A BETTER FAIR HOUSING LAW

ON TUESDAY the Senate effortlessly passed a fair housing bill that has eluded the advocates for 20 years. No civil rights bill in modern memory has had such an easy time. Support came from every quarter -- not just the civil rights groups but such former resisters as the administration and the Realtors. The vote, after relatively little debate, was 94 to 3; the House earlier passed its similar version 367 to 23. Surely all that is a sign of progress.

The keys to success were 1) a praiseworthy decision by the new leadership of the Realtors that this game was no longer worth the candle,2) an equally commendable urge among Republicans to have a civil rights bill on which they could vote aye this election year and 3) a disarmingly simple and face-saving compromise that was worked out in April. The bill was designed to provide better enforcement mechanisms in housing discrimination cases. Congress, in barring racial and other forms of discrimination in the sale and rental of most housing in 1968, gave the Department of Housing and Urban Development only conciliation authority and the Justice Department authority to file suit only in cases involving a pattern or practice of discrimination. Aggrieved individuals otherwise had to hire lawyers and go to court on their own.

Civil rights groups wanted to set up an administrative enforcement mechanism in HUD -- special housing courts presided over by administrative law judges empowered to hear and remedy complaints -- but others, concerned about preserving the right to trial by jury, favored court enforcement. The compromise presumes administrative enforcement, but allows either party to choose a jury trial instead.

The bill also extends protection against housing discrimination to two new groups -- families with children and the handicapped. We continue to be uncertain about the first of these steps. Families with children are indeed barred from a fair amount of housing now (in addition to the housing for the elderly that this legislation would not affect), and particularly the poorer among these families, many headed by women, face undeniable housing shortages. The problem ought to be solved, but it is not clear that this creation of a new right to existing housing is the ideal way to do it.

In the case of the handicapped, the new law is a substantial victory, since it gives tenants the right, for example, to alter dwellings if they will restore them when they leave and requires that new multifamily housing be constructed in such a way as to allow easy access to the disabled. Efforts to weaken these requirements were resoundingly defeated, except for one. Sen. Jesse Helms offered language to make it clear that for purposes of this and other federal laws, the term "handicapped" does not include -- transvestites. All present except for Sens. Alan Cranston and Lowell Weicker finally voted for the provision, presumably on the assumption it would be dumped in conference.

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