Gay Activist Named Envoy Over Objections

President Clinton named San Francisco philanthropist and gay activist James C. Hormel as ambassador to Luxembourg on Friday, sidestepping Senate Republican leaders who previously had blocked the nomination.

Clinton used special appointment powers available when Congress is in recess to bypass the Senate confirmation process and tap Hormel, 66, as the first openly gay U.S. ambassador. But in doing so, the president risked a confrontation with conservatives who have labeled Hormel, first nominated in 1997, as a gay extremist unfit for diplomatic duty.

“This came down to a couple of senators who thought that he shouldn’t be ambassador to Luxembourg because he’s gay,” White House spokesman Joe Lockhart said Friday. “And the president thinks that’s wrong and discriminatory, and that’s why he moved ahead and did the recess appointment.”

Hormel, an heir to the Geo. A. Hormel & Co. food fortune and former dean at the University of Chicago Law School, can serve in the diplomatic post through the end of 2000. Clinton leaves office Jan. 20, 2001. Hormel has been a major contributor to the Democratic Party. In the 1995-96 election cycle, for example, he contributed more than $200,000.

So furious were some senators of Clinton’s maneuver that they vowed retribution.

Sen. Bob Smith (R-N.H.) said that he would urge his colleagues to block most of Clinton’s nominations for other posts for the rest of the president’s term. And, to prevent more recess appointments, he said that he would urge the Senate in the future to convene brief, pro forma sessions even when lawmakers are not present.

“I view this as the president saying, In your face, Senate; you can have your ‘advise and consent,’ ” Smith said.

Sen. James M. Inhofe (R-Okla.) fumed as well. “I intend to explore all available means to appropriately respond to this arrogant insult to the Congress and the American people.”

Hormel’s nomination divided the GOP from the start. It cleared the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in 1997 by a 16-2 vote. But Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott (R-Miss.), responding to requests by Smith, Inhofe and Sen. Tim Hutchinson (R-Ark.), did not schedule a floor vote on the appointment last fall. It was widely expected that Hormel would have easily won confirmation if that vote had occurred.

The president renominated Hormel this year and, when the Senate failed to act, appointed him during the 10-day congressional recess that ends Monday.

Clinton had taken a similar tack when critics of affirmative action failed to approve Los Angeles lawyer Bill Lann Lee as assistant attorney general for civil rights. Lee is serving in the post on a temporary basis.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), a former San Francisco mayor who has known Hormel for decades, said that Clinton did “the honorable thing” in moving forward with the appointment.

“It was really a black spot on the U.S. Senate that somebody whose nomination came sweeping out of committee was held up by a few people,” she said. “I know the votes were there on the Senate floor because I went out and counted them, one by one.”

But John Czwartacki, a spokesman for Lott, called the recess appointment “a slap in the face to Catholics everywhere,” citing Hormel’s support for San Francisco’s Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence--gay men who dress as nuns and appear at various public events.

Hormel’s detractors also have circulated videotapes to lawmakers featuring ominous music and Hormel laughing on the sidelines of a San Francisco gay pride parade.

And critics have called attention to the gay research center named for him at the San Francisco Public Library, which contains some sexually explicit material. Hormel has said that he had nothing to do with the selection of such material.

Hormel’s supporters praised Clinton for standing up to such attacks.

“The president’s bold move is a testament to his commitment to ensuring basic fairness for all Americans,” said Elizabeth Birch, executive director of the Human Rights Campaign, the nation’s largest gay rights group. “James Hormel is a talented, honorable and supremely qualified man who will make the American people proud.”

In an effort to appease his critics, Hormel has said that he would not use the ambassador’s post to espouse gay rights causes and that his partner would not live with him in Luxembourg.