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.
Are Pacifica Stations for Sale?
Explosive Pacifica Radio Memo Raises Storm
Here at CounterPunch (http://www.counterpunch.org) we have always predicted that the end game of Pacifica's national board would the sale of some or all of the 5-station network's assets, worth some $300 million. Such a sale would finally destroy the listener-subscriber basis of this once progressive radio network.
Latest evidence of the Board's bad faith comes in the form of an email, purportedly from Micheal Palmer, a real estate broker in Houston who is treasurer-elect on the governing board. The text of the memo follows. Palmer's email to Pacifica national board chair Mary Frances Berry puts forward a plan to destroy grassroots opposition and raise money to pay for the voracious cash needs of the national superstructure by selling either KPFA, the network's flagship station in the Bay Area, valued at around $70 million, or WBAI in New York, probably worth even more. Thus far Palmer has not responded to CounterPunch's phone messages left at his office, home and cell phone, explaining clearly the reason for our calls.
There are a couple puzzling features in the address panel of the email. Berry's name middle name is incorrectly spelled, though Micheal is the proper spelling of Palmer's first name. How can such an explosive memo be seeing the light of day instead of remaining locked in Mary Frances Berry's safe? The truth is ironic and extraordinary. The IGC internet service provider did a trace and confirms that the email originated at Micheal Palmer's email account. (Click here to read the IGC trace of the email's origins.) But it was sent to the email address of Andrea Buffa, director of the San Francisco Media Alliance and one of the protesters on whom Pacifica manager Lynn Chadwick had conducted a citizen's arrest for demonstrating outside the Pacifica national offices in Berkeley. Buffa was arraigned on July 13 directing the attention of the press to the text of the letter on CounterPunch's website. (Click here to read press release from the Media Alliance.) It seems that Palmer in one of the most momentous Freudian slips in recent memory managed to direct his email to an active opponent of all the schemes being hatched by him and Berry.
The memo shows that a small clique on the national board has been planning all along a strategy which even many people disapproving of the Berry strategy had regarded as inconceivable. Here at CounterPunch we are not in the least surprised. A year ago we were told by an entirely reliable source that the notion of selling one of Pacifica's frequencies has long been debated inside the high command. Four years ago, then Pacifica national director Pat Scott and others were actively lobbying for the sale of WBAI's prized frequency on the New York FM dial, arguing that the proceeds would in part purchase a less valuable frequency and be otherwise invested in projects dear to the board's heart. In sum, the content of Palmer's damning email is well within the bounds of credibility. Its inadvertent release promises to raise the Pacifica battle to a new level and draw in many previous fence sitters in the struggle against Berry and her clique.
Could W just put an end to this charade by disbanding the Commission with an Executive Order? Would that just make things worse?
OK, two questions.
It does seem like they both crawled out of the same orifice...
The Politics Of Pure Serendipity
April 13, 2000
The current political wisdom, chanted in unison by all the pundits, is this: the candidate who is most adept at staying out of public view this election year will win the big prize come November.
This offers us the delicious possibility that we could get through an entire presidential campaign without ever having to set eyes on the two major-party candidates.
Shades of the '60s: what if they gave a debate and nobody came?
Still, even if the candidates are absent, you can tell the political season is well and truly underway. The signs are everywhere.
The networks are doing polls again, for one thing.
The Washington Post and The New York Times take every opportunity to remind us that there are worse qualities in a president than sheer, mind-numbing, power-suited, poll-driven dullness.
The establishment press runneth over with stories about child abuse (in Texas), pollution (in Texas), health care woes (in Texas), bad weather (in Texas) and crumbling schools (in -- yes -- Texas).
And Bill Clinton has uncorked one of the most lethal weapons in his political arsenal: Mary Frances Berry, Geraldine R. Segal Professor of American Social Thought at the University of Pennsylvania, and chairman of the US Commission on Civil Rights.
This once-bipartisan panel is lopsidedly Democratic at present, consisting of two Republicans and six Democrats, one of whom -- Christopher Edley -- is a campaign adviser to Al Gore.
Earlier this week, the commission issued a report blasting efforts to replace race-based affirmative action policies with race-neutral, merit-based admissions standards at public universities.
By sheer coincidence, the commission singled out three key electoral states for condemnation -- Florida, Texas, and California -- reserving its harshest criticisms for the two that happen to be governed by Bush brothers.
Dr. Berry acted downright snake-bit at the suggestion that her Civil Rights Commission had politicized its findings. "I can't help it because the governor's named Bush," she huffed. "It's pure serendipity."
I suspect she'll react with similar indignation to criticisms of the commission's next report, due to be released this Friday.
Purely serendipitously, it will find that New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani (Hillary Clinton's competition for that open New York Senate seat) is a racist pig who gets a charge out of police brutality.
Such is the wit and wisdom of Mary Frances Berry.
Jimmy Carter first appointed Dr. Berry to the Civil Rights Commission in 1980. Her abusive personal style soon became the stuff of legend.
When the forces of darkness won the 1980 election, she promptly declared war on the Reagan administration. In 1984, fed to the gills with her noisy attacks on his civil rights policies, President Reagan fired her.
As Dr. Berry tells it, President Reagan informed her that "I was serving at his pleasure, and I wasn't giving him any pleasure."
Sadly, the firing didn't take. Dr. Berry sued, and was swiftly reinstated. In 1993, Bill Clinton named her chairman of the Civil Rights Commission.
The commission has foundered under her management. A 1997 General Accounting Office report charged that, among other things, it is "an agency in disarray," unable to "provide key cost information," its proceedings hampered by records that are routinely "lost, misplaced, or non-existent."
As for Dr. Berry's temperament, it is notorious. What's more, although she is impeccably left of center, even fellow-radicals have felt her sting.
In her avatar as chairman of the hard-left Pacifica Foundation, for instance, she provoked last summer's meltdown at the Pacifica Radio network with her Stalinesque efforts to impose "diversity" on the network's flagship station, the Berkeley-based KPFA.
On her authority, network dissidents were locked out, subject to gag orders, and, in one famous instance, dragged forcibly from the station in mid-broadcast.
These follies triggered massive protests by Berkeley's aging radicals -- wonderfully called, by one local reporter, "the white ponytail set" -- who took to the streets to denounce Dr. Berry's tyrannical methods ("Berkeley or Belgrade?" shrieked one local headline).
The poor things might as well have stayed home smoking rope, or writing haiku, or whatever it is they do when they're alone. Dr. Berry is impervious to criticism.
Typically, she silences her critics by attacking them as 'racists' (her black critics are, naturally, 'Uncle Toms'). When Pacifica's Peter Bramson publicly assailed her tactics, she wrote him off as a "fascist thug."
Of course, the highjinks at Pacifica were a mere sideshow. Her real life's work is a relentless attack on the right.
This is what buys her the brittle reverence of the national press, and the public support of her fellow-leftists, who -- however disillusioned they may be behind the scenes -- see the practical applications of her instinctive viciousness.
Bill Clinton is nothing if not practical. With Al Gore largely AWOL for the duration, Mary Frances Berry makes a mighty useful surrogate.
And if you don't agree, she'll rip your lungs out.
ELECTION REPORT'S BIAS SEEN IN LEAKS by Steve Miller
The Washington Times
June 6, 2001
Miss Berry has contributed thousands of dollars to Democrats since 1992, according to election records, including donations to the campaigns of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, Al Gore and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.
This whole appointment thing ends up in court and eventually the Supreme Court decides in a way that forces Congress to tinker with the law that created the Commission. In doing so, Congress becomes hopelessly deadlocked and just shuts the door on the place. Wishful thinking, I know.
Don't think we will hear from the Bush Administration on this. In public, that is. As has been mentioned before, Berry and her cronies are trying to set a PR trap and W is just going to stay above the fray and win in the courts. Rest assured, behind the scenes, he is fuming over this grab for power. President Bush has proven that he knows how to restrain himself or he listens to those who tell him he should cool it. x42 has been trying to get W to take the bait since Jan 20th, and especially since 911, and W just will not play his game. Good for W.
LOL.....
Just another fine example of sacrificing the truth to further the liberal agenda. The Bush appointee is black and is the head of the Center for New Black Leadership , while the Clinton appointee is white.
Facts.......liberals don't need no stinkin' facts..............
Berry has facts on her side
Sec. 1975. Establishment of Commission
Re.: you rather meticulous posting of CRC bylaws, which, through lack of detail do not address the length of an appointee's replacement, only what can be construed as an initial appointment. But hey, why pay attention to the fact that the WJC administration letter making the replacement appointment specifically has her only filling the remainder of the original appointment, expiring on 11/29/01. Your data does not make Berry's desires fact. The courts will decide. But thanks for confirming my statement about facts being the first casualty of liberalism
BTW, no one ever accused me of being or even aiding liberals before. You can go off half cocked that Berry has no case if you want but I believe it can backfire. She does have a case. It may not pan out but its not entirely groundless.
What part of "shall expire on 11/29/01" do you not understand, as stated in the replacment letter by WJC. That little tidbit is a fact. But again the courts will decide, independant of Berry's desires. Who knows?
It will be interesting though to see how all this pans out, due mostly to a lot of quotes and actions by Berry that are coming to the surface now, via this charade. She has been operating in a vaccuum for years, and is now in the virtual fishbowl. Claiming to be "independent" to sway the "bipartison-by-design" committee to the liberal side, stating that civil rights do not apply to white men, as well as publicly wishing for S. Thurmonds death may backfire on the liberals.
That's right, independent of brains, of any sense of perspective, and of due process. She strikes me as resembling someone who is very scared that a evenly divided CRC might find items in the closet, under the rub and buried in the back yard! Just a supposition, but when someone grabs desparately at such thin rationals ...
Clinton can have no more authority than he was given by this law. Therefore Berry will argue that he only had the power to appoint her. His limitations on her appointment are not enforceable because the law didn't give him that power to limit.
Also, the fact that this law is silent as to how long her appointment is when filling a vacancy works to her advantage. Most other legislation in other situations clearly spells out that such an appointment is limited to the original term, its never assumed. In this case you want to assume its there even though its not stated.
I could argue that Congress intended that it wanted a such a member to fill out a full 6 years because its less disruptive to the committe.
Reagan fired her and she fought her way back through the courts, and here she sits, obstructing yet another president of the United States? My money is on W.
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