ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Friday, January 31, 1997 TAG: 9701310050
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-6 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: WASHINGTON
SOURCE: Cox News Service
The Senate leadership put Alexis Herman's nomination as labor secretary on indefinite hold Thursday as the Clinton administration scrambled to allay concerns about her political involvement while she worked at the White House.
Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, R-Miss., said that lawmakers must first investigate Herman's activities as President Clinton's director of ``public liaison'' to determine whether she improperly mixed politics with her work.
That will delay, probably until at least late February, confirmation hearings on Herman, who increasingly has become caught in the campaign fund-raising imbroglio.
Herman, a longtime Democratic activist and former senior party official, has been tied to some of the 103 White House coffees in which Clinton sat down with small groups, including many major donors to the Democratic causes. Total campaign giving by the coffee-klatchers has been estimated at $27 million.
The White House has conceded that Herman's office was responsible for the most controversial of those ``coffees,'' a May 1996 session in which a top banking regulator met with 17 executives of top banks and Democratic National Committee officials.
Clinton on Tuesday admitted that it was inappropriate to bring the banking regulator, Comptroller of the Currency Eugene Ludwig, to a political session with bankers.
Herman's office had invited Ludwig without informing him that the meeting was a political one, said White House spokesman Joe Lockhart, who said that because of a ``miscommunication,'' Herman's coworkers did not realize it was a Democratic Party event.
When Herman herself discovered that the event would be a political one, she didn't attend, Lockhart said. ``I think she thought, `The political people are handling this.' ''
Lockhart added that Herman had attended about six of the political coffees during 1996, but that her office had made arrangements only for the gathering of bankers.
A letter sent Thursday to Senate Labor and Human Resources Chairman James Jeffords, R-Vt., also aimed at playing down her role.
``Ms. Herman had a very limited involvement with these coffees,'' White House staff secretary Todd Stern wrote. ``As a White House employee, her attendance was consistent with the Hatch Act'' that limits political participation by federal employees.
LENGTH: Medium: 52 linesby CNB