Two Women to Be Named to Cabinet Posts

President-elect Bill Clinton has chosen his first female Cabinet members, picking Donna Shalala, chancellor of the University of Wisconsin, to head the Department of Health and Human Services, and Carol Browner, a former top aide to Vice President-elect Al Gore, to head the Environmental Protection Agency, transition sources said Thursday.

Clinton is likely to make the appointments at a press conference scheduled for this afternoon, along with two other choices--UC Berkeley economist Laura D’Andrea Tyson to head the Council of Economic Advisers and Robert B. Reich, Clinton’s longtime economic adviser, to be secretary of labor, aides said. The EPA job does not currently have Cabinet rank but is expected to be elevated in Clinton’s Administration.

Those appointments will presage a rush of nominations over the next several days as Clinton unveils the domestic side of his Administration. “They’re anxious after today to begin to roll this thing out,” said one senior transition aide.

Clinton, speaking to reporters in Little Rock, Ark., gave a similar indication. “Tune in,” he said. “There will be a lot coming now.”

Aides cautioned that the exact order of nominees remains fluid. Completion of background checks on potential nominees and the logistics of contacting candidates and bringing them to Little Rock to meet with Clinton have become major factors in determining the schedule of announcements, said transition press secretary Dee Dee Myers.

But sources familiar with the process said that a bigger problem is the continued shuffling as Clinton moves around names and portfolios, trying to find the right balance of people to meet his goals of diversity and political and geographical balance.

Choosing Reich for labor, for example, would mean passing over Alexis Herman, a senior black transition aide and former Labor Department official in the Jimmy Carter Administration, who had been under consideration for the job. That, in turn, increases pressure on Clinton to name a black candidate for other jobs in the Cabinet.

In part because of that, Rep. Mike Espy (D-Miss.), one of Clinton’s earliest black supporters, has emerged as a leading candidate for secretary of agriculture, transition and congressional sources said. Espy, a member of the House Agriculture Committee, would be the first black to hold the agriculture post.

Earlier this month, Clinton met with Rep. Jill Long (D-Ind.), another Agriculture Committee member, to discuss the job. But in recent days, several members of Congress voiced opposition, saying that Long was too junior and lacked the necessary experience for the post. Another candidate actively seeking the job is Ruth Harkin, a Washington attorney who served in the Agriculture Department under Carter. Harkin and her husband, Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), both campaigned actively for Clinton over the last year.

Clinton kept alive reports Thursday about another prominent black potential appointee--Gen. Colin L. Powell to be secretary of state. Asked about the reports, Clinton said: “I certainly think he’s qualified.” But he added that he would reserve further comment until he has a decision to announce.

At the White House, Powell, attending a reception, told reporters: “Have a job. I hope to have the same job again.”

Clinton may also be close to naming his first Latino Cabinet member. Henry G. Cisneros, the former mayor of San Antonio and Clinton’s most prominent Latino supporter during the campaign, appears likely to be named secretary of housing and urban development, the sources said. But Clinton aides said that Cisneros faces questions about possible conflicts of interest involving his consulting businesses that would have to be resolved before an appointment could be announced.

Some Clinton advisers had hoped that Texas Gov. Ann Richards would name Cisneros to the Senate seat that will be vacated by Sen. Lloyd Bentsen (D-Tex.), named by Clinton on Thursday to be his secretary of the Treasury. But Cisneros has told friends that he does not want to go to the Senate, which would require running in three elections--a primary and two general elections--over the next two years. And Richards is known to have doubts about his ability to hold the seat.

Several Clinton aides had touted the candidacy of Vincent Lane, head of the Chicago Housing Authority, for the housing job. Clinton is known to admire Lane, but transition aides said that Cisneros appears to have a stronger claim to the post based in part on his extensive work for Clinton during the campaign and in part on his prominence among Latino organizations.

Prospects for another potential Latino Cabinet member, Rep. Bill Richardson (D-N.M.), appears to have faded, aides said. Richardson had been interested in the job of secretary of the Interior. But on Wednesday he accepted a top leadership position in the House as majority whip.

Instead, former Arizona Gov. Bruce Babbitt, who met with Clinton in Little Rock earlier this month and again at Blair House in Washington earlier this week, appears to be the leading candidate for the Interior post. But Richardson’s chances could increase if Cisneros runs into problems, transition aides said.

Babbitt, meanwhile, is particularly interested in international environmental issues, and also has expressed interest in the job of assistant secretary of state for international environmental issues, according to sources close to him and to the Clinton camp.

Another job still unresolved is attorney general, in large part because of indecision on the part of a leading candidate, Judge Patricia M. Wald of the federal appeals court here. Wald has come under heavy pressure to take the job but has expressed reservations because of a combination of financial and other personal considerations, according to sources familiar with the situation.

“She hasn’t taken herself out, and I’m not sure she will,” said one source close to both Wald and Clinton. “But I’m not sure I would still call her the front-runner, either,” the source said.

The choices of Browner and Tyson are both indications of the vice president-elect’s influence in the environmental arena. Tyson got the economic adviser’s job after Gore sided with environmentalists who opposed an earlier candidate, World Bank chief economist Lawrence Summers. Tyson has been a campaign and transition adviser to Clinton, focusing particularly on trade and international economic issues.

Browner, for her part, is a former Gore aide who has spent the last two years as head of Florida’s environment department, where she developed a strong reputation for work on protecting the Everglades, opposing oil drilling near the Florida Keys and boosting recycling programs.

Browner beat out former Vermont Gov. Madeleine M. Kunin, a member of Clinton’s transition board and also of the search committee that picked Gore, for the EPA job. She had actively campaigned for the post. Transition aides and environmental activists in Washington said that Browner was judged to have broader experience than Kunin, both from her time on Capitol Hill and from running one of the country’s largest state environmental agencies.

Shalala, a former assistant secretary of HUD during the Carter Administration, is considered an extremely strong manager, a prime consideration for the job of heading the government’s largest single domestic agency--one that is often considered unmanageable.

Times staff writers Douglas Jehl and Ronald Brownstein in Little Rock contributed to this story.