Bennett Declines GOP Leadership Post, Creating Confusion, Problems for Bush

Former drug czar William J. Bennett created embarrassing confusion for President Bush Thursday when he turned down the President’s offer to head the Republican Party, saying the job would cost him too much in lost speaking and writing fees.

Bennett blamed his rejection of the job on White House lawyers, saying they had changed their advice to him on how federal ethics laws would affect his plans to earn tens of thousands of dollars by moonlighting as a public speaker.

“I didn’t take a vow of poverty,” Bennett told White House reporters. “Two weeks ago, I got a green light (to earn outside fees). Two days ago, I got a yellow-to-red.”

But White House spokesman Marlin Fitzwater said Bennett only recently told officials the full scope of his future money-making plans. “We found out more information about his financial situation. That’s the big factor,” Fitzwater said.

Both sides denied widespread speculation that the real problem was Bennett’s discovery that White House Chief of Staff John H. Sununu planned to make most decisions about politics himself, leaving Bennett with little authority as chairman of the Republican National Committee.

“John Sununu is a close friend of mine,” Bennett said after hand-delivering to the chief of staff his letter turning down Bush’s job offer. Bennett was “Sununu’s choice,” Fitzwater said.

Whatever the explanation, Bennett’s abrupt withdrawal from a job Bush publicly offered him only two weeks ago plunged the President into another difficult political position and further strained his relations with conservatives, who saw the outspoken Bennett as their champion.

Some conservatives insisted that Bennett’s decision to back out of the job must have been shaped by more than monetary motives.

“He realized he couldn’t work with Bush and Sununu up close,” said one right-wing activist. “The ideological contrast between him and Bush was just too great.”

Bush would now pick “an absolute Bush loyalist” for the chairmanship, a conservative suggested, reasoning that Bush would not risk further embarrassment by picking someone driven more by ideology than personal fealty.

One widely mentioned name was that of Secretary of Commerce Robert A. Mosbacher, an old friend of Bush who has been rumored to be weary of his Cabinet post.

Other possibilities include several Republican House members who were defeated in the November campaign. But some of these, such as Rhode Island Rep. Claudine Schneider and Illinois Rep. Lynn Martin, might be considered too moderate to suit right-wing tastes.

Martin and another defeated member of Congress, Rep. Patricia Saiki of Hawaii, are also considered leading candidates to fill two vacancies in the Cabinet, at the departments of Labor and Education, respectively.

The legal dilemma Bennett faced also illustrated the increasing scrutiny being placed on ethical questions in Washington’s current atmosphere. Ironically, Bennett’s brother, Robert, is currently in the midst of the city’s hottest ethics issue as the special counsel investigating the Senate’s “Keating Five.”

Of the lawyers he consulted, “my brother was the most emphatic about not taking--putting myself in this kind of risk,” Bennett told reporters.

The risk Bennett referred to involves restrictions the law places on former executive branch officials to avoid improper lobbying. Under the law, former officials such as Bennett are barred for one year from “contacts” with any person in their former office on behalf of outside organizations from which they receive money.

In Bennett’s case, his former office as Bush’s drug policy adviser is the Executive Office of the President--the White House.

Because of that, Fitzwater noted, if Bennett were to receive money for speaking to an energy group during his first year out of office, he might be barred from talking to Bush or any Bush aide about energy policy. If he spoke to an agriculture group for a fee, he could be barred from discussing farm policy.

“The problem was the appearance of taking fees from people about whom it could be charged that he was lobbying,” said White House counsel C. Boyden Gray. “In the technical sense,” there might not be any violation, Gray said. But because the party chairman must meet regularly with the President and top aides, “there would always be (an) appearance problem.”

Bennett also has a contract with Simon & Schuster to write two books, for which he received a six-figure advance. As GOP head, Bennett feared he could not finish the work, officials said.

Times political writer Robert Shogan contributed to this story.