Quayle Renews Attack on Lawyers : Politics: Vice president, in Sacramento area, attacks ABA’s liberalism, zeroes in on Anita Hill and Hillary Clinton.

In a single rhetorical blast, Vice President Dan Quayle on Tuesday renewed his battle with lawyers and derisively invoked the names of law professor Anita Faye Hill and Hillary Clinton, both of whom appeared at a legal convention last weekend in San Francisco.

Quayle, who concludes a three-day California campaign swing with an appearance in Orange County today, also sought to link the Democratic presidential ticket headed by Hillary Clinton’s husband to California’s “Big Green” environmental movement and one of its leaders, state Assemblyman Tom Hayden (D-Santa Monica). Quayle asserted that because of that link, a victory in November by Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton and his running mate, Al Gore, would further punish the battered California economy.

Quayle launched his attack on lawyers--or, more precisely, the American Bar Assn.--during an appearance in Sacramento before the conservative Christian Coalition, a group founded by religious broadcaster Pat Robertson.

Quayle, who has had a running battle with the ABA since he went before its convention a year ago and charged that too many lawyers were burdening the American economy, depicted the group as dominated by liberal Democrats.

Referring to the ABA’s recent convention in San Francisco, Quayle said that “to ensure that no left wing base went untouched, (the group) gave one of their highest awards to none other than Anita Hill.”

The reference to the Oklahoma law professor who last fall accused then-Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas of sexual harassment brought hisses from his audience of about 200 people.

“And who did they choose to present this award to liberalism’s hero of the 1990s?” Quayle asked. “None other than her fellow lawyer, Mrs. Hillary Clinton.”

In fact, Hillary Clinton spoke to the luncheon at which Hill received her award on Sunday, but did not present it to her. Hill was honored by the ABA Commission on Women in the Profession, which Clinton headed until last year.

“Most Americans . . . believed Clarence Thomas and not Anita Hill,” Quayle said. “That doesn’t matter to the ABA; to them she is a heroine, because she led the attack against a man who happens to be both conservative and black--a combination that makes liberals fly into a rage.”

The award made clear, he said, that the ABA leadership “is just one more special interest group of the Democratic Party. Now we know why Bill Clinton will never reform the legal system.”

Asked at a press conference to elaborate on his comment on Hillary Clinton, Quayle said, “Obviously, if Hillary Clinton wants to be associated with Anita Hill, that’s fine, that’s her choice. But what it does show is that the Clinton campaign is clearly in the pocket of the ABA leadership.”

The Clinton campaign was quick to respond to the attack.

George Stephanopoulos, Clinton’s communications director, said, “Everyone says stupid things sometimes, but Dan Quayle just does it more of the time than most.

“The President has no economic plan,” he said. “All he can do is send Dan Quayle out to be his attack puppy.”

Meanwhile, Jamienne Studley, a San Francisco lawyer and member of the Commission on Women in the Profession, said the award to Hill “was a recognition of courage, not politics.”

“The commission believes the 85% of women lawyers who reported that they have personally experienced some form of unwanted sexual advances,” Studley said. “We applaud and recognize Anita Hill’s courage, dignity and continuing forcefulness in bringing the issue to the nation’s attention.”

Quayle’s attack tied together several of the vice president’s favorite campaign themes. He has sought again and again to establish that the Democratic ticket is too closely tied to interest groups with liberal agendas.

“If they’re moderates, I’m a world champion speller,” Quayle told the Christian Coalition, tweaking his own recent trouble with the word potato.

He also focused on that theme during a meeting at a half-built Sacramento housing development with members of the Building Industry Assn. of California.

The Democratic ticket is “associated with the ‘Big Green’ movement, Tom Hayden, and all the rest, that in fact would put a lot more people out of work in California,” Quayle said.

They would do so, Quayle argued, through their support for such environmental measures as protection of the spotted owl that add costs to home production.

Quayle campaigned later in the day in Bakersfield and attended a fund-raiser Tuesday night in Los Angeles.