With Helms Out of the Way, Moseley-Braun Gets Heard

With Sen. Jesse Helms (R-N.C.) conspicuously absent, former Sen. Carol Moseley-Braun (D-Ill.) received a warm reception Friday from the Senate Foreign Relations Committee as she responded to questions Helms had raised about her fitness to serve as ambassador to New Zealand.

Despite Helms’ earlier suggestion that she “look for another line of work,” Moseley-Braun, the nation’s first African American female senator, appeared headed for approval by the committee.

With its racial and gender implications, the controversy over Moseley-Braun’s nomination, along with the Senate’s earlier rejection of a black Missouri judge for the federal bench, was threatening to become an issue for next year’s elections. Democrats rallied strongly behind her, and few Republicans have shown any desire to follow Helms’ lead in questioning her personal ethics.

Committee members of both parties indicated they were satisfied by her responses, and ranking Democrat Joseph R. Biden Jr. of Delaware said he assumes her nomination will be sent Monday to the Senate in time for a vote before Congress adjourns for the year.

“I’m satisfied. I think these matters have pretty much been researched,” said Sen. Craig Thomas (R-Wyo.) who presided at the hourlong hearing in the absence of Helms, who is chairman of the committee but went home before the hearing started, according to an aide.

Responding to questions raised by Helms, Moseley-Braun emphatically denied any misuse of funds in her 1992 campaign or in trips to Africa while she was in the Senate.

She denied widely publicized allegations that she had spent as much as $200,000 in campaign funds on personal luxuries, saying she had converted no campaign funds to personal use and that a Federal Election Commission audit showed that no more than $311.28 in campaign funds may have been used personally by her campaign manager.

“I don’t know what it takes to put a stake in the heart of that kind of nasty rumor,” she said, describing the whole episode as a “seven-year smear campaign.” Moseley-Braun was defeated last year in her reelection campaign.

Moseley-Braun said she paid for two trips to Africa out of personal resources. She denied ever espousing positions at odds with official U.S. policy.