Panel Backs Dole to Be Labor Secretary

A Senate committee Thursday unanimously approved the nomination of Elizabeth Hanford Dole as secretary of labor, with Democrats and Republicans predicting that she would improve conditions for working Americans.

Members of the Senate Labor and Human Resources Committee voted 16 to 0 to confirm Dole, 52, a former White House aide and later secretary of transportation in the Reagan Administration. She resigned from government service in late 1987 to help her husband, Senate Minority Leader Bob Dole (R-Kan.), campaign for the Republican presidential nomination.

The senator, who sat beside his wife while his colleagues praised her for her accomplishments and compassion, wisecracked: “If I had had this much coverage in the primaries, I’d be working on my inaugural address.”

Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.), the committee chairman, said he expects the full Senate to consider her nomination next week, when confirmation seems assured.

Kennedy said Dole “brings to the Department of Labor a wealth of experience, a solid commitment to excellence in public service and a remarkable record of achievement.”

He said he welcomes “a fresh start” at the department, declaring that “too often the rights and needs of working men and women took a back seat to the pro-business ideology of the (Reagan) Administration.”

Sen. Paul Simon (D-Ill.), another liberal on the committee, said Dole had shown compassion for the disadvantaged and the handicapped throughout her government service, which began with her appointment as a consumer affairs adviser for President Lyndon B. Johnson.

Dole told the committee that her top priorities would include development of child-care legislation for working parents. But in response to questions from Sen. Christopher J. Dodd (D-Conn.), a leading advocate of better child care, Dole demurred when asked if federal income tax credits should be offered for child-care expenses.

“I should wait until I talk to the President-elect before getting too specific,” she replied.

She endorsed efforts in Congress to raise the $3.35-per-hour minimum wage and said priorities would include “placing special emphasis on the disadvantaged among us” and “ensuring that the American workplace is as safe and secure as we can make it.”

FO Vision of jobs--Secretary of Labor-designate Elizabeth Dole told a Senate committee she was optimistic that soon “every American who wants a job can have a job.” The committee approved her nomination.