WASHINGTON INSIGHT

PRISONER PUSH-OUT: The Clinton Administration is considering more drastic steps to cut the number of illegal immigrants serving sentences in the nation’s prisons. Already in the works is a pilot effort negotiated by Atty. Gen. Janet Reno to send nonviolent offenders back to rehabilitation programs in Mexico. . . . But also under consideration is a change in the law that says only prisoners who volunteer can be returned to Mexico to finish time behind bars. Under the change, a prisoner could be sent even if unwilling. But that could also require some modification of the U.S.-Mexico extradition treaty. One official working on the project says moving an unwilling prisoner from a U.S. prison to a Mexican institution could raise constitutional problems, for example, protection against cruel and unusual punishment. . . . The White House is also weighing a suggestion to revive and expand a program to fly illegal immigrants to the point where they began their northward trek--often deep in Mexico--rather than busing them to the border. Most of the proposals would require Mexico’s OK, and hard-liners contend that now is the time, with the North American Free Trade Agreement hanging in the balance.

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SIC TRANSIT MUNDY?: The military career of Marine Corps Commandant Gen. Carl E. Mundy Jr. may be in jeopardy after his nationally televised comment a week ago that black Marines cannot shoot, swim or read a compass as well as whites. Mundy has apologized, and Pentagon officials say there are no plans to fire him. . . . But President Clinton is not so forgiving, according to White House sources. The President was said to have been appalled by the remark, and a senior White House aide said there was “no excuse” for Mundy’s comments, broadcast on the CBS program “60 Minutes.” Another White House official says that despite the lack of immediate action, the matter is far from settled.

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CALIFORNIA DREAMIN’: Jockeying for a much-coveted seat on the powerful Senate Finance Committee is already under way, and Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) could be the big winner. A Democratic slot is expected to open up on the panel in 1995 to replace retiring Sen. Donald W. Riegle Jr. (D-Mich.). For some time, Committee Chairman Daniel Patrick Moynihan (D-N.Y.) has expressed his desire to get a Californian on board. “He thinks there is something odd about the biggest state in the union not being represented on the Finance Committee,” said one committee staffer. . . . Why Boxer instead of California’s senior senator, Dianne Feinstein? Two reasons: Feinstein already has two prestigious assignments on the Judiciary and Appropriations panels, and Boxer is considered the kind of loyal partisan stalwart that Democrats covet for such an influential committee post. Feinstein, on the other hand, is seen by Senate insiders as an independent operator who can make life difficult for Democrats.

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DOUBLE CZECH: Now that the Czech Republic has been elected to a two-year term on the powerful U.N. Security Council, it may seem as if two Czechs will be seated at the horseshoe table on Jan. 1: Czech Ambassador Karel Kovanda and U.S. Ambassador Madeleine Albright, the daughter of a Czech diplomat. “You can also say there will be two Americans,” Kovanda noted with a smile. The ambassador came to the United States as a student in 1970 and has a doctorate in political science from MIT. A naturalized U.S. citizen, he taught and worked in the Los Angeles area in the late 1970s and the 1980s. After the Velvet Revolution restored democracy to Czechoslovakia in 1989, Kovanda returned to his country. To demonstrate his commitment to democracy in his homeland, he gave up his U.S. citizenship.