Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, July 16, 1993 TAG: 9307160215
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Knight-Ridder/Tribune
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Medium
A scheduled Senate confirmation hearing was delayed for a week at the request of Republicans late Thursday.
Earlier in the day, the White House said it was checking the propriety of federal consultant fees paid to Elders while she remained on the Arkansas payroll as state health director.
It also was revealed that Elders' husband failed to make Social Security and tax payments for a nurse hired to care for his elderly mother.
Arkansas officials said Elders has broken no laws, and the White House said the president continues to strongly support his choice.
Elders has drawn fire from conservative critics for her advocacy of Elders sex education, school-based clinics and abortion rights.
Andrea Sheldon, spokeswoman for the Traditional Values Coalition, a Washington-based group opposed to abortion that adamantly has opposed Elders, said the revelations have Elders' supporters "scrambling. They thought they had this pristine, clean person."
"We knew this all along, but we were waiting for the appropriate time to bring it up," Sheldon said.
Federal officials of the Department of Health and Human Services, where Elders has been working as a consultant part-time since April and full-time since July 5, said the nominee has been working there on her vacation time.
"It is a very common practice," said Victor Vonana, a spokesman for HHS. "Everybody at subcabinet level takes a temporary assignment before they are confirmed."
However, Arkansas Gov. Jim Guy Tucker said, "I didn't know about this, didn't approve of this and wouldn't have approved of this."
Arkansas's chief fiscal officer Jim Pledger said he saw no violations of state law.
"We do not have a state policy or law that would say you could not hold another job," Pledger said, although some exceptions might apply if a conflict of interest existed.
Elders was entitled to 30 days of vacation per year in her Arkansas job, plus some extra hours per month, which federal officials said she was spending in Washington. She was paid $550 per day for her consulting work, plus $135 a day for expenses, officials said.
In the Social Security matter, The Associated Press reported that Elders' husband admitted Wednesday night that he did not pay Social Security or income taxes for a nurse he hired to care for his 97-year-old mother. Oliver Elders said his wife was not responsible for handling his mother's affairs.
"I should have paid them, I didn't pay them and [I'm] going to," he said.
by CNB