Posted on 12/05/2001 3:00:31 PM PST by Howlin
Brit Hume reports that Mary Frances Berry, chairman of the U.S. Civil Rights Commission, is refusing to acknowledge the Bush White House's latest appointment to the U.S. Civil Rights Commission.
Ms. Berry sent a letter to the White House Counsel, Al Gonzales, saying that if they do intend to send the nominee to the meeting tomorrow, they best send along the U.S. Marshalls to seat him, as she will not allow it.
Fox reports that the term of one of the Democrats has expired and President Bush is exercising his right to appoint a member of his choice. The Panel on Hume's show said that this has NEVER been done before; that when someone is appointed to fill a term that hasn't been expired, when the term expires, the person leaves the committe. They also report that the woman who is being removed from the commmittee plans to show up tomorrow with a civil rights attorney and claim that she should get a full six year term, not just complete somebody else's.
Ms. Berry contends that the person leaving the committee was appointed for six years, not just to fulfill the term of a member who either died or left the commission (I can't remember which!)
CAUTION: this is typed from memory. Nothing on the news site yet.
Chairman can you help...
But alas, it was just a joke.
By John J. Miller & Ramesh Ponnuru
December 4, 2001 11:55 a.m.
Victoria Wilson of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights apparently wants to be a commissioner for life. She recently announced her intention not to resign, even though her six-year term formally expired last week. She was appointed in 2000 to complete the term of the late Leon Higginbotham, but now she argues that she's entitled to a full six-year term rather than the remainder of Higginbotham's. This would keep her in office until 2006. The White House says her time is up; commission chair Mary Frances Berry accepts Wilson's self-serving interpretation of the law.
Berry and Wilson made clear their disdain for the rule of law this summer, when they (and four other liberal commissioners) released a controversial report on the 2000 presidential election in Florida. They suggested that George W. Bush carried the state because of a racist conspiracy to suppress black votes. The only suppression anyone could point to, however, was their own: They defied established practice by refusing to publish a dissent authored by the commission's two GOP-appointed members.
Wilson's argument makes no sense. It means that presidential appointees in time-limited positions could be "re-appointed" en masse right before the White House changes hands — and therefore prevent the next president from shaping the government the way he deserves.
Berry's support of Wilson has a personal dimension. Although she's been on the commission since the 1980s, Berry's current term began when she succeeded Connie Horner, whom the first President Bush had picked for the commission in the final hours of his presidency. Horner's term expired on December 5, 1998 — but President Clinton didn't get around to putting Berry in that slot until January 26, 1999. The White House clerk's office, staffed by career bureaucrats, insists that Berry's term ends in December 2004. Berry, however, says it concludes on January 26, 2005 — just a few days after the end of President George W. Bush's term.
If the Bush administration wants to exercise complete control over the federal government — control to which it is fully entitled — it will want to make sure Wilson loses her obnoxious challenge.
(kinda uppity, too).
Victoria’s Secret
A civil-rights commissioner defies the law.
By John J. Miller & Ramesh Ponnuru
December 4, 2001 11:55 a.m.
ictoria Wilson of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights apparently wants to be a commissioner for life. She recently announced her intention not to resign, even though her six-year term formally expired last week. She was appointed in 2000 to complete the term of the late Leon Higginbotham, but now she argues that she's entitled to a full six-year term rather than the remainder of Higginbotham's. This would keep her in office until 2006. The White House says her time is up; commission chair Mary Frances Berry accepts Wilson's self-serving interpretation of the law.
Berry and Wilson made clear their disdain for the rule of law this summer, when they (and four other liberal commissioners) released a controversial report on the 2000 presidential election in Florida. They suggested that George W. Bush carried the state because of a racist conspiracy to suppress black votes. The only suppression anyone could point to, however, was their own: They defied established practice by refusing to publish a dissent authored by the commission's two GOP-appointed members.
Wilson's argument makes no sense. It means that presidential appointees in time-limited positions could be "re-appointed" en masse right before the White House changes hands — and therefore prevent the next president from shaping the government the way he deserves.
Berry's support of Wilson has a personal dimension. Although she's been on the commission since the 1980s, Berry's current term began when she succeeded Connie Horner, whom the first President Bush had picked for the commission in the final hours of his presidency. Horner's term expired on December 5, 1998 — but President Clinton didn't get around to putting Berry in that slot until January 26, 1999. The White House clerk's office, staffed by career bureaucrats, insists that Berry's term ends in December 2004. Berry, however, says it concludes on January 26, 2005 — just a few days after the end of President George W. Bush's term.
If the Bush administration wants to exercise complete control over the federal government — control to which it is fully entitled — it will want to make sure Wilson loses her obnoxious challenge.
BTW, this guy brings the makeup of the panel to 4-4, as opposed to 5-4 Democrat it has been (as if you didn't know)
Perhaps she will assault one of the marshals tomorrow. She is nutty enough to do it.
Howlin, what a precedent this will set if she is successful. Any clue who I might call first thing in the morning to express my outrage?
Her behavior post-election in Florida was shameful. How Katherine Harris kept her cool I'll never know.
Bet this ignorant excuse for a gubmint official couldn't point to Africa on a map.
she's a complete idiot, but harmless. She's like Babs Boxer decrying Enron but invested heavily in it.
POLITICAL AFFILIATION: Independent
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Victoria Wilson was born in New York City and educated at Goddard College. Since 1972 she has been an editor at Alfred A. Knopf, where she was named vice-president and associate publisher in 1988. Among the many authors she has worked with: Walter Abish, Alice Adams, Stella Adler, Ann Arensberg, Sallie Bingham, Peter Bogdanovich, C.D.B. Bryan, Laurie Colwin, Fernanda Eberstadt, Marilyn French, Paula Fredrickson, William Gass, Anthony Heilbut, Lorrie Moore, Barry Paris, Anne Rice, Sapphire, Meryle Secrest, Scott Spencer, Nicholes Fox Weber and Marguerite Young.
Wilson was an adjunct professor at Columbia in 1992-1993, teaching the writing of fiction in the graduate writing program. She has served on the PEN Events Committee since 1990 and has been a member of the Executive Board since 1992. She was a Fiction Selection member for the PEN/Faulker Award in 1989. From 1997 to 1999 she served as PEN's Treasurer. She was a member of the advisory board for the annual New Orleans Writing Conference from 1988 to 1994 and from 1994 to 1996 she served on the board of the National Board of Review of Motion Pictures. From 1998 to the present she has served as that Board's Vice President. She is at work on a biography of Barbara Stanwyck to be published by Simon and Schuster.
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