Congress Leaders Say They Have Votes to Override Action : Reagan Veto of Civil Rights Bill Expected Today

President Reagan intends to veto legislation today that would restore broad anti-discrimination protections limited by the Supreme Court four years ago, White House officials said Tuesday.

Congressional leaders said they have the votes to override a veto, and few White House officials disputed that prediction.

“We’re swimming upstream,” a senior Reagan aide acknowledged. “It is very, very difficult in a city not known for a surplus of courageous people to vote against any bill called the Civil Rights Restoration Act,” he said.

The legislation, passed by overwhelming majorities in the Senate and House, would broaden provisions that prohibit institutions receiving federal aid from discriminating against women, minorities, the elderly and the disabled.

The bill has been a top priority of civil rights groups ever since the Supreme Court ruled in 1984 that federal anti-discrimination protections at Grove City College, a small Pennsylvania institution, applied only to programs that received federal aid. Programs not receiving such aid, the court ruled, could follow discriminatory procedures.

The bill would apply federal civil rights protections to entire institutions even if only parts of those institutions received federal aid.

In an effort to make the expected veto more palatable, the White House will propose a new measure that would provide some additional protections against discrimination. According to one official, the White House is considering legislation that would broaden civil rights protections only at educational institutions.

One senior official, conceding that Congress probably simply still will override the veto, said the President would submit the alternative legislation in an effort to minimize the political damage--”to point out what would have been acceptable.”

Reagan has until today to act on the legislation, and battle lines are being drawn for the attempt to override the veto.

David Cohen, former president of the citizens lobby Common Cause and an active lobbyist on behalf of liberal causes, stated: “This is what happens at the end of administrations. It’s the Alamo mentality. The (Administration) notion is that extremism in pursuit of vice is a virtue.”

Ralph Neas, executive director of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, said: “A veto would be unconscionable, it would leave a terrible and ineradicable stain on Reagan’s record.”

Support for the legislation was also voiced by the U.S. Catholic Conference and the National Assn. of Independent Colleges and Universities.

Meanwhile, the issue appeared to be dividing the two leading candidates for the Republican presidential nomination.

Senate Republican leader Bob Dole of Kansas voted for the legislation. Vice President George Bush, while generally silent on the issue, has indicated he disapproves of the legislation on the President’s desk and would like to see unspecified changes.

There was division as well within the White House staff. The most conservative staff members advocated a veto but others appeared less enthusiastic, expressing concern, in the words of one senior staff member, that the President’s critics would portray the decision as “one more (negative) mark on his civil rights record.”

White House spokesman Marlin Fitzwater said Tuesday that Reagan “has always believed that the Grove City decision was a mistake.”

However, the President has also said the remedial legislation approved by the House and Senate “threatens to subject every facet of American life . . . to intrusive regulation by federal agencies and courts.”