama said on National Public Radio last year. "I say limited simply because a large portion of our young people right now never even benefit from affirmative action because they are not graduating from high school," he said. "And unless we do a better job with early childhood education, fixing crumbling schools, investing to make sure that we've got an excellent teacher in front of every classroom, and then making college affordable, we're not even going to reach the point where our children can benefit from affirmative action."

The Supreme Court has for years walked a fine line on the issue of affirmative action. Its decision on affirmative action at the University of Michigan was split; while it upheld the admissions method used by the university's law school which considered race, the court struck down a point system used by undergraduate programs, putting a limit on how much of a factor race can play in the decision process.

A victory by Obama is expected to keep the high court balanced, as a number of the liberals will likely retire soon. A win for McCain could mean an overwhelmingly conservative court with more conservative rulings on affirmative action.

While the ultimate fate of affirmative action may depend on who is elected president in November, advocates like Shelton say the need for equal opportunity programs is still vital. To him and many other civil-rights watchdogs, "When you look at the access to education and jobs, not much has changed since 2000. We hope the next president will fix that."