Labor Nominee Linked to Event for Nonpartisan Group

Aides to Alexis M. Herman, President Clinton’s nominee to be secretary of Labor, helped organize a White House dinner last summer for donors to a nonprofit voter-registration group that is barred by tax law from participating in partisan politics, according to the chairman of the group.

Hugh A. Westbrook, the head of Vote Now ‘96, said Herman’s Office of Public Liaison helped arrange the intimate banquet for about 40 major donors. The president and First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton hosted the dinner in the White House Blue Room, and the president was the evening’s only formal speaker.

Herman’s nomination is now teetering in the Senate because of questions about whether she mixed partisan politics with her government duties. There may be new questions about this event and the relationship among this nonpartisan group, the White House and the Democratic Party.

Westbrook, a Democratic Party stalwart, said in an interview that he went “through the Alexis Herman office, [the] Public Liaison office. I know the request went in there.” Westbrook said he subsequently spoke to others at the White House to win support for the dinner.

“I requested that there be some kind of recognition, if that was possible, of appreciation for this [vote-registration and get-out-the-vote] work,” Westbrook said. “. . . And the White House agreed to do that, so they hosted or invited us to [the] dinner at the White House.”

Westbrook also said he has tried, so far without success, to persuade Herman’s office to help organize another dinner, honoring supporters of a separate charity group.

Joe Lockhart, a spokesman for Herman, who remains a White House aide pending a vote on her confirmation, said he was not aware of any role played by Herman’s office in arranging the dinner. He did not dispute that Herman attended the function.

The Times disclosed Saturday that the tax-exempt Vote Now ’96 group regularly received referrals of financial contributors from the Democratic National Committee. The top leadership of Vote Now ’96 includes a former deputy finance director of the DNC and a major party fund-raiser.

Lanny J. Davis, White House special counsel, defended Clinton’s hosting of the July 12 dinner.

“This was an event supporting a respected organization engaged in broad-based, nonpartisan voter-registration efforts,” Davis said. “The president attended because he supports any organization or effort aimed at increasing citizen participation in the political process and registration of voters.”

The group’s efforts typically have been aimed at registering African Americans, Latinos, students and others with low or fixed incomes. These groups typically have voted Democratic.

But tax-exempt organizations, such as Vote Now ‘96, are not permitted to coordinate their activities with a partisan political entity, according to experts.

Davis said he believed that the dinner was placed on the president’s schedule by the White House’s Office of Political Affairs--a unit that typically handles events with Democratic Party and elected officials.

Herman’s confirmation as Labor secretary has been held up as Republican senators examine her office’s involvement in a White House coffee klatch last year at which a group of bankers gathered with the president, DNC officials and the comptroller of the currency, Eugene Ludwig. Ludwig was invited to the function by Herman’s staff.

Questions have been raised about the propriety of including a federal regulator in a political gathering with members of an industry he oversees.

Separately, Vote Now ’96 was drawn into controversy recently when it was disclosed that then-Deputy White House Chief of Staff Harold M. Ickes made arrangements to steer a $250,000 contribution from a donor to the group shortly before the November election.

He furnished the donor’s intermediary with Vote Now ‘96’s bank name and account number. The donation later fell through.

Both Westbrook and Gary Barron, the executive director of Vote Now ’96 and a onetime DNC deputy finance director, said the group operated independently of the DNC.