Outgoing Kansas Lawmaker Is Favored to Replace Espy

President Clinton has settled on Dan Glickman, the Kansas Democratic congressman who lost a reelection bid, to be secretary of agriculture, Administration officials said Wednesday. The announcement could come today or Friday.

Glickman, 50, a nine-term congressman swept out of office in the GOP midterm wave, served on the House Agriculture Committee and was a key player in writing the 1990 farm bill, which expires this year. That legislation will be rewritten in the new Congress and that process, along with managing the departmental cutbacks already begun by the Clinton Administration will be key tasks of the new secretary.

“It’s as done as you can get in this Administration without actually announcing it,” a senior official said Wednesday, offering a reminder that Clinton has a propensity to change his mind or get cold feet on appointments at the last minute. Glickman would replace Mike Espy, who resigned in the face of a special counsel’s investigation into whether he has accepted favors from industries that are regulated by the Agriculture Department.

While Glickman spent much of his career in Congress representing agriculture interests, he became more widely known as chairman of the House Select Committee on Intelligence. Glickman also gained brief notoriety when he turned a deaf ear to the White House and voted this fall against the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, the world trade treaty.