House Committee Votes to ‘Defund’ Rights Panel

The House Appropriations Committee, in a surprise move that has divided the civil rights lobby, approved an amendment Thursday requiring the Civil Rights Commission to spend money only for winding down its operations by the end of this year.

The 27-16 vote came on an amendment by Rep. Julian C. Dixon (D-Los Angeles) to a bill appropriating funds for the commission and other government agencies. The vote in the Democrat-controlled committee was largely along party lines.

The vote followed intense lobbying by rights activists who asserted that, during the Reagan Administration, the 29-year-old commission has abandoned its historic role as a watchdog for civil rights. But other rights activists expressed dismay at the vote and suggested that it plays into the hands of civil rights’ enemies.

Dixon criticized the commission for “mismanagement and misdirection.” Since 1983, when President Reagan reconstituted the commission with a conservative majority, it has incensed civil rights groups by such steps as criticizing affirmative action.

Commission Chairman Clarence M. Pendleton Jr. and Staff Director J. Al Latham Jr. called Thursday’s vote merely a reflection of “political differences” between the commission and the committee’s Democratic majority. And Dale Petroskey, a White House spokesman, said “the liberals have not been happy” with the commission because it “has been independent of the civil rights groups.”

Dixon’s amendment, if enacted, would allow Congress to revive the commission at a later date. Although the Republican-controlled Senate is unlikely to approve the amendment even if it clears the House, Thursday’s vote signaled the commission and the Reagan Administration that there is substantial dissatisfaction with the commission’s operation.

Civil rights activists and their allies in Congress have been seeking a way to muzzle the Civil Rights Commission without killing it permanently. After considerable discussion, leaders of major civil rights organizations voted 44 to 4 last month in favor of promoting Dixon’s amendment.

“This has been a tough one,” Dixon acknowledged in an interview. “But this commission was not doing its job. It could not be rehabilitated and, therefore, it was a poor investment of money.”

His amendment would appropriate $11.8 million for fiscal 1987, which begins Oct. 1, to be used only “as necessary to close down” the commission by Dec. 31. The commission’s appropriation for the current year is $11.7 million.

Phyllis McClure, director of the Washington office of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, said keeping the current commission amounted to “letting $12 million go down the rat hole.”

However, Douglas Glasgow, vice president of the National Urban League’s Washington office, said his group opposes “defunding” the commission because reviving it might prove difficult. Moreover, he said, shutting down the commission is “doing the dirty work” of conservatives.

Immediately after the amendment passed, Rep. Augustus F. Hawkins (D-Los Angeles), chairman of the House Education and Labor Committee, said in an interview that he will introduce a bill “to create an agency to do what this commission was supposed to do.”

Hawkins said the new agency, called the Office of Civil Rights Assessment, would have 12 members--six senators and six House members, equally divided between the political parties--who would serve six-year terms.