several important issues of New York law remain unsettled, and their resolution would alter the federal constitutional issue presented.  In particular, they assert that the issue of whether the state legislature properly authorized appellees' actions remains an open question.  That issue is further complicated, appellees assert, by New York's enactment of Article 15-A of the Executive Law after the Appellate Division's decision in Rex Paving.    Rex Paving did not conclusively decide the authorization issue and, appellees note, in any case, the New York courts should be permitted to construe Article 15-A prior to its interpretation in a federal forum.  The ultimate resolution of authorization would alter the federal claim, they believe, because in assessing a race conscious legislative program's constitutional validity, aA triethnic comparison of intracerebral hemorrhage mortality in Texas.
Intracerebral hemorrhage (ICH) is a significant cause of stroke death. Little is known about the relative risk of Hispanic Americans (HAs), African Americans (AAs), and non-Hispanic whites (NHWs) for ICH mortality. Based on the high prevalence of hypertension in AAs and the low prevalence of hypertension in HAs, we expected AAs to have the highest ICH mortality rates and HAs the lowest. Race/ethnic age-specific ICH mortality rates were calculated from Texas vital statistics for the years 1980 through 1995. Rate ratios (RRs) are reported with NHWs as the referent group. There were 15,042 deaths due to ICH in Texas during this time. In the 45- to 59-year age group, AAs had an RR of 4. The RR for HAs was