Democrats Ban Job Quotas in Rights Bill Change : Congress: Backers say the changes will win a veto-proof margin for a law to bar workplace bias. Republicans call the new language meaningless camouflage.

Democrats unveiled revised civil rights legislation Tuesday that includes a ban on racial or gender quotas in employment. But a White House official and key House Republicans accused them of trying to camouflage a “quota bill” with meaningless changes.

The latest revisions apparently are designed to give assurances to wavering Democrats concerned about voter backlash in the 1992 elections. The party’s leaders in the House said the revisions appear to be winning more support for the bill.

Despite the partisan infighting, Speaker Thomas S. Foley (D-Wash.) predicted that the bill to toughen the law against job discrimination will pass by a veto-proof two-thirds majority when it comes to a vote in the House next week.

White House spokesman Roman Popadiuk, however, said the changes do not change President Bush’s belief that the legislation would prompt employers to use hiring quotas to avoid litigation.

“Just putting in a sentence does not change the effect of the text,” Popadiuk told reporters. “The President is committed to signing a strong civil rights bill and he will not sign a quota bill.”

Rep. Jack Brooks (D-Tex.), chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, described the new proposal as a compromise to meet objections from business leaders. He is co-sponsor of the revision with Rep. Hamilton Fish Jr. of New York, ranking Republican member of the panel.

“The substitute language says explicitly that this bill will not encourage, require or permit quotas in employment practices,” Brooks said. “Any person . . . who is the victim of discrimination will always be able to utilize the remedies provided by this new amendment. That includes all victims of discrimination--or reverse discrimination--in the workplace.”

Another new provision in the substitute bill would limit jury awards of punitive damages in cases of intentional discrimination to $150,000 or the amount of compensatory damages, whichever is higher.

The cap has drawn strong objections from women’s groups and is opposed by the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, a major advocacy organization for the bill. Foley, however, defended it as a pragmatic step to win more votes.

Rep. Henry J. Hyde (R-Ill.), an influential member of the judiciary panel, objected that the provision is a “lidless cap,” since there is no ceiling on the amount of compensatory damages that a jury may award.

Supporters of the bill, however, said that average compensatory damages in cases of intentional discrimination average less than $50,000, with larger awards being rare exceptions.

A similar cap was approved as part of the 1990 civil rights bill, which died when the President rejected the measure and the Senate sustained his veto by a single vote.

Dealing with another controversial area, the Brooks-Fish substitute would prohibit the adjustment of job test scores on the basis of race, color, sex, religion or national origin--a practice known as “race-norming” that has been used in some states to improve scores of black and Latino applicants.

A summary of the changes said that the new language also would forbid the use of tests unless they are “valid and fair.” But the description released by Brooks gave no details on what that prohibition would mean.

Another proposed change would reduce the statute of limitations from two years to 18 months after an alleged act of discrimination, providing less time for a worker to challenge an employer’s actions.

Reacting to the announcement of the Brooks-Fish substitute, House Minority Whip Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) termed it a “desperate effort to design something of a fig leaf” and predicted that the President would veto any bill containing such language. And Congress, he predicted, would not be able to override Bush’s veto.