Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, May 18, 1990 TAG: 9005180713
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-2 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: The Baltimore Sun
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Medium
The president told a White House Rose Garden audience, at a ceremony honoring the newly reorganized U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, that "I want to sign a civil rights bill, but I will not sign a quota bill."
Bush was referring to the concept of setting minority quotas in hiring as a means of ending racial discrimination in employment.
However, the president indicated a readiness to compromise on the civil rights bill if the quota issue can be resolved. "I think we can work it out," he said.
An hour later, Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., one of the chief sponsors of the bill now being considered by Congress, joined by Sen. John Danforth, R-Mo., one of Bush's main conservative supporters in Congress, announced at a press conference that they had fashioned a compromise amendment aimed at removing from the civil rights bill any hint of quotas.
"We are now convinced that quotas will not be the unintended result of this bill," Danforth said.
Danforth illustrated his own conviction by joining with five other senators, including Sen. John Heinz, R-Pa., as new sponsors of the bill. It now has 47 sponsors in the 100-member Senate, Danforth said, adding, "There are several others who are very close, and I think there are others who will be coming on board."
Later in the day, however, Alixe Glen, White House deputy spokesman, called the compromise effort "a step in the right direction," but added that the proposed changes "do not eliminate our concerns that the bill would lead employers to adopt quotas in order to avoid burdensome litigation."
Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, the top Republican on Kennedy's Labor and Human Resources Committee, rejected the compromise effort.
The Bush administration, he added, was "too smart to be taken in by this new language."
by CNB