Senate Limits Debate on Bill to Curb Job Bias

Brushing aside a veto threat and overriding bitter Republican protests, the Senate on Tuesday paved the way for passage of major civil rights legislation this year by voting to limit debate on a bill to strengthen laws against job discrimination.

Amid excited shouts of joy from civil rights advocates clustered anxiously outside the Senate chamber, the lawmakers voted, 62 to 38, to invoke cloture on the Civil Rights Act of 1990--a parliamentary maneuver that preempts a possible filibuster by limiting further debate on the bill to no more than 30 hours.

The bill, which is now virtually assured of Senate passage, would overturn a series of recent Supreme Court decisions limiting the scope of existing laws against job discrimination. It also would expand current law to allow women to sue employers for sexual harassment.

Similar legislation is about to be sent to the floor of the House, where it also seems assured of passage by a large majority--notwithstanding complaints by some Republicans that it will force employers to hire on the basis of a quota system vigorously opposed by the Bush Administration.

Indeed, so divisive was the debate over quotas and several other bitterly contested aspects of the bill that Senate Minority Leader Bob Dole (R-Kan.) castigated his colleagues after the vote with a degree of anger rarely seen on the Senate floor.

Majority Leader George J. Mitchell (D-Me.) and other senators sat in visibly shocked silence as a grim-faced Dole accused Democrats of “reneging” on a compromise with the White House, of treating the Republican minority “like a bunch of bums” and of destroying the mood of civility and bipartisan accord that had prevailed throughout much of the year.

“We’re going to be in for a long hot summer,” Dole said, his voice rising in anger. “We’ve tried to get along in the Senate. We’ve gone the extra mile, stayed the extra hour, to accommodate the majority. But this is going to end. If we’re going to be treated like a bunch of bums on this side of the aisle . . . then there are not going to be any time agreements, any agreement on anything at all.”

The White House opposes two provisions of the bill, one of which would make it easier for employees to prove job discrimination and collect damages. The other would extend the right to sue and collect punitive damages to victims of intentional discrimination and sexual harassment.

The fiercest debate has been over the provision that would make it easier for employees to prove discrimination by reversing a 5-4 Supreme Court decision last year. Diluting a 1971 ruling, the high court had ruled in Wards Cove vs. Antonio that business practices “fair in form but discriminatory in effect” are permissible so long as they serve “legitimate employment goals.”

In the 1971 decision, the court had ruled that such business practices as hiring tests, which could have the effect of excluding minorities, are permissible only if they represent a “business necessity.” In the event of a lawsuit, the burden of proving such a necessity lay with the employer.

In Wards Cove, however, the court shifted the burden of proof to the plaintiff, requiring the employee to show that a discriminatory practice was unfair and unnecessary. The bill before the Senate, sponsored chiefly by Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.), would restore the force of the 1971 decision by codifying its language into law.

Much of Dole’s anger was focused on the Democrats’ move to cut off debate. And embittered by the decision of eight Republicans to switch sides and vote for cloture, Dole even threatened to resign as minority leader.

“If we’re going to let the Democrats run the Senate and throw away eight or nine votes to help them, then I don’t want any part of it,” he told his stunned audience.

Despite the high emotions--or perhaps because of them--White House officials and civil rights advocates moved quickly after the debate to adopt conciliatory postures by stressing that bipartisan negotiations over the contested parts of the bill would continue.

White House Chief of Staff John H. Sununu told reporters that he had worked out an agreement with Kennedy on two contested sections.

The highly emotional reactions to the vote highlighted the wide gulf that has opened between the White House and a majority of the Senate’s Republicans who, led by Dole and Sen. Orrin G. Hatch of Utah, accused the Democrats of abusing cloture procedures.

Neither the Senate’s conservative Republicans nor civil rights activists were happy with the compromise that seemed to be shaping up in the Kennedy-Sununu talks, a compromise that moderate Republicans involved in the negotiations said is endangered by the Democrats’ decision to force a vote on a bill that Bush has threatened to veto in its present form.

“We were within a millimeter of working out the most difficult provisions of this bill,” said Sen. John C. Danforth (R-Mo.), who warned that “the President will veto what we have before us.”

The White House, hoping to maintain Bush’s relatively high approval rating among black voters on the eve of congressional and gubernatorial elections, clearly is aware of that danger and thus is seeking a compromise to balance the conflicting demands of civil rights groups pushing for the Kennedy bill and conservatives and business leaders opposing it.

The omnibus bill contains several major provisions that congressional Democrats, Republicans and the White House all agree are required to retune the nation’s civil rights laws in the wake of a series of Supreme Court decisions that civil rights advocates say have weakened federal laws.

Disagreements persist, however, over how the laws should be fixed, how many Supreme Court decisions should be reversed and how far the new law should go in extending job protections to women and religious minorities.

Hatch argued that Kennedy’s bill would do far more than shield women and minorities from discrimination, and instead would overturn “20 years of case precedent,” create “a litigation bonanza” and pressure employers into hiring by quotas to avoid being sued.

BALANCED BUDGET: The House rejected a proposed balanced budget amendment to the Constitution. A12