THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, October 6, 1994 TAG: 9410060459
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A12 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY DALE EISMAN, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Short : 45 lines
Amid gentle jibes and nervous laughter, the Senate Armed Services Committee gave its endorsement Wednesday to President Clinton's nomination of former Illinois Sen. Alan J. Dixon to head the 1995 Base Realignment and Closure Commission.
The 67-year-old Democrat, a committee alumnus who served in the Senate from 1981 to 1993, said he plans no major changes in the operation of the commission. The panel will meet beginning in March to consider Pentagon proposals for closing excess bases across the country.
Dixon helped write the law creating the commission in the late 1980s. Congress established the panel after its own efforts to close bases became hopelessly bogged down in partisan wrangling.
While urging Dixon to be nonpartisan and praising the fairness of his Republican predecessor, former New Jersey Rep. Jim Courter, some senators weren't exactly subtle in voicing hope that the new chairman will look out for bases in their states.
Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., for example, suggested that before deciding on future base closures, Dixon and other commission members should consider which states have been hit hard by past commission decisions. Levin's state has been among the big losers in past rounds.
Others tried humor. ``Your popularity is going to skyrocket between now and March,'' Sen. William Cohen, R-Maine, told Dixon, ``and then go into a precipitous decline'' as the commission gets down to making its decisions.
Later, as the committee kept Dixon waiting while staffers rounded up enough members to permit a vote, Sen. Trent Lott, R-Miss., joked, ``I hope he remembers who's (already) here.''
With the committee's unanimous endorsement, a Senate floor vote on Dixon's appointment could come by week's end. Clinton is to fill out the eight-member panel by Jan. 3.
Dixon, a lawyer, has been practicing with a firm in St. Louis since losing his seat last year. He was upset in a 1992 Democratic primary by Carol Moseley-Braun, who went on to win the seat in the general election. by CNB