Senator Mikulski

As a young social worker seeking an advanced degree, Barbara A. Mikulski was told by her supervisor that she didn't have ''a therapeutic personality.''Now, many years and much success later, the only social worker in the United States Senate is taking on the task of persuading her fellow Democrats that her brand of ''tough love'' is more effective than the party's traditional ''therapeutic'' approach to social problems. She's betting that it will be more popular with voters as well.Nowhere is the difference between the two approaches more definitive than in welfare reform, and in the coming weeks, Senator Mikulski and some of her colleagues hope to make a mark on welfare legislation in the Senate.

Reform Too ToughSara Engram normally writes for these editorial pages with clarity and thoughtfulness on important matters about social policy.Her recent (June 4) comments though, on Sen. Barbara Mikulski's "tough love for welfare" reform program add confusion to what should be considered a high level of ignorance.Senator Mikulski's proposals, which take aim at "those on the margins of its society -- particularly young families that are poor and vulnerable," are tough all right.The charge that these proposals are downright unfair -- tough!

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency wants Howard County to repay the federal government almost $1 million because the county can't find documents related to a grant for a waste-water treatment project completed in 1982.And U.S. Sen. Barbara A. Mikulski, who met privately with County Executive Charles I. Ecker and key officials in his administration yesterday to talk about the county's problems with the federal government, is livid about it.A federal audit and demand for repayment 13 years after a project is completed is the kind of thing that leads people to become disillusioned with government, Senator Mikulski said.

A man with a long history of drug and theft offenses and who is due to stand trial in four different criminal cases next month was charged yesterday in the Oct. 15 mugging of U.S. Sen. Barbara A. Mikulski.Robert Eugene Perlie, 32, was identified by an anonymous tipster as the man who pushed the 4-foot-11-inch senator to the ground after a brief struggle in front of her Fells Point rowhouse, Baltimore police reported.Perlie, listed in court records as standing about 6 feet 3 and weighing 180 pounds, was arrested shortly after midnight in the 700 block of S. Broadway.

Feminist zeal marred decisionThe lengthy story by Karen Hosler Sept. 10 regarding the Packwood resignation was a revelation of Sen. Barbara Mikulski's liberal and feminist views against what she calls the Senate's ''prominent Ole Boys' Club.''Why, after three years on the Ethics Committee did she finally decide and boast of ''firing'' Sen. Bob Packwood? Who gave her such authority when she had only one vote on a committee of six?I commend Sen. Mitch McConnell for his leadership and the dignified manner in which he discussed the committee's activities and findings -- no shouting, no gestures just gentlemanly civility.

Sen. Barbara A. Mikulski yesterday urged the graduating class of Villa Julie College to rely on traditional values to help reverse the direction of the country, which she said "has gone from a progressive society to a permissive one.""In this time of change, there must be a commitment made to basic values in order to achieve progress," said Senator Mikulski, speaking at the school's 41st commencement exercises held on the Baltimore County campus."The first value is respect for yourself and for others; the second is fairness and honesty; the third is a feeling of responsibility and duty, and the last one is kindness," she said.

WASHINGTON -- The Baltimore-Washington area was designated a High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area by the federal government today, opening the way for an infusion of federal money into the region.The official announcement, at mid-day at the White House, makes the Baltimore-Washington area the nation's fifth region to receive the designation under the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1988.The designation will bring about $3 million in federal funds into the area for a "comprehensive strategy to combat drugs," said Sen. Barbara A. Mikulski, D-Md.

Pfaff on IsraelI am annoyed with William Pfaff's Opinion * Commentary column, "Victory to the Extremists," March 7. On the whole, it is seriously anti-Israel and devoid of any understanding of the complexities there.To shorten this letter, I will cite two items which particularly annoyed me:1. By omission, he implies that extremists exist only among the Israelis. No mention is made of the Hamas and the other Palestinian extremists who have taken a tremendous toll killing Israelis.2. He has the chutzpah to dictate what Israel's government should do with respect to the settlements.

On Dec. 21, the day after the announcement that Baltimore was among six U.S. cities to receive coveted empowerment-zone grants from the federal government, Mayor Kurt L. Schmoke and the mayors of the other five cities took part in a conference call with President Clinton and Vice President Gore. Below is a transcript of the exchange between Mr. Schmoke and Mr. Gore during the call, courtesy of the Federal News Service:GORE: . . . I'd like to say just a word about Baltimore and how important it is that Baltimore understands clearly how important job creation is to a sustainable future.

WASHINGTON -- When President Clinton makes his third visit to the Midwest today to inspect flood damage and the federal response, Maryland Sen. Barbara A. Mikulski will be at his side.So, too, will the new head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which is coordinating the government response to the floods and has born the brunt of blistering criticism from Senator Mikulski in the past year.The Baltimore Democrat was not alone in criticizing FEMA for its slow response to Hurricane Andrew in Florida, Hurricane Iniki in Hawaii and the devastation from the riots in Los Angeles.

Mikulski honored to be mentioned for Cabinet WASHINGTON: Maryland Sen. Barbara A. Mikulski is honored to have her name mentioned as a potential pick for secretary of health and human services, the senator's spokeswoman said yesterday. "It's really a big honor to have Senator Mikulski's name raised in connection with the HHS secretary's job," said Rachel MacKnight, the senator's communications director. "She's truly honored." The spokeswoman added that Mikulski "loves being the senior senator from Maryland, and she remains committed to her home state."

Despite a top rating from the American Bar Association this week, Maryland U.S. Attorney Rod J. Rosenstein faces key opposition from the state's senators for a post on a federal appeals court. The ABA's Standing Committee on the Federal Judiciary unanimously rated Rosenstein "well-qualified," its top ranking for judicial nominees. But Maryland's senators appear to be unmoved. At a White House event this month, President Bush singled out Rosenstein, saying the Richmond, Va.-based U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit is overburdened and understaffed.

The loss of federal funds for a research program aimed at rejuvenating the dwindling blue crab population in the Chesapeake Bay highlighted the rare phenomenon of a reverse earmark. Instead of unalloyed crowing about all the goodies the Maryland delegation was able to bring home for constituents this year, lawmakers acknowledged they were forced to make choices because President Bush wouldn't let them spend all they proposed. Largely at the discretion of Sen. Barbara A. Mikulski, the senior member of the delegation and chairwoman of the subcommittee that doles out much of the bay funds, the crab program run by the Center of Marine Biotechnology at the Inner Harbor didn't make the cut. The good news is that some discipline was applied to the earmark process that typically defies thoughtful setting of priorities.

In the lengthening hall of mirrors created by the war in Iraq, friends become enemies. Legislators who voted against the war are called supporters-in-effect when they try to support the troops without supporting the war. Strategies for withdrawal founder on the rocks of compromise. Decisive action in Congress is muted by half-measures. Senators who voted against the war are targeted as zealously as those who voted for it. In Maryland, an anti-war coalition pressures Sen. Barbara A. Mikulski to advocate something like immediate withdrawal.

THE U.S. SENATE'S passage last week of a measure that will temporarily expand a visa program for foreign seasonal workers was an important step toward solving a problem that threatened Maryland's seafood processing industry, and a good example of sensible bipartisanship that distinguishes the forest from the trees. The measure sponsored by Sen. Barbara Mikulski, the Maryland Democrat, would allow workers who participated in the program in the past to return to work here this year and next, effectively exempting them from a 66,000-visa limit reached in January that left Eastern Shore crab and oyster processing plants without workers.

YOU'VE GOT to feel a little sorry for John Kerry. The cerebral, reserved, flannel-mouth Massachusetts Democrat is in danger of being upstaged at his own presidential nominating convention. Competition is coming from multiple directions: the larger-than-life former president, Bill Clinton; veep-nominee-to-be John Edwards, widely considered to possess a far more electric persona than his ticket-mate; and most challenging of all, Hillary Rodham Clinton, the former first lady and current New York senator, an attraction so powerful one operative compared her to "a planet so big it pulls its star out of orbit."

THE DREARY cycle of judicial appointing spun on last week in Washington with a great commotion over the allegation that Sen. Paul S. Sarbanes had succumbed to rank emotion. He had, it was said, become a Maryland chauvinist, a passionate defender of Maryland's prerogatives. Prior to that moment, it was alleged, he had been a process geek. Senator Laconic, they called him. In the news business, we call this missing at least half the story. The rest of it was the silence from Annapolis. Republican Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. presides as governor.

A man with a long history of drug and theft offenses and who is due to stand trial in four different criminal cases next month was charged yesterday in the Oct. 15 mugging of U.S. Sen. Barbara A. Mikulski.Robert Eugene Perlie, 32, was identified by an anonymous tipster as the man who pushed the 4-foot-11-inch senator to the ground after a brief struggle in front of her Fells Point rowhouse, Baltimore police reported.Perlie, listed in court records as standing about 6 feet 3 and weighing 180 pounds, was arrested shortly after midnight in the 700 block of S. Broadway.

Feminist zeal marred decisionThe lengthy story by Karen Hosler Sept. 10 regarding the Packwood resignation was a revelation of Sen. Barbara Mikulski's liberal and feminist views against what she calls the Senate's ''prominent Ole Boys' Club.''Why, after three years on the Ethics Committee did she finally decide and boast of ''firing'' Sen. Bob Packwood? Who gave her such authority when she had only one vote on a committee of six?I commend Sen. Mitch McConnell for his leadership and the dignified manner in which he discussed the committee's activities and findings -- no shouting, no gestures just gentlemanly civility.

Reform Too ToughSara Engram normally writes for these editorial pages with clarity and thoughtfulness on important matters about social policy.Her recent (June 4) comments though, on Sen. Barbara Mikulski's "tough love for welfare" reform program add confusion to what should be considered a high level of ignorance.Senator Mikulski's proposals, which take aim at "those on the margins of its society -- particularly young families that are poor and vulnerable," are tough all right.The charge that these proposals are downright unfair -- tough!