Senate Delays Vote on Thomas to Probe Harassment Charges : Judiciary: Supporters feared the defeat of the Supreme Court nominee if a tally had been taken as scheduled. Inquiry into sexual allegations by law professor will be public.

In a dramatic turnaround, the Senate on Tuesday night delayed for one week a confirmation vote on Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas, after a crucial group of Democratic supporters demanded public hearings on the sexual harassment allegations of a law professor.

While vehemently denying the charges against him, Thomas made the initial request for the delay less than two hours before the Senate was scheduled to vote on his controversial nomination. That request was relayed to the Senate by his chief sponsor, Sen. John C. Danforth (R-Mo.).

In announcing the agreement to postpone the vote until 6 p.m. next Tuesday, Senate Majority Leader George J. Mitchell (D-Me.) said that the delay was needed so that “issues now publicly raised can be publicly and fairly resolved.”

Minority Leader Bob Dole (R-Kan.), who pressed unsuccessfully for a Friday vote, said that Thomas’ supporters had agreed reluctantly to the delay because Thomas might have been defeated had the vote taken place as scheduled.

Nevertheless, Dole predicted that Thomas still would be confirmed easily and that the delay might even strengthen his case because it would put to rest the allegations of Anita Faye Hill, who once worked for Thomas at the Education Department and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and now teaches law at the University of Oklahoma.

“I am willing to predict that, unless (there is) some bombshell I have not heard about, Judge Thomas will be confirmed by a good bipartisan margin,” Dole said.

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D-Del.) said that the inquiry could begin as early as Friday. “All of it will be public,” he said. “We’re going to ventilate this subject.”

Under an agreement reached between Biden and Danforth, the inquiry is to be restricted solely to the sexual harassment allegations and will not be permitted to include any other matters. It will include public hearings at which Hill and Thomas will be required to testify.

At the White House, officials seemed stunned and angered by the postponement, which came after President Bush and his aides had expressed confidence repeatedly that Thomas would be confirmed.

The White House responded to the setback with a statement pledging to “work with the committee and the full Senate to bring this matter to a vote.”

“Judge Thomas is an outstanding individual who has demonstrated his honesty and integrity throughout his life,” White House Press Secretary Marlin Fitzwater said in a terse written statement. Bush canceled a series of afternoon appointments in which he was to be interviewed by local television reporters, and Vice President Dan Quayle spent much of the afternoon on the telephone with key senators, a knowledgeable official said.

“The word was that we just didn’t have the votes,” the Administration source said.

Senior White House officials remained closeted in a West Wing office for much of the evening as they watched the Senate proceedings on television and refused to comment on what they clearly viewed as a major setback.

In separate statements Tuesday that foreshadowed the coming confrontation, Hill welcomed the opportunity to participate in an inquiry, saying at a Norman, Okla., press conference: “I will cooperate with the Senate request.”

And, for the first time, Thomas publicly denied Hill’s allegations, saying in an affidavit released by Danforth that they are “totally and unequivocally” untrue.

The surprise delay came because Senate support for Thomas was eroding Tuesday afternoon as the scheduled 6 p.m. vote approached, with many senators who had been committed to his confirmation saying that they would vote against the nomination if deprived of the opportunity to sort out the charges and countercharges.

The postponement came even though, hours earlier, Danforth had released telephone logs showing that Hill had called Thomas 11 times during a 3 1/2-year period after the alleged harassment took place.

“I have to clear my name. I have to--to restore what they have taken away from me,” Danforth quoted Thomas as saying.

According to Danforth, the nominee added: “They’ve taken away from me what I’ve taken 43 years to build--my reputation. . . . I want to clear my name.” He further quoted Thomas as saying: “This is torture. It’s torture for a human being to go through this.”

Turning then to his colleagues on the Senate floor, an indignant Danforth said with resignation: “It is with great pain and with great anger at the injustice . . . that I ask for a delay.”

Before relaying Thomas’ request for a delay, a chagrined Danforth told reporters: “Last weekend we had won. No doubt about it--total victory. We were going to get between 60 and 65 votes.”

The stunning turn of events came after a furious day of private negotiations and public lobbying that saw a decided Senate majority in support of Thomas shrink dramatically.

On Monday, just one of 13 announced Democratic supporters of Thomas--Sen. J. James Exon (D-Neb.)--called for a delay in the vote. Several others suggested that a reading of the FBI report on Hill’s allegations would suffice before the scheduled vote Tuesday.

But within 24 hours, most of the Democratic supporters and some Republicans began backing away from their determination to vote on the nomination as many women’s groups and others--including several female House members--had contacted senators.

“They made the issue not just a vote on Clarence Thomas but a vote on sexual harassment. That changed the dynamic,” said congressional analyst Norman Ornstein.

When Democratic senators gathered for their regular Tuesday luncheon just off the Senate floor, a group of seven women House members showed up outside the closed doors, asking to go in to lobby for a delay.

Mitchell met them in his office instead, but they got their message across forcefully.

“We told him that we think this latest revelation is very clearly serious,” said Rep. Barbara Boxer (D-Greenbrae). “The message was we cannot say we care about women and women’s rights if we don’t have at least a delay.”

Other congresswomen in the group were Reps. Patricia Schroeder (D-Colo.), Patsy T. Mink (D-Hawaii), Louise M. Slaughter (D-N. Y.), Jolene Unsoeld (D-Wash.) and Nita M. Lowey (D-N. Y.). Democrat Eleanor Holmes Norton, a non-voting delegate to the House from the District of Columbia, also participated.

The senators received a letter signed by about 200 law professors from around the country who urged that the vote be delayed.

The drive began “spontaneously” in many different law schools, according to Harvard constitutional law professor Frank I. Michelman, who helped draft the letter. It read:

“The Supreme Court’s place in American government and society depends on unqualified public respect for its members and the institution. In this light, as law professors--including many who have not previously taken a position on the nomination of Judge Thomas to the court--we strongly urge the Senate to delay action on the nomination until it can make a fully informed and considered appraisal of Professor Hill’s allegations. To act now would be to risk grave injury to the court, the Senate and the country.”

Republican supporters of Thomas, trying to stop the momentum for delay, offered to have Thomas meet immediately with any senator in Dole’s office just off the Senate floor.

But Democratic supporters soon were marching to the Senate floor with speeches emphasizing the need to explore the sexual harassment charges further.

Sen. Alan J. Dixon (D-Ill.), while saying that he was not changing his support of Thomas, complained that by voting Tuesday, the Senate would be “saying that a charge of sexual harassment is not important enough to fully investigate. . . . This is an extremely important charge that should not be dismissed without hearings. . . . Prof. Hill should have the full opportunity to be examined under oath. Judge Thomas should have the full opportunity to respond under oath.”

Similarly, Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (D-Conn.), another announced backer of Thomas, called for delay on the grounds that “we cannot dismiss this charge out of hand no matter how late it comes. It would not be fair to the judge (Thomas) or to the professor (Hill) who made the charge. It would not be right for the U.S. Senate because we would be unintentionally sending a message that we disparage sex harassment cases.

A key Republican supporter of Thomas, Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.), also took the floor to urge a delay. He said that Hill’s allegations had “put the Senate on trial and the Supreme Court under a cloud. It is in the public interest to have these questions resolved.”

One of the most important Democrats changing his position Tuesday was Biden. Although he voted in committee against approving Thomas, he declared on Monday--a day after Hill’s allegations surfaced--that there was no reason to delay a vote by the full Senate.

However, Biden--who is pushing legislation titled the Violence Against Women Act--had done a 180-degree turn after what was described as “spirited discussions” at Tuesday’s luncheon of Senate Democrats.

He told reporters that he was pressing for the confirmation vote to be delayed so that the FBI could make further inquiries and his committee could conduct hearings--in public--on Hill’s allegations.

Biden said that he changed his position because Hill had dropped her objections to making the information public and because of “new assertions,” apparently a reference to the phone logs and to letters released by the GOP in which former EEOC employees challenged Hill’s charges.

Biden spent much of the day defending the committee’s handling of the allegations, especially his decision to withhold them from non-members of the Judiciary Committee. The chairman once again explained that Hill had asked that the charges not be spread beyond the panel at the time it voted on Thomas.

Thomas gave his sworn statement Tuesday morning at the Justice Department, where it was notarized. The affidavit said, in part:

“As I told the Federal Bureau of Investigation . . . I totally and unequivocally deny Anita Hill’s allegations of misconduct of any kind toward her, sexual or otherwise. These allegations are untrue.”

In the statement, Thomas also said: “I am terribly saddened and deeply offended by these allegations.”

In addition to the affidavit, Danforth also circulated excerpts from 3 1/2 years’ worth of telephone messages taken by Thomas’ secretary at the EEOC, where he was chairman. The logs showed that Hill called 11 times between January, 1984, and August, 1987. The alleged harassment took place between 1981 and 1983.

“Just called to say hello,” a Jan. 30, 1984, message said. “Sorry she didn’t get to see you last week.” A check mark by that entry indicated that Thomas returned her call, Danforth said.

An Aug. 30, 1984, entry read: “Returned your call. (Call between 1 and 4).” The entry showed that Thomas returned her call.

The final call from Hill among the entries was recorded at 4 p.m. on Aug. 4, 1987, accompanied by this notation: “In town til 8/15. . . . Wanted to congratulate you on marriage.”

Such calls, Danforth said, are “inconsistent with a person who believes that she has been mistreated.”

Thomas, 43, a federal appeals court judge here, was nominated by Bush on July 1, four days after Thurgood Marshall announced his retirement as the Supreme Court’s first and only black member.

Staff writer Douglas Jehl contributed to this story.

PUBLIC PERCEPTION: The nominee’s future may come down to his word against that of Anita Faye Hill. A17