Democrats Rebut Bush Criticism of Job Bias Measure : Civil rights: Two key House members say the President wants a political issue. Neither is certain of veto-proof support.

With the House scheduled to vote on the controversial civil rights bill as early as Tuesday, Democratic congressional leaders charged Sunday that President Bush wants a political issue for 1992 more than a new law this year, and that he is deliberately misrepresenting their attempt at a compromise.

In sharply worded responses to Bush’s attack a day earlier on the Democratic-sponsored civil rights measure, House Majority Leader Richard A. Gephardt of Missouri and Rep. Don Edwards (D-San Jose) sought to occupy the moral high ground on an issue that has taken on enormous political symbolism for both sides.

Bush, addressing U.S. Military Academy graduates at West Point, N.Y., had criticized the Democrats’ compromise bill as one based on hiring quotas, and said it would encourage litigation more than cooperation.

Gephardt, interviewed on NBC’s “Meet the Press” Sunday, said: “I think the President wants a political issue. He doesn’t want a positive outcome.”

Edwards, who chairs the civil and constitutional rights subcommittee of the House Judiciary Committee, said: “There are no quotas in this bill. I am sure the President knows this.” Edwards was interviewed on ABC’s “This Week With David Brinkley.”

With the presidential election approaching next year, public opinion polls have shown that most Americans oppose the notion of hiring quotas.

In recent weeks, House Democrats have been trying to craft a veto-proof bill that would, in effect, reverse several 1989 Supreme Court decisions that restricted the ability of workers to win job-discrimination lawsuits. Bush vetoed civil rights legislation last session, citing the quota argument, and the House fell 17 votes short of overriding that veto.

The new bill explicitly bars quotas as an employment practice. In addition, to gain support among business leaders, it limits the amount of punitive damages that courts may award victims of nonracial discrimination, such as women, disabled people and members of religious minorities.

Administration officials, however, say the revised measure would create a situation in which employers would resort to using quotas as a defense against lawsuits alleging discriminatory hiring patterns.

Gephardt, declaring that Bush “really doesn’t want an answer to the problem,” charged that White House officials “decided a long time ago (that) they’re not going to have a settlement of this issue.”

“I think that’s the wrong thing to do,” he said. “It’s the wrong thing for the country. He ought to be leading to solve this problem. He’s not doing it.”

Edwards said that “the Administration is using racial politics,” which he called “very divisive and very unworthy of our country.”