Danforth Maps Veto-Proof Rights Accord

Rebuffed again by the Administration in his efforts to broker a compromise on a civil rights bill, Sen. John C. Danforth (R-Mo.) said Tuesday he and his GOP allies will now work on a strategy to override the expected veto by President Bush.

Democratic leaders, also despairing of a compromise, have joined the effort by scheduling a Senate vote on the bill next week, hoping to achieve the two-thirds majority needed to make it veto-proof.

Danforth suggested that some senior White House officials really do not want a new law combatting job discrimination on the books, preferring to reap political gains in the 1992 campaign by accusing Democrats of favoring racial quotas.

“I know there are Republicans who consider the racial issue a good issue,” Danforth told a news conference. “To me, that’s the worst kind of politics.”

Danforth said he had tried to break the deadlock with the Administration by including in his compromise bill language from a key provision of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). That measure, which combats job discrimination against the disabled, passed both houses of Congress by overwhelming margins and was hailed as a landmark achievement by the President.

Using the ADA as a model was suggested by Evan J. Kemp Jr., chairman of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. But Kemp later dismissed Danforth’s changes as minor and meaningless. He said he favored applying the broad principles of the ADA and not just selecting a few words from the law.

A key issue in the long-running dispute over a job discrimination bill is whether employers should be barred from imposing hiring or promotion requirements that screen out minorities or women if the standards are not related to the ability to do the job. For example, the bill would ban a height requirement for police officers, which can exclude many women.

The Administration favors more latitude in the setting of job requirements.

Deputy White House Press Secretary Judy Smith said the Bush Administration also objects to the compromise bill because it, like the previous Democratic bills, would “drive employers to adopt quotas.”

She said it would “protect existing quotas from legal challenge by closing the courts to those who have been victimized by quotas and consent decrees.”

Said a frustrated backer of the Danforth plan, Sen. William Cohen (R-Me.): “We have walked the very last mile.”

Senate sources said the chamber’s 57 Democrats were expected to vote for the bill, joined by at least seven Republicans. Two other GOP lawmakers who once supported Danforth’s efforts--Sen. Warren B. Rudman (R-N.H.) and Sen. Pete V. Domenici (R-N.M.)--also may vote for the bill, Danforth said, potentially bringing the supporters’ ranks to 66.

Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.), chairman of the Senate Labor and Human Resources committee and a key advocate of civil rights legislation, also has endorsed the latest compromise effort by Danforth.

The House passed its own version of a civil rights bill last June but fell short of the two-thirds majority required to override a veto. Congressional sources said they expect a Senate-House compromise bill may pick up additional votes in the House.