Battle Lines Drawn In Cabinet Wars
President-elect Bush has a new and non-controversial nominee for labor secretary, but the fight over his choices for attorney general and interior secretary are escalating, reports CBS News Correspondent Bill Plante.
Bush picked former Peace Corps director Elaine Chao to be labor secretary Thursday. In addition to government jobs, Chao once ran the United Way charity, where she worked with labor leaders. She is also married to Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky.
But the battle lines are drawn for former Missouri Sen. John Ashcroft.
Bush said Thursday that he would personally lobby senators on Ashcroft's behalf "if I need to." Asked whether he thought the hearings on Ashcroft would be "hard" on the nation, Bush responded: "Well, it doesn't have to be hard, if the senators will tone down their rhetoric."
At issue are Ashcroft's conservative views on gun control, civil rights and gay rights, and whether as attorney general he'll actively uphold laws that don't correspond with his beliefs – such as federal statutes against violent protests at abortion clinics.
"In his case, it's primarily a question of whether Senator Ashcroft is able to enforce laws that he has publicly disagreed with," said Senate Democratic Leader Tom Daschle of South Dakota.
Women's groups object to Ashcroft's opposition to abortion rights.
In a speech three years ago, he displayed a sonogram of his unborn grandchild and said, "When I look at these photos, I cannot help but ask, if the Supreme Court saw this picture 25 years ago, would they have allowed this life to be taken?"
Democrats on the Judiciary Committee, which will hold hearings on Ashcroft's nomination Tuesday, are asking for background materials, particularly the tape of a commencement speech he made to Bob Jones University in 1999.
On Wednesday, Democrat Barbara Boxer of California became the first senator to announce she would vote against Ashcroft's confirmation.
Boxer told CBS News that one of her major concerns is the way Ashcroft blocked the appointment of African-American Judge Ronnie White to the federal bench.
"I hate to use a charged term, but it's my heart talking here," she said. "I really think it was a political lynching that happened in the United States Senate."
GOP senators, meanwhile, are standing by Ashcroft. Sen. Jim Jeffords, R-Vt., said Ashcroft had "assured me that he will uphold the laws of the nation, including those with which he disagrees."
And the Senate's top Republican, Trent Lott, R-Miss., said he still believes Ashcroft will be confirmed and hinted that a major challenge of his nomination might have damaging consequences.
"It would really sour a major opportunity we have here now to work together," said Lott.
Meanwhile, Norton's nomiation to run the Interior Department – which oversees the national parks and natural resource protection – has prompted opposition from environmentalists, who are concerned about her ties to industry and staunch support of property rights.
The former Colorado attorney general once suggested that government recognize property owners' "right to pollute" and that they be compensated for losses when forced to protect the environment
A protege of James Watt, the controversial Interior secretary in the Reagan administration, Norton has been a lobbyist for a lead-paint manufacturer defending itself from numerous environmental lawsuits.
"Norton's absolutist views on property rights and her hostility to environmental protection places her far outside the mainstream of even conservative legal scholarship," said Douglas Kendell, an attorney for Community Rights Counsel, a Washington-based environmental advocacy law firm.
Some remarks Norton made in a 1996 speech she gave on states' rights and the Confederacy have also prompted criticism. In the speech, she said "we lost too much" in terms of states' rights against the federal government when the South was defeated in the Civil War.
Those comments have drawn fire from several environmental groups opposed to her nomination, claiming they indicated a lack of sensitivity to the horror of slavery. But Bush, speaking to reporters on Thursday, said "That's just a ridiculous interpretation of what's in her heart."
A number of other Bush nominees are also facing questions, but are expected to be confirmed reasonably easily by the Senate:
Whitman was embarrassed last year when a photograph surfaced showing her smiling as she frisked a black youth during a 1996 police tour in Camden, N.J.
The Rev. Jesse Jackson has promised to lead protests over Whitman's nomination to head the EPA.
"His record in Wisconsin raises concerns about his commitment to reducing the toll from tobacco," said Bill Corr, executive vice president of the Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids.
Stanton Glantz, a professor at the Cardiovasclar Research Institute at the University of California, San Francisco, called Bush's selection of Thompson "stunning."
"It's like we have in hand a vaccine against heart disease and cancer and a secretary of health with a history of working with people who don't want the vaccine administered," said Glantz. He has probed the tobacco industry's influence on tobacco control policy-making in several states and co-authored a 1998 study on Wisconsin.
But the Bush transition team defends Thompson. He "has a record of opposing youth access to tobacco and tobacco products," said spokeswoman Alicia Peterson. She added that Bush selected Thompson for HHS because he is "a national leader in welfare reform and health-care reform."
A spokesman said that Evans, who helped Bush raise a record $100 million during the campaign, approved the letter before he knew he was being nominated but it did not get mailed out until Dec. 22.
Common Cause President Scott Harshbarger said a Cabinet nominee shouldn't be raising funds from people who may seek help from his agency.
"It puts the person being solicited in a very awkward position to say no to a Cabinet official who is personally closest to the president and in the Cabinet position that is perceived to be the advocate for business and the place you go where you want to get something done," he said.
"The blurring of those lines is a recipe for serious conflict," said Harshbarger, whose group favors overhauling campaign finance laws.
According to the New York Times, a few days before the November election, Powell spoke at Tufts University in Massachusetts as part of a series of speeches sponsored by billionaire businessman Issam Fares, who is Lebanon's deputy prime minister. Powell was paid his normal speaking fee of approximately $80,000.
Senators may want to ask Powell at his confirmation hearing whether the payment will affect his dealings as secretary of state with the Fares and the Lebanon government.
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