Bush Appointee Denied Seat on Civil Rights Commission
Feature Story by Celeste Berry - 2/15/2002
US District Court Judge Gladys Kessler rejected the Bush administration's first appointee to the US Commission of Civil Rights, stating that nominee Peter Kirsanow had no place in the commission.Kirsanow was slated to replace agency member Victoria Wilson when her letter of commission expired on Nov. 29, 2001. However, Wilson, who was appointed in 2000 by the Clinton administration after the death of commissioner Leon Higginbotham, challenged that she was entitled to serve the commission's standard full six-year term, rather than simply the remaining two years of Higginbotham's term.
In her decision, Judge Kessler supported Wilson's claim, and denied Kirsanow a spot on the commission. Bush and the Justice Department immediately promised to appeal the decision, signaling that the struggle over a $9 million federal agency that investigates complaints and issues reports, but has no enforcement powers, will continue.
The partisan struggle between the mainly liberal USCCR and the conservative White House had been closely followed by both the left and the right of the political spectrum, for both sides knew that the winner would have the power to decide the future direction of the agency.
With Wilson, the eight-member commission has a 5-3 tilt toward progressive policy that favors its chairwoman, Mary Frances Berry. Kirsanow's appointment would have created a 4-4 split. Chairwoman Berry worried that with the even split, Conservatives would have had the leverage they needed to change the USCCR from its present role of an investigator of civil rights abuses into more of an academic data-collection agency.
The Bush administration, while stating that the goal to update the agency's role was important, held that they were most disappointed with Judge Kessler's decision because the ruling "[allowed] political gamesmanship to occur on what should be a bipartisan independent commission," according to a statement released by Justice Department spokesman Charles Miller
Judge Kessler argued that her ruling was not based on partisanship but on the "plain language" of the 1994 Civil Rights Act, which states, "the term of each [commission] member shall be six years." While a 1983 version of the law had provided for interim and temporary appointments, Kessler stated that the House Judiciary Committee decision to strike that language from the 1994 statute signaled that those provisions no longer existed.
Berry, who refused to recognize Kirsanow when he tried to join a commission meeting, stating the White House was attempting to interfere with the commission's independence, said she was delighted by the decision.
"The court has upheld the independence of the commission," she said. "That is the issue -- Mr. Kirsanow is only incidental. The White House and the Justice Department are not going to start telling us what to do."
