Democratic Civil Rights Package Expected to Bar Hiring Quotas

The Democratic leadership of the House of Representatives is expected to make public Wednesday a substitute civil rights package that contains language seeking to make it impossible for employers to use racial quotas in hiring.

President Bush vetoed the 1990 civil rights bill because he said it would lead to employers using quotas to avoid lawsuits for discrimination.

The new plan also contains other proposed amendments to the bill now before the House.

Under one amendment, a monetary cap would be placed on punitive damages that could be awarded to victims of job discrimination. The cap, however, is in great disfavor among women’s organizations, particularly when it is applied to cases of sexual harassment.

Another provision would limit the use of “race-norming,” the adjustment of job-placement test results by race, which tends to improve the scores of blacks and Latinos.

Civil rights advocates described the package Monday as the first step toward gaining widespread congressional approval of a compromise civil rights bill that would be put before President Bush for his signature by the end of the summer.

The compromise effort is intended to ensure Bush’s approval of the bill, said Ralph Neas, executive director of the Leadership Conference for Civil Rights, a lobbying coalition of more than 185 groups. But Neas also asserted that, if the President were to veto the measure, there would be sufficient votes in Congress to override it.

Conservatives, however, predicted that Bush would veto this year’s civil rights bill--including the proposed amendments--and that Congress once again would sustain the President’s veto.

“I’ve heard nothing recently that changes the picture,” said Clint Bolick, president of the conservative-oriented Landmark Center for Civil Rights. “The bill, as it has been reported, remains a quota bill, and the President won’t sign a quota bill.”

The Democratic leadership expects to put the substitute measure before the House this week, but it is unlikely to be debated or voted upon until next week because of other congressional business.

The substitute measure would replace a bill that has already gone through House committee procedures and stands ready for floor action.