The whole problem is caused by ridiculous policies such as explicit advantages for "small businesses owned by “service-disabled veterans, women, minorities, or economically and socially disadvantaged individuals".
It's obvious why they're passed (and would be nearly impossible to repeal), because it's a useful PR trick that sounds good and attractive to the voters. However, that's bullshit - it does not matter by whom the business is 'owned' (because actual control and benefit does not map cleanly to legal ownership), if you want to subsidize a particular group of people, well, just give them an appropriate amount cash directly, or give advantages to the particular “service-disabled veterans, women, minorities, or economically and socially disadvantaged individuals" themselves, but you definitely should have the businesses still compete based on proper merits instead of legalizing advantages for ticking arbitrary boxes, which only invites abuse such as described in this article.
It's obvious why they're passed (and would be nearly impossible to repeal), because it's a useful PR trick that sounds good and attractive to the voters. However, that's bullshit - it does not matter by whom the business is 'owned' (because actual control and benefit does not map cleanly to legal ownership), if you want to subsidize a particular group of people, well, just give them an appropriate amount cash directly, or give advantages to the particular “service-disabled veterans, women, minorities, or economically and socially disadvantaged individuals" themselves, but you definitely should have the businesses still compete based on proper merits instead of legalizing advantages for ticking arbitrary boxes, which only invites abuse such as described in this article.