
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: TUESDAY, August 9, 1994                   TAG: 9408090096
SECTION: NATL/INTL                    PAGE: A-3   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                 LENGTH: Medium

DEMOCRATS: NEW COUNSEL TOO PARTISAN

House Speaker Thomas Foley led a Democratic chorus Monday suggesting Kenneth Starr is too partisan to take over as Whitewater independent counsel, citing his Republican political activities during the last 18 months.

Democratic allies also questioned the process by which the former Reagan and Bush administration official was named to replace Robert Fiske, though the White House appeared bitterly resigned to Starr's appointment.

``It looks like a setup,'' said Democratic Sen. Howard Metzenbaum of Ohio, suggesting the judges who named Starr had given in to criticism of Fiske by conservative Clinton critics.

Particularly galling to Democrats are Starr's activities in Republican politics since he left the federal government with the turnover in administrations in January 1993.

While serving in the Reagan Justice Department, then as a federal appeals judge and as President Bush's solicitor general, Starr was barred from partisan political activities. But he was active in Virginia GOP affairs in the late 1970s and has resumed that activity since leaving the government.

In the past 18 months, Starr considered but ultimately decided against seeking the GOP Senate nomination in Virginia. He gave $1,000 to former Reagan budget director Jim Miller, who lost the nomination to Oliver North.

Federal Election Commission records show Starr has contributed an additional $4,475 to GOP candidates in the past year and $3,500 to his law firm's political action committee.

In one irony for the White House, Starr's political activities include serving as co-chairman of a Virginia congressional campaign alongside Jay Stephens, a former Republican prosecutor and Clinton critic whose hiring to help with the Whitewater probe infuriated the White House.

Among the congressional candidates who have gotten money from Starr is Kyle McSlarrow, the GOP nominee against Virginia Democratic Rep. Jim Moran. Starr is listed as a co-chairman of the McSlarrow campaign, along with Stephens and former Reagan and Bush administration attorneys general Edwin Meese and William Barr.

by CNB