Civil Rights Nomination in Peril Over Prop. 209

A Los Angeles public-interest lawyer’s bid to become the first Asian American to head the Justice Department’s civil rights division appears to be in increasing peril, with the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee expected to announce his opposition today.

The mounting criticism of attorney Bill Lann Lee is attributable to his opposition to California’s Proposition 209--the anti-affirmative action initiative that the Supreme Court let stand Monday--and his work on a sweeping consent decree that would have established aggressive goals for hiring women and minorities at the Los Angeles Police Department.

With a Senate Judiciary Committee vote on Lee’s fate scheduled for Thursday, the panel’s chairman, Utah Republican Orrin G. Hatch, wrote a lengthy letter to Atty. Gen. Janet Reno on Monday saying that he believes he has a “fundamental disagreement” with the nominee about “principles at the heart of what this nation stands for.”

Meanwhile, 16 House Republicans from California have written to Hatch, saying that “it appears to be fundamentally incompatible for the Senate to confirm” for the nation’s top civil rights post “an individual with a record of advocating racial discrimination through quotas and preferences.” A coalition of conservative groups has scheduled a press conference this afternoon to denounce the nomination.

Lee, western regional counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, did not return a call to his Los Angeles office. But Reno and White House spokesman Mike McCurry said they are undeterred by the new criticism and will step up their efforts to get Lee confirmed.

“Based on qualifications, expertise and general experience, there’s not much reason to oppose this,” McCurry said in an interview. “If the argument is that the [Clinton administration’s affirmative action] policy is wrong, Orrin Hatch has to elect a president more to his liking. That’s the way our system works.

“We’re prepared to make that argument a little more caustically in public in the coming days if we have to,” he added.

If Lee were rejected, he would be the third of the last five nominees for the civil rights post who have failed to win confirmation, a record that makes it among the most contentious slots in government.

The panel’s eight Democrats back Lee but he needs two Republican votes for the nomination to be forwarded to the full Senate. Sources said that Pennsylvania’s Arlen Specter supports Lee, though his office said he has yet to take a position. Republicans Michael DeWine of Ohio and Fred Thompson of Tennessee are also said to be potential backers. Neither would state his position Monday.

*

Aides to several Democratic members of the Judiciary Committee said Hatch told the senators last week that he would be willing to support Lee’s nomination if the administration vowed to stay out of litigation on Proposition 209. With Monday’s Supreme Court action--which lets the initiative take effect and ends appeals--that proposal would be moot, though Republicans said that Lee’s disagreement with the law of the land on affirmative action remains a significant issue.

“It seems kind of a stretch from the Democratic point of view for Republicans to say we’re going to oppose this guy because of 209,” said Chris Madison, a spokesman for Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D-Del.), a committee member. “They won [on 209], at least for now. What else do they want?”

Judiciary Committee spokeswoman Jeanne Lopatto said that Hatch has not yet made up his mind on the nomination but that Proposition 209 was just one of four issues giving him pause. The others are prisoners’ rights, school busing and objective academic standards for promotions and college admission, she said.

“They all give Sen. Hatch great concern,” she said, adding: “Sen. Hatch wants to vote for him. He thinks [Lee is] a decent, bright and accomplished man.”

In his letter to Reno, Hatch wrote that “experience alone does not qualify an individual to serve as the nation’s chief civil rights law enforcement officer.” He focused on Lee’s involvement in efforts to obtain an LAPD consent decree that would have established aggressive goals for hiring and promoting women and minorities, as well as on his vehement opposition to Proposition 209. A federal judge refused to grant the consent decree before the Proposition 209 vote last fall.

House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) weighed in with a letter last week, saying that the Senate “must seriously consider the implications of approving someone to the Justice Department who seems to ignore the colorblind nature of the Constitution and will apparently resort to underhanded methods to achieve an ideological goal.”

The California Republicans, in their letter to Hatch, quoted Gov. Pete Wilson’s opposition to the nomination.

*

“All of the relevant evidence suggests that Mr. Bill Lann Lee will not enforce the civil rights laws as defined by the courts but as desired by special interests,” Wilson said. “It is time we had a civil rights enforcer who enforced the law, not distorted it.”

Democrats pointed out that Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan, who opposed Lee on the LAPD consent decree, nonetheless has backed his nomination. Indeed, the assistant city attorney who fought him on that litigation even wrote to Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott (R-Miss.) and to Hatch, saying that Gingrich’s characterization of Lee’s role in the case is untrue.

“Bill Lee is exceedingly well qualified for this position and has built a reputation as a consensus-builder and pragmatic problem-solver,” Judiciary Committee member Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) said in a statement.

Times staff writers Jonathan Peterson and Ronald Brownstein contributed to this story.