Quota Bill

WASHINGTON -- The Bush administration signaled yesterday that the president will veto a new civil rights bill if it remains, as it is now, similar to the one he vetoed last year.That indication launched what is likely to be a bitter and protracted political debate over whether the bill would pave the way for employers to use racial hiring quotas.John R. Dunne, assistant attorney general for civil rights, told the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Civil Rights that the proposed 1991 bill would result in the use of quotas and, therefore, that it "is not legislation the administration can support."

Last year congressional Democrats went the last mile in negotiating with the Bush administration on a new civil rights bill. The aim of the bill was to undo what several recent Supreme Court decisions had done to previous laws and court decisions in the field of job discrimination. Still President Bush vetoed the bill on the grounds that it was "a quota bill." We don't think it was. Neither did several moderate Republicans in Congress. However, party loyalty swung enough of those behind the president to uphold the veto.

WASHINGTON -- A group of former Cabinet members and high-level federal officials concerned with civil rights -- all from the pre-Reagan era -- warned President Bush yesterday to adopt a more vigorous policy in dealing with "intergroup tensions" or to expect growing racial conflict.The Citizens' Commission on Civil Rights, in a 250-page critique of Mr. Bush's civil rights record, credited the president with some "positive actions that may contribute to a reduction of tensions and to civil rights progress" -- the appointment of minority members and women to his Cabinet, his approval of the 1990 Americans with Disabilities Act and improved enforcement of voting-rights and fair-housing laws.

Washington. Somehow, Democrats have managed to mingle their fortunes with both ''liberal activists'' and ''big businessmen.''Civil-rights lobbyists tried to work out arrangements with the Business Roundtable on a proposal to overturn recent Supreme Court decisions on hiring policy. (Democrats call it a ''civil-rights bill.'' Republicans call it a ''quota bill.'') But then other business groups, and ultimately the White House, said that the Business Roundtable negotiators weren't speaking for anyone but themselves.

I am terribly worried that Clarence Thomas will be confirme to a seat on the U.S. Supreme Court. It horrifies me that the country might have to endure 40 years of opinions of a black man who has shown no sense of compassion for the needs of the poor, who hasn't the guts to acknowledge that ''self-help'' isn't enough in a milieu of institutionalized racism, and who embraces heartless legalisms where the abortion and other rights of women are at issue.But...

One commentator has compared Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton's popularity in the South, even with Bible-thumping, family-value social conservatives, to one of those country and western "somebody-done-somebody-wrong" songs with a happy ending. In this case, Bill and Hillary reunited and living happily ever after. She forgave him, so why shouldn't the voters?There is no mistaking that Southern Democrats are standing by Governor Clinton. Last week, Georgia Democrats handed him a 59-23 percent victory over Paul Tsongas.

Speaking to U.S. Military Academy graduates at West Point Saturday, President Bush attacked the Democratic version of the civil rights bill that goes before the House of Representatives today by saying, "Regardless of how they dress it up, you can't put a sign on a pig and say it's a horse." In fact you can. But the sign doesn't make the pig a horse.In this case, the president is as guilty of misleading signage as his opponents. The Democratic version is not as he charges "a quota bill" (pig)

The success of former Ku Klux Klansman David Duke as a Republican gubernatorial candidate in Louisiana and the possibility of losing an important battle with the U.S. Senate forced President Bush to support a civil rights bill in Congress, civil rights leader Julian Bond told a gathering of Maryland NAACP leaders yesterday."

ATLANTA -- Some 400,000 Georgians are expected to vote today in a Republican primary whose significance probably will be measured almost entirely by the loser's share of the vote.President Bush is an odds-on favorite to defeat conservative challenger Patrick J. Buchanan; late opinion polls show him leading about 2 to 1.But some Georgia politicians believe Mr. Buchanan is capable of replicating the 37 percent of the vote he achieved in New Hampshire two weeks ago in his only earlier head-to-head test with the president.

ATLANTA -- Singing and swaying to the civil rights anthem "We Shall Overcome," President Bush linked arms with the widow of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. yesterday in an appeal for black votes and a bid to ease the racial strains of his civil rights policies.But at a ceremony in honor of the federal holiday commemorating Dr. King's birth, the president ran into sharp reminders of dissatisfaction with what still remains undone."How dare we celebrate!" asked the Rev. Bernice King, the slain civil rights leader's daughter, in an angry benediction, pointing to the tens of millions of Americans who are functionally illiterate or do not have health care.