Bush Faces Push From the Right

Conservative groups that quietly supported Gov. George W. Bush during his presidential campaign are preparing to call in their chits.

They are pushing for appointment of strong conservatives to lead key agencies, especially the departments of Justice and Health and Human Services. They are prodding Bush to stock the lower levels of the bureaucracy with people likely to tack to the right in such key areas as family planning policy, welfare and civil rights. And they are already advising against potential appointments of Democrats--even moderate Republicans--to sensitive positions.

Their campaign is notable because it runs counter to expectations that, as president, Bush would find it necessary to steer a centrist, bipartisan course to heal the wounds inflicted by the Florida election contest.

But that calculus applies mainly to relations with the almost evenly divided Congress. Conservatives are hoping that in areas where the administration can act unilaterally--through executive orders, regulations and litigation--it will lean a little farther to the right.

If conservatives control even a few influential positions, they believe that many Clinton administration policies will be moderated over time or in some cases reversed outright.

“Most people are focusing on fumigating the Justice Department,” said Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform and a leading conservative activist. Norquist said that he considers the Justice Department under Atty. Gen. Janet Reno to be among the most “corrupted” agencies of the Clinton administration.

Norquist, like many conservatives, is lobbying Bush to appoint a lawyer with sterling conservative credentials as attorney general. On the short list are Sen. John Ashcroft (R-Mo.), who was just defeated in his bid for a second Senate term, and Oklahoma Gov. Frank Keating, who is close to Bush and has a strong law-and-order record dating back to his early days as a government prosecutor. Several conservatives said they hoped that Bush would pass over Montana Gov. Marc Racicot, a Republican, for the attorney general slot because he has not always been sympathetic to conservative positions.

Similarly, some conservative columnists have expressed opposition to Pennsylvania Gov. Thomas J. Ridge, a GOP moderate, whose name had been floated as a possible nominee for Defense secretary. When Ridge was a House member, he voted against the MX missile and other defense programs prized by conservatives.

Groups Hope Bush Sets a Conservative Agenda

Bush aides have declined to talk about potential appointees, although the names of moderate Democrats as well as conservative Republicans have been floated for staff and Cabinet positions.

“Many different groups are pushing for many different secretary designees,” said Juleanna Glover Weiss, Bush’s deputy press secretary. “Gov. Bush and Secretary Cheney will make the best choices for the American people.”

Anti-abortion groups would like to see the White House encourage the Food and Drug Administration to reconsider its previous approval of RU-486, the pill that allows women to abort early pregnancies without surgery. They also think that Bush should change the Clinton administration policy that has made it possible for federally funded scientists to do research on stem cells derived from human embryos.

Similarly, there are high hopes in conservative circles that a Bush Justice Department would back policies that would block Oregon’s physician-assisted suicide law. On the campaign trail, Bush promised to outlaw the use of controlled substances for assisted suicide, which would have the practical effect of nullifying the Oregon law.

Conservatives also expect the White House to slow the pace of new environmental, workplace safety and health-related regulations that many businesses say are burdensome.

Conservative groups believe that the new administration would take a more hands-off policy toward filing lawsuits against private interests. For instance, it is widely expected that under Bush, the government’s lawsuit against the five major tobacco companies would either be dropped or funded at such a low level that it eventually would wither away.

“The tobacco suit will be dead if Bush is in there. . . . He’ll say the role of the Department of Justice is not to initiate lawsuits like that,” said Bruce Josten, vice president for government relations at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

Despite their high hopes, however, some conservatives express serious doubts that Bush would be able to deliver much in the areas that are most important to them, especially in the first year of his presidency. They seem to be striking a delicate balance between making their stands well known and being careful not to overreach.

“The moment he moves, there will be push-back from Congress,” said Marshall Wittmann, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, a conservative think tank.

“So my gut tells me that the right is going to be very pragmatic in the first year with Bush. He has to show movement on two things--a tax cut and appointments--but beyond that he’s going to have to weigh the price he’s willing to pay in Congress against satisfying his base.”

Business Eyes Regulatory Agencies

The conservative community is hardly monolithic. Business conservatives care primarily about reducing environmental, health and safety regulations. They argue that under Clinton unnecessary layers have been added to the bureaucracy, raising the cost of consumer products and services. They want Bush to undo executive actions that require the use of union labor on federal projects and revisit the designation of swaths of primarily Western lands as national monuments.

If Bush becomes president, Josten said, business would like to see “a corporate takeover of the agencies,” adding that the chamber’s goal is to encourage “the appointment of people who would moderate agency decision-making.”

Social conservatives focus on family issues such as abortion rights, sex education and gay rights and such education issues as school vouchers. They will be pushing for more leeway to allow faith-based organizations such as churches to become government contractors, especially in the field of health and human services. They believe that Clinton has bent over backward to accommodate abortion rights advocates by refusing to accept any limits on abortion rights. One of Bush’s earliest and most stalwart supporters was the National Right to Life Committee.

“We will expect Bush to repeal a number of pro-abortion and pro-gay-rights executive orders that Clinton issued in his first few weeks in office,” said Gary Bauer, a former GOP presidential candidate who ran largely on a platform against abortion rights and for conservative family policies.

Bauer and other anti-abortion activists said that Bush might move early to block funding for overseas family planning organizations that actively promote abortion.

Some conservative groups focus on judicial policy, from the appointment of new federal judges to constitutional and statutory enforcement issues. They are pressing for new leaders throughout the Justice Department who would curtail affirmative action policies and refrain from expanding civil rights laws, such as the hate crimes law that Clinton has been trying to enlarge to cover sexual orientation, gender and disability.

“The judiciary is the crown jewel of this election.” said Clint Bollick, litigation director at the conservative Institute for Justice. “There are 60-plus vacancies now on the federal bench and many more are anticipated, so having someone at the Justice Department who will choose well-qualified conservative judges is essential.”

Other key Justice Department appointments are those for solicitor general, who makes decisions on which cases to take to the U.S. Supreme Court, and the assistant attorney general for civil rights.

“Those positions are tremendous priorities for conservatives,” said Tom Jipping of the Free Congress Foundation, a conservative think tank in Washington. “So to the extent that Gov. Bush wants to incorporate the concerns of conservatives who were a key part of the margin that put him over the top . . . he should pay attention to those.”

Among their priorities, Jipping said, conservatives are eager to see more rigorous enforcement of child pornography laws by the Child Exploitation and Obscenity section of the Justice Department.

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Times staff writer Megan Garvey in Austin, Texas, contributed to this story.