Approval Seen for Herman Nomination

A day after the Senate confirmation process claimed a victim when Anthony Lake withdrew his nomination to head the CIA, Labor Secretary-designate Alexis M. Herman appeared headed for congressional approval after a hearing Tuesday that trod lightly on allegations that she mixed politics and policy as a White House aide.

Still, the chairman of the Senate Education and Labor Committee warned Herman that she “made mistakes” in a culture where confusion between politics and policy may have been inevitable.

“Fortunately for all of us, the standard for public office is not perfection,” said Sen. James M. Jeffords (R-Vt.). “But neither is it sufficient to say, ‘Everybody does it.’ They don’t.”

In a sign that Herman may have overcome concerns previously raised about her nomination, by the end of a nearly four-hour hearing she won accolades from lawmakers, including Sens. John W. Warner (R-Va.) and Tim Hutchison (R-Ark.), who earlier had signaled they had doubts about her fitness for the job.

The Senate labor panel is expected to vote to send Herman’s nomination to the full Senate after a two-week congressional recess that starts Friday.

Herman’s confirmation hearing came after several weeks’ delay, as Republican lawmakers sifted through information pertaining to her business dealings as a consultant in the early 1980s and her conduct as director of White House Public Liaison. Some GOP senators had suggested that Herman may have used her position to drum up campaign contributions for President Clinton’s reelection, as well as support for administration policies.

But Herman defended her actions as a White House official in a series of careful and well-rehearsed statements.

For any White House employee who engages in political activities, “it is important . . . to fulfill that mission in the most appropriate manner possible,” Herman told lawmakers. Asked about her work in leading two trade missions for the Commerce Department, Herman said she had no idea what the political affiliations were of the women business owners who went on those missions to Amsterdam, London and Mexico.

“I did not know who was a donor and who was not a donor to the Democratic Party,” Herman said. She added that the Commerce Department--not she--drew up the final list of participants, using criteria she did not know.

Herman would be the first black woman to head the Labor Department. The active lobbying effort on her behalf that has occurred since Clinton began considering his second-term Cabinet late last year was amply evident at Tuesday’s hearing. Representatives of women’s groups as well as African American politicians ranging from Washington Mayor Marion Barry to Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Los Angeles) brought the boisterous atmosphere of a family reunion to an otherwise restrained occasion. And senators acknowledged that a well-orchestrated letter-writing campaign brought a small flood of supporting correspondence to their offices.

If confirmed, Herman would oversee a department with about 16,000 employees whose responsibilities range from regulating companies’ pension plans to a complex, often-controversial raft of worker-safety rules. In addition, the department is playing a central role in helping states implement a sweeping reform of welfare laws. Over the next five years, the department is to dispense billions of federal dollars to states’ training and job placement programs aimed at helping welfare recipients find and keep work.

In a statement to the committee, Herman underscored her particular interest in making those programs work.