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“SUPPORT OF NOMINATION OF BILL LANN LEE” mentioning the U.S. Dept. of Justice was published in the Senate section on pages S11531-S11533 on Oct. 31, 1997.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
SUPPORT OF NOMINATION OF BILL LANN LEE
Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I have spoken many times on the floor about the nomination of Bill Lann Lee to be the Assistant Attorney General in charge of the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Justice.
Mr. Lee testified before the Judiciary Committee. It was really the culmination of the American dream. A son of Chinese immigrants who went from living at the family laundry upon his father returning from World War II and then on to achieving one of the highest academic records ever, and ends up dedicating his life to protecting the civil rights of all Americans. At a time when we are discussing what is happening regarding the lack of civil rights in the country of his forbears--what a marked contrast.
I am concerned when I hear some Members trying to stall or defeat his nomination. They have done it by mischaracterizing Mr. Lee and his record of practical problem solving.
Yesterday, my statement pointed out that the confirmation of this son of Chinese immigrants to be the principal Federal law enforcement official responsible for protecting the civil rights of all Americans would stand in sharp contrast to the human rights practices in China.
Some are obviously trying to stall or defeat this nomination by mischaracterizing Mr. Lee and his record of practical problem solving. Bill Lee testified that he regards quotas as illegal and wrong, but some would ignore his real record of achievement and our hearing if allowed to do so. I am confident that the vast majority of the Senate and the American people will see through the partisan rhetoric and support Bill Lee.
Bill Lee has dedicated his career to wide ranging work on civil rights issues. He has represented poor children who were being denied lead screening tests, women and people of color who were denied job opportunities and promotions, neighbors in a mixed income and mixed race community who strove to save their homes, and parents seeking a good education for their children. Mr. Lee has developed a broad array of supporters over the years, including the Republican mayor of Los Angeles, former opposing counsels, and numerous others who cross race, gender and political affiliation lines.
Senator D'Amato spoke eloquently of Mr. Lee's qualifications and background while introducing him last week. Senator Warner wrote to the White House in support of Mr. Lee's candidacy. Senators Moynihan, Inouye, Akaka, Feinstein, and Boxer supported Mr. Lee at his confirmation hearing last week and Representatives Mink, Beccera, Matsui, and Jackson-Lee all took the time to come to the hearings to show their commitment to this outstanding nominee.
To those who know him, Bill Lee is a person of integrity who is well known for resolving complex cases. He has been involved in approximately 200 cases in his 23 years of law practice, and he has settled all but 6 of them. Clearly, this is strong evidence that Mr. Lee is a problem solver and practical in his approach to the law. No one who has taken the time to thoroughly review his record could call him an idealogue.
Further evidence that Mr. Lee is the man for the job is contained in the editorials from some of our country's leading newspapers, including the Los Angeles Times, Boston Globe, Washington Post, and New York Times. I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record copies of those editorials and articles at the conclusion of my statement, and I also ask to be printed in the Record at the conclusion of my statement, a letter from the assistant city attorney from Los Angeles that corrects a misimpression that may have been created by a letter recently sent by Newt Gingrich.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
(See exhibit 1.)
As Robert Cramer's letter establishes, Mr. Lee neither sought to impose racial or gender quota nor employed dubious means in a case in which he, in fact, was not even active as counsel. Mr. Cramer, a 17-
year veteran attorney for the city of Los Angeles, concludes:
Bill Lann Lee and I have sat on opposite sides of the negotiating table over the course of several years. Although we have disagreed profoundly on many issues, I have throughout the time I have known him respected Bill's candor, his thorough preparation, his sense of ethical behavior, and his ability to bring persons holding diverse views into agreement. He would, in my view, be an outstanding public servant and a worthy addition to the Department of Justice.
When confirmed, Bill Lee will be the first Asian-American to hold such a senior position at the Department of Justice. I am sure that any fairminded review will yield the inescapable conclusion that no finer nominee could be found for this important post and that Bill Lee ought to be confirmed without delay. I look forward to the Judiciary Committee voting on this nomination next week and am hopeful that Mr. Lee will be confirmed before the Senate adjourns.
Exhibit 1 Fine Choice for U.S. Rights Post--L.A. Attorney Should be Confirmed by the Senate Without Delay
Los Angeles civil rights attorney Bill Lann Lee is a smart, pragmatic consensus builder who has proven himself in fighting discrimination based on race, national origin, gender, age or disability. He has the expertise, the experience and the temperament to head the Justice Department's civil rights division. This nomination should be a slam dunk for the Senate. Instead it has become a partisan referendum on President Clinton's continued support for some form of affirmative action.
If confirmed, Lee, the western regional counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, would become the first Asian American to manage the 250-lawyer division. He would be well positioned to broaden civil rights enforcement to accommodate the nation's multicultural dynamics.
Some Republicans are seizing on Lee's opposition to Proposition 209, the anti-affirmative action ballot measure approved last November by California voters. But what else might be expected from a veteran civil rights lawyer? And during his confirmation hearing he promised to abide by the law of the land, which awaits a Supreme Court ruling on the constitutionality of Proposition 209.
Nominees to the federal civil rights post do often run into political trouble. During the Reagan administration, a Democratic majority blocked the promotion of Bradford Reynolds, who opposed busing and other traditional civil rights remedies. A Bush nominee, William Lucas, was blocked on similar grounds. Clinton's first choice, Lani Guinier, hit a wall of GOP rejection. Later, Deval Patrick was confirmed; he resigned in January.
Conservatives should love Lee. The son of poor Chinese immigrants who owned a hand laundry in Harlem, Lee made it on merit. He graduated with high honors from Yale and Columbia University Law School and could have enriched himself in private practice. Instead, he has spent 23 years in civil rights law.
Even legal adversaries admire him. Mayor Richard Riordan, a Republican, was on the other side when the NAACP Legal Defense Fund accused the MTA of providing inferior service to poor, inner-city bus riders. Lee built a strong case, then negotiated a settlement that saved the city substantial legal fees while still achieving more equitable transportation in Southern California. Riordan praised Lee for ``practical leadership and expertise'' that eschewed divisive politics.
Bill Lee is well qualified to become assistant attorney general for civil rights and his nomination should be approved now.
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Justice for Bill Lann Lee
Bill Lann Lee is being unjustly booed. President Clinton wants Lee to be the next assistant attorney general in charge of the Justice Department's civil rights division, but critics are branding Lee an extremist.
Such name-calling is a waste. Lee, a 48-year-old Asian-American, isn't a subversive. He's western regional counsel for the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund. But that worries Clint Bolick. The director of litigation at the Institute for Justice, a conservative Washington public interest law firm, Bolick argues that Lee's organization doesn't reflect mainstream thinking on civil rights. And Senator Orrin Hatch has said he'll search to see whether Lee favors quotas.
The NAACP Legal Defense Fund isn't a fringe group. It's the organization that brought America Brown v. Board of Education, the 1954 Supreme Court ruling that outlawed segregation in the public schools.
As for Lee, even past legal opponents call him a pragmatic problem-solver. One example is a 1994 federal civil rights class-action suit against the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority. The suit charged that resources were unfairly distributed: The suburbs were overserved; the inner city was underserved. Lee focused on solving the transportation problem instead of punishing the transportation system. The resulting settlement will be worth an estimated $1 billion over 10 years to Los Angeles bus riders.
Lee's career is a crucial reminder that the country can't let the word ``quota'' scare it away from addressing racial injustice. He is part of the Legal Defense Fund's tradition of tackling important but unpopular issues, including environmental racism, police brutality, and housing. And ultimately, it isn't lawyers who create change, explains Theodore Shaw, associate director and counsel for the Defense Fund: they only create a window of opportunity in which change can happen--if communities follow through. As the Senate scrutinizes Lee, it ought to see the merits of his record, one of asking everyone--plaintiffs and defendants alike--to remedy injustice.
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The Lee Nomination
In July, the president nominated Bill Lann Lee, western regional counsel for the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, to be assistant attorney general for civil rights. The post had then been vacant for half a year. On Wednesday, Mr. Lee had his confirmation hearing. The nomination now should be approved.
The choice of Mr. Lee has drawn some limited opposition, as civil rights nominations by either party almost always seem to do these days. In this case, however, even opponents, some of them, have acknowledged that, from a professional standpoint, Mr. Lee is qualified. The issue is not his professional competence. The objection is rather to the views of civil rights that he shares with the president, and which, in the view of the critics, should disqualify him.
Mr. Lee's views appear to us to be well inside the bounds of accepted jurisprudence. He is an advocate of affirmative action, as you would expect of someone who has spent his entire professional career--23 years--as a civil rights litigator. The president has likewise generally been a defender of such policies against strong political pressures to the contrary. But Mr. Lee himself observed that the assistant attorney general takes an oath to uphold the law as set forth by the courts, and so he would. The range of discretion in a job such as this is almost always less than the surrounding rhetoric suggests.
Mr. Lee over his career has brought a considerable number of lawsuits in behalf of groups claiming they were discriminated against, and has sought and won resolutions aimed at making the groups whole, somehow defined. It is that kind of group resolution of such disputes that some people object to, on grounds that the whole object of the exercise should be to avoid labeling and treating people as members of racial and other such groups. There is surely some reason for the discomfort this group categorizing generates. But the courts themselves continue to uphold such actions in limited circumstances. And Mr. Lee has won a reputation for resolving such cases sensibly. Los Angeles's Republican Mayor Richard Riordan is one who supports the nomination. ``Mr. Lee first became known to me as opposing counsel in an important civil rights case concerning poor bus riders in Los Angeles,'' he has written. ``The work of my opponents rarely evokes my praises, but the negotiations could not have concluded successfully without Mr. Lee's practical leadership and expertise. . . . Mr. Lee has practiced mainstream civil rights law.''
There are lots of legitimate issues to be argued about in connection with civil rights law. Mr. Lee's nomination is not the right vehicle for resolving them. Senators, including some who no doubt disagree with some of his views, complain with cause about the continuing vacancies in high places at the Justice Department. This is one they should fill before they go home.
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A Chief for Civil Rights
The important post of Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights has been vacant for nearly a year, sending the wrong message about the nation's commitment to enforce anti-discrimination laws. President Clinton deserves much of the blame. After the last rights chief resigned, he waited seven months before nominating Bill Lann Lee in July. But the Senate, too, has been slow to move.
Mr. Lee, currently the Western Regional Counsel for the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund Inc., is a respected civil rights attorney whose efforts to reach practical solutions and build coalitions across racial and ethnic lines have earned praise even from his legal adversaries. He will bring a constructive and conciliatory voice to the national dialogue on race and affirmative action.
The opposition to Mr. Lee arises largely from resentment among various senators over the Administration's support for some affirmative action programs. There have also been attempts to portray Mr. Lee and the venerable civil rights organization for which he works as out of the civil rights
``mainstream.'' This is a gross misrepresentation.
Mr. Lee was enthusiastically introduced to the Senate Judiciary Committee last week by New York's Republican Senator, Alfonse D'Amato. With the Senate poised to adjourn in early November, the committee should move quickly to approve Mr. Lee when it meets tomorrow. A delay is likely to kill his confirmation chances until next year.
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Office of the City Attorney,
Los Angeles, CA, October 29, 1997.Hon. Trent Lott,Senate Majority Leader, S-230, The Capitol, Washington, DC.Re. Bill Lann Lee Confirmation.
Dear Mr. Majority Leader: As an Assistant City Attorney for the City of Los Angeles--and opposing counsel to Bill Lann Lee in recent federal civil rights litigation--I read with concern the October 27 letter to you from the Speaker of the House of Representatives. I believe the Speaker has been misinformed about many of the facts set out in that letter, and therefore the conclusions he reaches about Mr. Lee's fitness for public office, and in particular for the position of Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights, are unwarranted.
The Speaker's letter begins by asserting that Mr. Lee
``attempted to force through a consent decree mandating racial and gender preferences in the Los Angeles Police Department.'' This assertion is erroneous. In the course of representing the City of Los Angeles, I have for the past seventeen years monitored the City's compliance with consent decrees affecting the hiring, promotion, advancement, and assignment of sworn police officers. I have negotiated on the City's behalf two of those decrees. Of those two, Mr. Lee was opposing counsel on the first, and was associated with opposing counsel on the second. None of these decrees mandates the use of racial or gender preferences. In fact, each of them contains provisions forbidding the use of such preferences.
For the same reasons, the Speaker's statement that the use of racial and gender preferences ``would have been a back-door thwarting of the will of the people of California with regard to Proposition 209 (the California Civil Rights Initiative)'' is inapposite. Because the decrees with which Mr. Lee was associated do not call for racial or gender preferences, and in fact forbid them, these decrees do not violate the requirements or the intent of Proposition 209.
Of particular concern to me is the Speaker's reference to
``the allegation that Mr. Lee apparently employed dubious means to try to circumscribe the will of the judge in the case.'' This allegation is wholly untrue. The case being referred to is presently in litigation in the district court. Mr. Lee was not at any time a named counsel in the case, but was associated with opposing counsel because of his involvement in the negotiation of a related consent decree. Neither Mr. Lee nor any opposing counsel attempted in any fashion to thwart the will of the judge supervising the litigation. The matter had been referred by the court to a magistrate judge appointed by the court to assist in the resolution of the case. Each counsel had advised the district judge at all points about the progress of the matter. Upon reconsideration, the district judge elected to assert direct control over the litigation. Nothing in Mr. Lee's conduct reflected any violation of the court's rules, either in fact or by appearance.
Bill Lann Lee and I have sat on opposite sides of the negotiating table over the course of several years. Although we have disagreed profoundly on many issues, I have throughout the time I have known him respected Bill's candor, his thorough preparation, his sense of ethical behavior, and his ability to bring persons holding diverse views into agreement. He would, in my view, be an outstanding public servant and a worthy addition to the Department of Justice.
Very truly yours,
Robert Cramer,
Assistant City Attorney.
Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
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