More Bush Poor Picks

When Washington gets back to business, there will be squawking over presidential appointments. Before the Christmas recess, GOPers were charging Senate majority leader Tom Daschle and the Democrats with slow-walking on George W. Bush's executive branch and judicial appointments. By year's end, about 70 percent of the top 500 major executive branch positions had been filled--which is not slam-dunk ammunition for the Republicans' anti-Daschle campaign. But the delays of two nominations in particular have irritated Republicans: Otto Reich, nominated to be Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs; and Eugene Scalia, nominated to be Labor Department solicitor. Reich, an anti-Castro lobbyist, ran a State Department office during the Iran/contra affair that, according to a government investigation, "engaged in prohibited covert propaganda." Scalia, son of the Supreme Court Justice who greased Bush's slide into the White House, is a lawyer who represents management in labor disputes and is a harsh critic of ergonomics regulations; his nomination has drawn an outcry from labor. Senate Democrats, blocking the pair for reasons of policy and payback, have turned these two nominations into partisan controversies. But there are other nominees who warrant scrutiny.

§ Gerald Reynolds, Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights, Department of Education. Reynolds, senior regulatory counsel at Kansas City Power and Light, is an avowed enemy of affirmative action. He has been affiliated with several conservative interest groups, including the Center for New Black Leadership and the Center for Equal Opportunity, which have waged war on affirmative action and minority set-asides. The position to which he was nominated enforces all discrimination laws covering the nation's public schools and universities. It also oversees Title IX, which prohibits sex discrimination in education programs, including sports. Senator Ted Kennedy has raised "serious concerns" about Reynolds, and civil rights groups have assailed his views on affirmative action and his lack of education policy experience. "While we don't know the nominee's position on all of the issues that are important to Title IX, his very dogged opposition to affirmative action is very problematic for women and girls in education," says Marcia Greenberger, co-president of the National Women's Law Center.

§ Gaddi Vasquez, Director, Peace Corps. Vasquez, a prominent Latino GOP politico in California, resigned as Orange County supervisor in 1995, months after the county, having misled and defrauded buyers of more than $2.1 billion in risky municipal securities, filed the largest municipal bankruptcy in history. After resigning, he became vice president of public affairs for Southern California Edison. In 2000 he donated $100,000 to the Republican Party. Senator Barbara Boxer, a liberal California Democrat, has endorsed Vasquez, and every Latino member of the California Assembly, Democrats and Republicans, signed a letter supporting his nomination. But a group of outraged former Peace Corps volunteers has been lobbying against Vasquez, arguing that he has no experience in international humanitarian affairs or managing a large agency and that this is not a job for a political hack.

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