225 Clinton Nominees Wait for Unlikely Senate Approval

October 9, 1998

225 Clinton Nominees Wait for Unlikely Senate Approval

By JAMES BENNET

ASHINGTON -- The United States Institute of Peace may have to fight war with a few board members missing in action. The Civil Liberties Education Fund and the Museum Services Board may have to educate and archive without a full roster of top officials.
And numerous Federal courts will surely have to adjudicate with fewer judges, while the Food and Drug Administration will continue to regulate with a Commissioner who is just acting.
As it prepares to adjourn for the rest of the year, the Senate has yet to vote on 225 Clinton Administration nominees for full- and part-time jobs, including dozens who have been approved by Senate committees.
Democratic and Republican aides said many appointees were likely to be confirmed in a traditional, last-minute rush of voting before the Senate left. But, seized on as proxies in long-running policy battles between the White House and Capitol Hill, others, particularly many prominent nominees, are likely to fall victim to objections by specific senators, for reasons including distaste for gay politics, a dispute over statistical methods and opposition to a pill that induces abortions.
Republican Congressional aides say some nominees have languished for lack of pressure from the White House, which is trying to get a budget passed and deal with impeachment hearings.
In all, of the 225 Administration nominations pending in the Senate, 75 have been approved by various committees, the White House said. Some have been pending for more than two years.
In 1998, the Senate has approved 191 Administration candidates. Today, it confirmed four judges, including one hotly disputed nominee, William A. Fletcher, to the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, in San Francisco. Fletcher, whom some Republicans criticized as liberal, was nominated in May 1995.
One Administration official said that Fletcher was confirmed only after vigorous lobbying and dealing.
"We have been really putting a lot of pressure on them to confirm our nominees," this official said, "and we've nominated a number of their folks recently."
Some 54 people nominated for judgeships are awaiting confirmation by the Senate, while another 47 have been confirmed this year. Democrats accuse Republicans of stalling in hopes of a Republican Administration in two years, while Republicans argue that many of the President's choices are too liberal.
Other nominees are mired in disputes raging along Pennsylvania Avenue. Kenneth Prewitt, the candidate to be director of the census, is being held up by Republicans anxious to block Administration plans to use a new statistical method, rather than a strict head count, to help ascertain the population.
Administration officials have all but given up on some appointees, including James Hormel, the President's nominee to be Ambassador to Luxembourg. An heir to the Hormel meat-packing fortune and former dean of the University of Chicago Law School, Hormel, who is gay, has financially supported a number of gay causes.
Hormel was nominated just over a year ago, but several Republican senators have blocked his confirmation, saying that they were concerned that he had promoted a gay agenda or life style.
One senator can block a nomination by simply putting a "hold" on it, essentially threatening a filibuster while the Senate is rushing to leave town.
Jane E. Henney, Clinton's pick to fill the top job in the Food and Drug Administration, is an example of how Administration dawdling has combined with Senate resistance to leave some senior posts unfilled for months or years. After Dr. David A. Kessler resigned as Commissioner of Food and Drugs in February 1997, the Administration waited until late June to send up the nomination of Dr. Henney, a former deputy commissioner.
By a voice vote on Sept. 23, the Labor and Human Resources Committee recommended the nomination to the full Senate for confirmation. But several Republicans, including Senator Don Nickles of Oklahoma, have blocked it from going forward.
Brook Simmons, a spokesman for Senator Nickles, said, "There is a great suspicion or fear that she has somewhat of a propensity to legislate by regulation."
Simmons said some senators feared that Dr. Henney favored too free a hand for the agency in regulating tobacco. Further, he said, when she was deputy commissioner, the agency recruited companies to market the abortion drug RU-486 in the United States.
Lauri Boeder, a spokeswoman for the Department of Health and Human Services, said Dr. Henney "was not involved with anything having to do with the approval process of RU-486, nor was she involved with the tobacco issue."
Ms. Boeder said Dr. Henney had "a profound respect for the role of Congress" and was eager to carry out Congress's plans to modernize the agency.

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