First Defeat for a Bush Nominee

A bitterly divided Senate committee handed President Bush his first nomination defeat Thursday by voting to reject his selection of Mary Sheila Gall to head the Consumer Product Safety Commission.

The 12-11 party-line vote saw Democratic senators assail Gall’s record as a member of the commission as excessively pro-industry and inadequately mindful of consumers’ and children’s interests. Republicans sharply decried such charges as partisan, personal attacks on Gall.

The White House called the Senate Commerce Committee’s rejection of Gall, a Republican, a “purely partisan” exercise.

“Mary Gall did not lose today; bipartisanship lost today,” White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer said in a statement.

While administration officials said they are working with Senate Republicans to keep Gall’s nomination alive, Majority Leader Tom Daschle (D-S.D.) said he is unlikely to bring the matter up for a vote before the full Senate.

“The committee has spoken, and . . . I think that ought to be the final word,” Daschle said.

Gall said in a statement that she was “clearly disappointed” by the committee vote.

“My years of public service to this country simply do not merit today’s vote,” Gall said. “It is unfortunate that my family has been subjected to the partisan rhetoric that has surrounded this nomination.”

During Gall’s confirmation hearing last week, Republican senators stressed that the committee--and then the full Senate--unanimously reconfirmed her in 1999 when she was nominated by President Clinton for a second seven-year term as one of the safety agency’s three commissioners.

“She was [approved] by every one of us in this United States Senate not too long ago,” said Sen. Conrad R. Burns (R-Mont.), who said Gall was a victim of a “witch hunt.”

Sen. John McCain of Arizona, the committee’s ranking Republican, blasted Democrats for engaging in a “smear campaign” against Gall and for essentially putting her on trial during her hearing.

“For partisan reasons, Ms. Gall was going to be hanged regardless of what she said [during the hearing],” McCain said.

But Democrats said that their 1999 endorsement of Gall was the result of a trade-off with Republicans to earn GOP backing of Clinton’s renomination of the commission’s current chairwoman, Ann W. Brown.

“It was a sweetheart deal,” said Sen. Ernest F. Hollings (D-S.C.), the committee’s chairman. “ ‘We’ll take Gall if you take Brown’--and that’s what happened. . . . I’m convinced that President Bush can do better.”

Democrats charged that Gall’s testimony last week indicated that she habitually has protected manufacturers over consumers in disputes about the safety of such items as infant bath seats, baby walkers and children’s bunk beds.

“Call me old-fashioned, but I think the chairman of the CPSC should care about the safety of products [and] protecting consumers,” said Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.).

Sen. John Edwards (D-N.C.) said Gall’s record reveals a “consistent pattern of blaming parents and caregivers when children are hurt using products.”

Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) pointed to a specific instance during Gall’s testimony when she said that fellow commissioner Thomas Moore agreed with her on the success of a voluntary safety standard for children’s bunk beds.

According to Kerry, Gall was incorrect--Moore was not in fact in agreement with her on the standard. “I found her own testimony disingenuous, misleading and inappropriate in answer to that question,” Kerry told reporters.

During her hearing, Gall defended her record, saying that she based each of her decisions on the facts and the law. The head of the American Conservative Union also sent a letter to every senator citing Gall’s “talent, experience, commitment and distinction,” and asking that she be judged on her qualifications.

The commission regulates about 15,000 consumer products with a combination of voluntary and mandatory safety standards. It is empowered to ban defective products or work with companies on recalls.

The committee Democrats’ move was hailed by consumer groups as well as by Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.). The former first lady, who is not on the committee, had voiced opposition to Gall’s nomination and is reportedly a close friend of the current chairwoman. Clinton called Thursday’s vote “a victory for children and consumers everywhere.”

Even after the vote, White House aides entered preliminary discussions with Senate Republicans to explore the possibility of forcing the Gall nomination onto the Senate floor.

“The White House is working with the senators who support her on what steps are best to take next,’ said Fleischer, adding that officials will look into “whether there are any prospects to move forward and go to the floor.”

Fleischer reiterated Bush’s disappointment at the committee’s move. “The very same Democratic senators who voted for Mary Gall when President Clinton nominated her voted against her today simply because George Bush nominated her, and the president thinks that’s unwise and unfortunate,” he said.

Gall, 52, served under the Reagan and first Bush administrations as assistant secretary of Health and Human Services, and was named to the consumer commission in 1991 by the first President Bush.

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Times staff writer Edwin Chen contributed to this story.