A Justifiable End Run

President Clinton indicated last Thursday that he will use his constitutional powers to assure that Los Angeles attorney Bill Lann Lee becomes the nation’s top civil rights official. The president should go ahead with a so-called recess appointment this month to put Lee in the job, unless Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott (R-Miss.) agrees to bring the nomination to a vote when the Senate returns in January.

This newspaper first advocated a recess appointment when it became obvious last month that Sen. Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah) and other Republicans were pushing Lee’s nomination into a dead end in the Senate Judiciary Committee, which Hatch chairs. He succeeded in his utterly transparent political move to paint Lee--the first Asian American to be nominated for the Justice Department post--as unfit for the job because he, like Clinton, supports affirmative action.

Lee deserves the appointment, based on his 23 years of experience in civil rights law. His leadership, expertise and ability to bring diverse views into agreement have drawn respect even from attorneys who have been on the opposite side of the table. Even Hatch, in his distorted reasoning for opposing Lee, acknowledged that the attorney is “an able civil rights lawyer with a profoundly admirable passion to improve the lives of many Americans.”

Republican leaders are warning that a recess appointment, which would put Lee in the job for a year, would further strain relations with the White House. But something more important is at stake here--the notion that a single-issue litmus test should not eliminate a qualified and able lawyer from becoming assistant attorney general for civil rights.