While a number of Bush's nominations have been met with bipartisan support, others have come under fire from liberal wings of the Democratic Party and officials of the AFL-CIO, as well as organizations such as the National Organization for Women, Mexican-American Legal Defense Fund, and NAACP. Most of the fire so far has focused on former Missouri senator John Ashcroft, nominated to head the Justice Department as attorney general; Linda Chavez, Bush's first nominee for labor secretary; and Gale Norton, proposed as secretary of the interior.

Many working people sense these nominations signal further assaults on hard-won rights--many gained through massive struggles--that have been the focus of a bipartisan offensive under successive Democratic and Republican party administrations.

Other nominations, including Donald Rumsfeld for defense secretary, and New Jersey governor Christine Whitman as the top official at the Environmental Protection Agency, have received broader bipartisan backing in Congress.

Following the December 12 ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court--a decision that ended Democrat Albert Gore's quest to reverse Bush's electoral victory by changing the official vote tally in Florida in his favor--there was a brief interregnum featuring a display of bipartisanship. Key figures in both parties made statements recognizing the legitimacy of Bush as president-elect, encouraged by a low-key and conciliatory statement by Bush following Gore's concession speech. The first appointments Bush made, such as that of Colin Powell as secretary of state, were not controversial among capitalist politicians.

Then Bush proceeded to nominate key cabinet officers, with conservatives in several important posts whose records on a number of social questions have sparked controversy.

Chavez, who has campaigned against affirmative action, the Family and Medical Leave Act, and raising the minimum wage, quickly withdrew her name after opponents of her nomination highlighted the fact that she had failed to disclose to Bush and the FBI that she housed for two years Marta Mercado, an immigrant from Guatemala who did not have papers at the time. Chavez insisted the relationship was one of charitable aid, not employment, although Mercado admittedly did housework and received spending money from Chavez.

Bush then nominated Elaine Chao, a less controversial big-business politician, who won the backing of Morton Bahr, president of the Communications Workers of America.  
 
Controversy around Ashcroft
Ashcroft opposes a woman's right to abortion and affirmative action, tried to block court-ordered desegregation plans as attorney general in Missouri, and has held up leaders of the Confederacy as examples to emulate. His record of attacks on the rights of oppressed nationalities has earned him strong opposition from civil rights organizations.

During nomination hearings, Democratic senators questioned whether Ashcroft would help precipitate a frontal assault on abortion rights and school desegregation, concerned about the political repercussions of such moves, which would be met with widespread opposition among working people.

Judiciary Committee chairman Patrick Leahy, Democrat from Vermont, asked Ashcroft "whether he would ask the Supreme Court to overturn Roe v. Wade or to impose more burdensome restrictions on a woman's ability to secure safe and legal contraceptives." Roe v. Wade is the 1973 Supreme Court ruling that decriminalized abortion.

Senator Charles Schumer of New York said Ashcroft "sued nurses who dispensed contraception and continued litigating against them for years despite being told by every court you came before that you were wrong. You sued the National Organization for Women under the antitrust laws to muzzle their attempt to pass the Equal Rights Amendment.... When you have been such a zealous and impassioned advocate for so long," he asked Ashcroft, "how do you just turn it off?"

The nominee for attorney general acknowledged his opposition to the right to abortion but said he accepted the Supreme Court ruling "as the settled law of the land." Court rulings on abortion rights "have been multiple, they have been recent, and they have been emphatic," he said.

Some questions, around which there has been substantial bipartisan agreement, such as the death penalty, attacks on the rights of working people who are immigrants, the gutting of welfare, the erosion of access to abortion for working women around the country, and the growing resegregation of housing and schools, were not raised at the hearing.

Senate Republican leader Trent Lott of Mississippi, referring to Robert Bork, a Reagan nominee turned down for the U.S. Supreme Court because of his staunch opposition to abortion rights and his racist record, told reporters that a "concerted effort to 'bork' John Ashcroft would not be well received. And I do not believe his Democratic Senate colleagues would be inclined to do that. It would really sour a major opportunity that we have here now to work together for a positive agenda."

Gale Norton is currently affiliated with groups that have three lawsuits against the Interior Department, which she is to head. She first started working with James Watt, Interior Secretary under Ronald Reagan, at the Mountain States Legal Foundation. The foundation is funded by the Coors brewing family, a notoriously antiunion operation. Norton opposes the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act and the Endangered Species Act, and supports a "self-audit" law in Colorado that allows companies to monitor themselves on environmental regulations.

As Colorado's attorney general she refused to defend the state against a lawsuit challenging affirmative action preferences in awarding highway contracts.

The Interior Secretary nominee is also a lobbyist for NL Industries, formerly known as the National Lead Company, a major producer of lead-based paints. The company is a defendant in numerous suits regarding toxic waste sites and by people with severe health problems resulting from ingesting paint chips in homes, schools, hospitals, and other public areas.

The NAACP came out against Norton in light of her comments that she regretted the diminishing of "states' rights" because of the defeat of the Confederacy in the Civil War, and her opposition to affirmative action measures in Colorado.  
 
Clinton as 'partisan provocateur'
The factional heat between liberal wings of the Democrats and more conservative sections of Republicans continued in another form as well, with outgoing president William Clinton breaking decades of tradition by announcing he will continue to have a residence in the nation's capital, along with Hillary Rodham Clinton, who was elected to the U.S. Senate from New York. The Washington Post wrote January 12 that "President Bill Clinton gave a glimpse this week of one of the roles he is likely to play once he cedes the White House to his successor: that of partisan provocateur."

The article reported on a Democratic Party fund-raiser where Clinton praised Gore's campaign chairman William Daley for "leading Vice President Gore to victory." The president added, "By the time it was over, our candidate had won the popular vote, and the only way they could win the election was to stop the voting in Florida." White House chief of staff John Podesta later told reporters that Clinton was not questioning Bush's legitimacy. "We accept the rule of law," he said. "He was just expressing what a lot of people in that room felt."

Bush angrily responded that Clinton "can say what he wants to say, but January the 20th I'll be honored to be sworn in as president." His press secretary, Ari Fleischer, added that there is a tradition "of presidents leaving office with respect for their successors. I'm certain that President Clinton will want to follow that."

Responding to the attacks on the Ashcroft nomination, Fleischer said his opponents were "escalating ideological division." Referring to material prepared by Ashcroft's opponent in the Senate race, Fleischer complained, "Items like that represent a further coarsening of the dialogue and the tone in Washington."

Testimony by proposed defense secretary Rumsfeld centered on what steps Washington should take to build an antimissile system, U.S. policy toward China and north Korea, and support for a substantial increase in military spending by the world's dominant imperialist power.

Rumsfeld chaired a committee that issued a report in 1998 on supposed ballistic missile threats from nations such as north Korea and Iraq. The "findings" were used by the Clinton administration to gear up funding and deployment of a missile "defense" system for the United States and its armed forces.

Portrayed as a defensive weapon, the antimissile system could give Washington a nuclear first-strike capacity against workers states such as China. Such a system, Rumsfeld said, would "work without being fired. They alter behavior" of other governments and "persuade people that they're not going to be able to blackmail and intimidate the United States and its friends and allies." He called the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, which prohibits such weapons, "ancient history."

On China, Rumsfeld said the U.S. government "can't engage in self-delusion. They are not strategic partners in my view." He warned that the Chinese government is, as the New York Times put it, "bent on challenging American influence in Asia." The Times said he described the government of north Korea "as a dictatorship more interested in selling missiles than feeding its people."

Rumsfeld called for a significant increase in U.S. military spending over the coming years "for dissuading the threats of the new century and for maintaining stability in our new national security environment."

Bush called for a $45 billion increase over 10 years during the election campaign; Gore advocated twice that amount. The same day that Rumsfeld addressed the Senate confirmation hearing, outgoing defense secretary William Cohen was promoting the Clinton administration's budget for the Pentagon, which includes increases of $50 billion over six years. Rumsfeld said even more funds are needed.
 
 
Related article:
Workers' gains decided in struggle  
 
 
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