Senate Approves Major Civil Rights Bill : Congress: The 62-34 vote falls short of support needed to override a presidential veto. Bush charges the measure would lead to hiring quotas.

The Senate Tuesday passed a major civil rights bill but fell five votes short of mustering the two-thirds majority needed to override an almost certain presidential veto.

By a 62-34 margin, the chamber voted to overturn or alter six recent Supreme Court decisions which have made it more difficult for individuals to prove job discrimination. Opponents of the bill, including Atty. Gen. Dick Thornburgh and White House advisers John H. Sununu and C. Boyden Gray, argue that it would force employers to adopt hiring and promotion quotas to avoid costly litigation.

After weeks of intense lobbying, civil rights advocates were unable to persuade conservative Republicans to switch their votes and support a compromise measure hammered out by a House-Senate conference committee.

California’s two senators split their votes, with Democrat Alan Cranston voting for the measure and Republican Pete Wilson voting against it.

The House is expected to pass the compromise legislation today and send it to the White House.

Earlier in the day, President Bush sent Senate Minority Leader Bob Dole (R-Kan.) a letter urging him to substitute another proposal that he would be willing to sign. Otherwise, Bush said, he would veto the measure.

“I am convinced it will have the effect of forcing businesses to adopt quotas in hiring and promotion,” the letter said.

Dole asked the Senate to send the White House’s substitute measure to the conference committee with instructions to adopt it but was turned down on a 61-35 vote.

White House opposition focuses on a provision that would shift the burden of proof of discrimination to employers. If an employer’s hiring or promotion practices result in few women or minorities being hired--for instance, if the employer gives a test that many women or minorities fail--the employer must prove that the practices have a “significant relationship” to effective job performance.

The White House argues that under the legislation employers will be forced to hire and promote employees so that their work force reflects the racial composition of the local labor pool if they are to avoid lawsuits.

But supporters say that the quota issue is a smoke screen to hide conservative objections to any civil rights bill. They continued to hold out hope that Bush would sign the bill or that they could still muster the needed two-thirds majority to override a veto.

“Crying quotas is the last resort of opponents of civil rights,” said Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.), a sponsor of the legislation. “That charge won’t stick because it isn’t true.”

Complicating matters for supporters is the fact that Bush could “pocket veto” the bill by allowing the current legislative session to expire without taking action on the measure, thus denying Congress a chance to override a veto.

In addition to reversing high court decisions that made it more difficult for employees to prove job discrimination, the law would expand the 1964 Civil Rights Act to ban racial harassment in the workplace and to allow victims of intentional discrimination to recover compensatory and, in the most severe cases, punitive damages.

During spirited and emotional debate, Senate opponents attempted to paint the measure as a “quota bill” and “lawyer’s bill,” as supporters defended the need to protect the rights of racial minorities and women.

Sen. Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah), who led the fight against the bill, said that the legislation was misnamed. “The bill doesn’t deserve to be called a civil rights bill,” he said. “It’s a labor law bill.”

At one point in the debate, Sen. Howard M. Metzenbaum (D-Ohio) drew the ire of his GOP colleagues by comparing the President’s failure to support the bill with the racist message of a failed GOP senatorial candidate from Louisiana.

“Is this the Republican Party of Abraham Lincoln or is this the Republican Party of David Duke?” Metzenbaum asked, drawing shocking glances from Republicans on the chamber floor at the mention of the former Ku Klux Klan leader.

“We repudiated David Duke,” responded Hatch. “I think bringing in David Duke is hitting below the belt a bit.”

A few hours later, Metzenbaum returned to the floor to apologize for his earlier comments.