Lugar Backs End-Run to Get Weld Hearing

The No. 2 Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee said Sunday that he would support going around Sen. Jesse Helms (R-N.C.) to convene a hearing on William F. Weld’s nomination to become ambassador to Mexico.

“A Senate chairman cannot be dictatorial, ultimately, when a majority of the committee, a majority of the Senate, a majority of the American people, want action,” Sen. Richard G. Lugar, (R-Ind.) said on ABC-TV’s “This Week” program.

President Clinton has nominated Weld to represent U.S. interests in Mexico despite opposition from Helms, chairman of the committee with jurisdiction over the nomination.

Helms has refused to call for a hearing for Weld, complaining that he is soft on drugs because he supports medical use of marijuana and distributing clean needles to drug addicts to stem the spread of AIDS.

He told the News & Observer of Raleigh, N.C., that he would not respond to Weld’s high-profile campaign for the job. Weld resigned as Massachusetts governor last week to fight full time for the Mexico post.

“I’m not calling Weld a skunk,” he told the newspaper. “I’m not going to pick up his challenge. What he would like most in the world is for me to fire back so he could fire back.”

A majority of the committee could call a hearing without Helms’ support, and Lugar said Sunday that he would support such an end-run.

At the same time, he said he didn’t want to see a “civil war” inside the Republican Party that could damage the GOP politically. Going around Helms would encourage such a war, he said, but he said he would support the move anyway.

If, as expected, all committee Democrats support the move, they would need just two Republicans to force a hearing. At least one other committee Republican, Sen. Gordon Smith of Oregon, has said Weld should have a hearing.

“Senators may decide Gov. Weld is not the one that they want. But procedurally we have the right to hear him,” said Lugar, who was the top Republican on the Foreign Relations Committee until 1987, when Helms asserted his seniority claim to the spot.

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A Helms backer, Sen. James M. Inhofe (R-Okla.), predicted on the ABC program that Helms would call a hearing rather than have his committee vote for one despite him.

But Inhofe argued that by escalating his fight with Helms, Weld hurt his chances of being confirmed. He said he used to think Weld might make a good ambassador to a country where drug use is not such a prominent problem.

“Now I’m not sure he’d be even a very good ambassador anywhere because he doesn’t seem to have the diplomatic skills,” he said.