Posted on 12/07/2001 8:13:22 AM PST by Jean S
WASHINGTON (AP) - The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights refused Friday to seat - or even recognize - a new commissioner appointed by President Bush.
Cleveland labor lawyer Peter Kirsanow watched quietly from the audience as attempts by the three Republican commissioners to have him seated or acknowledged were repeatedly voted down 5-3. Kirsanow attempted to vote for the first 10 minutes of the session but he was ignored and eventually sat silent as his allies continued debate.
The meeting opened with an attempt by Republican commissioners to adjourn until the dispute over the commission's makeup is resolved. But Chairwoman Mary Frances Berry persuaded the commission to reject that effort, saying it is impossible to know when the legal dispute will be resolved.
Berry recounted how President Reagan fired her in 1983 and how she fought through the courts to get back on the board.
She said accepting the White House or Justice Department interpretation of the law on the commission's makeup "would threaten the very independence of the commission."
Commissioner Christopher Edley, an ally of Berry, said he has told House Democratic leader Dick Gephardt that the White House is trying to reshape the commission in an apparent retribution for some of his work.
Berry - a frequent critic of the 2000 elections and particularly of Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, younger brother of the president - presides over a panel on which six commissioners lean Democratic and two lean Republican. The White House has already announced it plans to appoint Jennifer Cabranes Braceras to replace Yvonne Lee, whose term is expiring in early December. If Kirsanow is seated, the commission would be split 4-4.
Kirsanow was sworn in Thursday night to fill the seat of Victoria Wilson, an independent whose term, the White House says, expired Nov. 29.
White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said there was no legal merit to Berry's claim that Wilson's term has not expired, noting a ruling by the Justice Department's legal counsel and Clinton administration records that indicate it has expired. He denied rough politics on the White House's part, saying Kirsanow was installed within the letter of the law.
Berry said the White House's moves were "about muzzling us and it's scary to have them take all of this time and energy. It makes me even more afraid for the preservation of the commission."
The dispute between the Republican White House and a prominent black civil rights leader surprised the Bush team.
By taking the disputed seat held by Wilson, Kirsanow, a member of the largely conservative Center for New Black Leadership, would effectively rein in Berry's power over the commission.
The Bush administration maintains Wilson's term ended Nov. 29, when the term of the man she succeeded, Judge A. Leon Higginbotham Jr., would have expired. Higginbotham died in 1998.. This expiration date was spelled out in the Clinton administration's paperwork on Wilson's appointment, the White House says.
Berry argued the documents are wrong and are trumped by federal law, which says new commissioners will fill a six-year term.
Democratic Reps. John Conyers of Michigan and Jerrold Nadler of New York wrote Berry on Thursday to say the law as amended in 1994 reflects her interpretation.
The commission received a letter from the Justice Department late Thursday informing Berry that she is not allowed to retain outside legal help without Attorney General John Ashcroft's permission. Berry rejected that opinion.
Naturally, nothing from you. Just your usual troll, huh?
Do you have anything to add, other than the same old innane, banal leftist knee jerk?
Only when it is a Republican President. Mary Berry is of the group that fought the President in Florida, held those bogus hearings on supposed desenfrachisement by Blacks and others, and is just belligerent and power crazed.
President Bush should not bow down to this disrespect, and should have his appointee seated with troops if that is what it takes to stop Mary Contrary. She should be removed, bodily, from the commission.
That's what MFB and MurryMom are afraid of. If the makeup of the Civil Rights Commision reverts to 50-50 Rep-Dem instead of 2 Rep - 6 Dem, the truth might come out about all the financial shenanegins of MFB. Plus of course, their fictional report on the 2000 Presidential Election might get replaced by a report that contains facts.
P.S. MurryMom - don't try to BS this by saying that MFB and Wilson are Independent. If they are independent then the Pope is Moslem and the Clintons are ethical.
Have you brought this to his attention?
Repeat after me - facts, logic, reasoning. You seem so very angry. So very, very angry.
I will never be able to see her without thinking of that now! I love it, and LOL!
She really is, isn't she?
Its hard to read how the "moderates" would go. Sometimes the political cover offered by a vote against a funding authorization is a little more substantial than that available for a vote to abolish something that is perceived to be popular among "the disadvantaged". They can claim cover under the umbrella of "fiscal restraint" if they vote to defund something. The risks are fewer in pi$$ing off a few federal bureaucrats than those for arousing a sizable voting bloc that is easily whipped into a hysteria by the race baiters and poverty pimps. Not to mention the lamestream press, who'd crucify anyone voting to abolish this corrupt and politicized "commission".
But, whatever. The time comes when the 'Pubs will just have to stand up to the cowardly and despicable tactics of the 'Rats. They should throw this whole mess right back into the ugly, rotten face of Berry. If the chairperson of such a panel is willing to be so racially divisive and mean-spirited, its time for the 'Pubs to take to the barricades.
Thank you, thank you!
I thought no one had noticed.
Could it be that that's exactly what the liberal media along with the RATS want you to believe, assuming of course that you've gotten wind of it at all?
MurryMom, please give us one example, backed up with facts, of the Republicans trying to selectively eliminate votes of minorities in this country.
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