Bush Names Fletcher to Head Rights Panel : Civil liberties: The President seeks to remove a ‘personality gridlock’ from the once-influential commission.

President Bush named prominent black Republican Arthur A. Fletcher on Friday to be chairman of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, seeking to reinvigorate the once-influential panel and remove what one White House aide described as a “personality gridlock.”

The nomination of Fletcher, a 65-year-old veteran of the Richard M. Nixon and Gerald R. Ford administrations, was applauded by NAACP Executive Director Benjamin L. Hooks, who said the commission “needs the restoration of credibility” that Fletcher’s supporters said he could bring.

The panel, which is charged with enforcing the nation’s anti-discrimination laws, has been plagued by dissension and partisanship during the last decade after being at the forefront of government efforts to protect civil rights in the mid-1960s and 1970s.

White House officials stressed Bush’s interest in restoring the commission’s more aggressive role in civil rights enforcement.

Fletcher’s nomination, which must be confirmed by the Senate, represents one of the first specific steps taken by the President in the area after a first year in office in which he spoke on several occasions about his commitment to advancing civil rights.

At the annual conference of the National Urban League last August, John E. Jacob, the organization’s president, said that the “first six to eight months” of the Bush Administration was “the rhetoric period.”

“We will use the next 12 months to determine how well he does,” Jacob told reporters. “We have to find out whether he is going to do the right things.”

White House Press Secretary Marlin Fitzwater said the Administration felt that the commission “could be stronger and more forceful in representing the concerns of minorities and others and we expect it to operate in that fashion.”

“I don’t think it helps anybody to start criticizing past performance, except to say that we think they can do a better job,” he said.

The commission nearly expired in 1983 as President Ronald Reagan fought with Congress over the removal of three Democratic commissioners. Four years later, civil rights organizations sought to reduce the panel’s funding to counter actions taken by its new, conservative commissioners.

Linda Chavez, the commission’s staff director during the middle years of the Reagan Administration, appeared at one point to question the commission’s basic mission.

“I believe that the responsibility to oversee the enforcement of (civil rights) laws belongs with the legislative branch,” Chavez said at the time. “I do not believe it rests with a quasi-executive branch such as the U.S. Civil Rights Commission.”

Taking note of the panel’s recent history, Father Theodore M. Hesburgh, former president of the University of Notre Dame and chairman of the commission from 1969 to 1972, said the panel needed “a complete overhaul” to regain its former stature.

“It’s lost a lot of its clout,” Hesburgh said in an interview. “The great value was that it was nonpolitical. Now it’s become loaded with political people. You got political voting, rather than justice voting.”

William Barclay Allen, the chairman Fletcher would replace, has become embroiled in recent controversies and confrontations with other commissioners.

Allen delivered a speech last year titled “Blacks? Animals? Homosexuals? What is a Minority?” The address was formally condemned by a 6-1 vote of the commission as “thoughtless, disgusting and unnecessarily inflammatory.”

When reports surfaced nearly a year ago that Bush wanted to name Fletcher to the chairmanship, Allen balked at stepping aside. But he resigned the chairmanship late last year, while continuing to hold on to his commission seat. His term expires in 1992.

“Mostly, the President’s concern has been with the contentious nature of the commission members,” a White House official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

“There was this personality gridlock that prohibited them from moving forward and addressing any civil rights challenges,” the official said. “There was a results gridlock as well. Fletcher has a good personality. He’s a good gap-broker.”

Hooks described Fletcher as “a fair-minded, down-the-middle-of-the-road kind of person.”

Fletcher, who runs a consulting business in a suburban Maryland community, served as an adviser to President Reagan and as a deputy presidential assistant for urban affairs in the Ford Administration.

In addition, he served with Bush when Bush was the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, in 1971, and as an assistant labor secretary in the Nixon Administration.

In 1978, Fletcher ran unsuccessfully as the Republican candidate for mayor in Washington, in a contest won by the current mayor, Marion Barry.