House Votes to Slash Rights Agency Funds : Congress: The action points to dissatisfaction with the commission’s performance. Supporters blame a decade of budget and staff cuts.

The House voted Monday to chop the budget of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights and limit its life in a bipartisan show of displeasure over the way the independent agency has monitored civil rights enforcement efforts.

Rejecting President Bush’s request for $10 million a year in operating funds, the House, acting on a voice vote, set a $6-million cap on the commission’s yearly spending, a cut of $1.5 million a year from the current level.

House members also snubbed Bush’s proposed 10-year reauthorization for the agency, voting to reduce it to only two years.

Rep. F. James Sensenbrenner Jr. of Wisconsin, a key Republican who normally is a stalwart Administration supporter, said that he believes the commission should be abolished. In the last two years, he noted, the agency has conducted no hearings and produced only one official report.

“It’s time to put this commission out of its misery,” Sensenbrenner said. “Fourteen million dollars for one report and no hearings . . . in my opinion is mismanagement of the highest order.”

Key Democrats agreed that the agency’s record is disappointing but argued that it deserves another chance to improve its performance under its new chairman, Arthur A. Fletcher.

Rep. Jack Brooks (D-Tex.), chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, complained that the commission appeared to spend more energy on “divisive rhetoric” than on carrying out its mandate to investigate and report to Congress on the status of civil rights enforcement.

Contacted in Denver, Fletcher said: “This is rather painful. I would hope we can do better in the Senate.”

Fletcher said that the panel is stretched too thin to do the kind of work that Congress seems to expect.

While the 34-year-old commission may not be close to extinction, it faces heavy congressional pressure to do more than it has done in the past decade to investigate and report on the fight against bias and discrimination.

Civil rights activists said that the agency lost much of its effectiveness during the two terms of former President Ronald Reagan, turning into an advocate for the policies of his Administration.

“It’s getting better,” said a labor union lobbyist. “But no one feels it’s doing very much.”

One official at the commission countered that it has been more active recently, challenging President Bush’s stand on civil rights legislation and defending the use of minority scholarships when they came under attack by the Administration.

But the official acknowledged that the agency “became a joke” during the Reagan years when Clarence M. Pendleton Jr. was named chairman and appeared to take his cues from the White House.

Similar criticism was cited by Wade Henderson, Washington director of the National Assn. for the Advancement of Colored People.

“Only recently has the commission restored its independence,” Henderson said. “It’s trying to revive, but there’s still concern that it has become so heavily politicized that its credibility is in question.”

After the House vote, Fletcher complained that the commission is suffering from budget cuts over the past decade that have reduced its staff from almost 300 to the current level of 77.

“This (the House action) would be devastating,” another senior commission official added. “If it goes through, we would have to lay off people again. . . . They’ve got our attention.”

Rep. Henry J. Hyde (R-Ill.), the ranking GOP member of the Judiciary Committee, said that the House approach is severe but justified because it would send a clear message to the commission.

While its work is needed as much as ever, Hyde added, Congress must be satisfied that the agency is using taxpayers’ money effectively.

The Senate may prove to be more generous than the House when the reauthorization measure is taken up in that chamber. Two key senators--Paul Simon (D-Ill.) and Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah)--have agreed on a plan to extend the agency’s life for another four years without any cutbacks in funds.