BLACK REPUBLICANS WIN ORDER FOR ANTI-BIAS RULES

A federal judge ordered the Federal Election Commission yesterday to adopt anti-discrimination rules that would give black Republicans a better chance of being selected as delegates to the party's national convention.

The order by U.S. District Judge Charles R. Richey came in a suit filed by the Freedom Republicans, a New York-based, predominantly black group dedicated to "the historic commitment of the Republican Party to the advancement of Americans of African descent."

It is not clear whether Richey's ruling will affect delegate selection for the Republican convention this August. Almost half of the 2,209 delegates already have been selected.

Richey said he wants the FEC to act "so that the {Freedom Republicans} may receive the benefit of the agency's views" before the convention. The judge also suggested that the FEC and the Freedom Republicans seek assistance from the Justice Department in drafting the anti-discrimination rules.

The judge directed the FEC to start its rulemaking proceedings "with all deliberate speed," the same phrase that Chief Justice Earl Warren used in the Supreme Court's 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision making school segregation illegal.

Scott Moxley, an FEC spokesman, said yesterday he did not know how long the commission would need to comply with Richey's order. "Obviously, we haven't had any regulation on this matter, so it could take some time if that's what the commission ends up doing," he said.

The Freedom Republicans sued the FEC in January, charging that the commission is required under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act to issue anti-discrimination rules for recipients of federal funds. The group noted that only 3 percent of the 2,277 delegates to the party's 1988 convention were black. In addition, the group said that of the 165 members of the Republican National Committee, only three are black -- all of whom represent the Virgin Islands.

The FEC contended that the civil rights law did not apply because of overriding First Amendment concerns, but Richey said "there are numerous cases in which the asserted interests of free speech and freedom of expression have been overridden by the need to prevent state-sponsored discrimination."

However, Richey did not grant the group's request for a suspension of FEC funding for the Republican convention.

Gary Koops, a spokesman for the Republican National Committee, said, "The party rules are neutral, and our goal has been to improve and increase minority participation in the Republican party at all levels."

Lucenia Gordon, president of the 1,000-member Freedom Republicans, said she was elated by the ruling. "I am so happy. Thank God for Judge Richey," she said. "You don't know how long I've been fighting these people."

Gordon said the Republican Party has "systematically cut blacks out." In New York state, she said, none of the 156 counties has a black county chairman.

She said the group wants the party to overhaul its delegate selection scheme, which she said is heavily weighted toward smaller states with relatively small black populations. Convention delegates from larger states such as New York, Michigan, Illinois and Ohio represent several times as many Republican voters as do delegates from smaller states such as Vermont, Wyoming and Nevada, she said.

Articles appear as they were originally printed in The Washington Post and may not include subsequent corrections.