US-POLITICS: Bizarre Battle Over Mexican Appointment

By Jim Lobe Reprint | | Print |

Jim Lobe

WASHINGTON, Sep 12 1997 (IPS) - In one of the most bizarre confirmation battles in memory, the ultra-rightwing chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Friday refused to grant a hearing to William Weld, the Presidential choice to be next U.S. ambassador to Mexico.

After two months of media hype, the fight over President Bill Clinton’s nomination of Weld, a moderate Republican and former Governor of Massachusetts, moved into the Senate with all sides vowing to hold firm.

During a short meeting of the Foreign Relations Committee, which is supposed to vet all ambassadorial appointments, the Republican Chairman Jesse Helms insisted that he had the power to deny Weld a hearing. Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott backed him up and called on Clinton to withdraw the nomination.

Lott, another righ-wing Republican, said the nomination battle had become a “political charade.” but Weld and his supporters refused to back off.

They said they would continue to press Lott, who has the power to bypass Helms’ committee and take the nomination directly to the Senate floor for consideration.

“Who do you think would be more likely to yield to national pressure? Helms or Lott?” asked the ranking Democrat on the committee, Sen. Joseph Biden.

Clinton, said Weld, who has presidential ambitions of his own, was chosen “in a spirit of bipartisanship,” and he demanded that his nominee be given a hearing.

“After all, a majority of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee (and) a majority of the United States Senate want him to have a hearing,” Clinton said. “All I have asked is for a fair hearing and an up-and-down vote on a man I believe to be highly qualified,”

What began as a Washington summer distraction has suddenly seized centre-stage, and most analysts believe its outcome will now have to be decided at the highest political level – between Clinton and Lott.

At stake is not only whether Weld will become Washington’s next ambassador in Mexico City. The outcome will have an impact on Helms’ power to influence foreign policy and, according to some analysts, on the future direction of the Republican Party.

“The Helms-Weld face-off has become a fight over two distinctly different visions of the Republican Party: outward- looking, international and pro-trade – the Weld view – or inward- looking, isolationist and protectionist,” the Journal of Commerce observed recently.

Indeed, Weld’s champion in the battle for his nomination is Sen. Richard Lugar, a protege of former President Richard Nixon who is the second-ranking Republican on the Foreign Relations Committee and perennial thorn in the chairman’s side.

When Helms first vowed to block Weld’s appointment, the administration appeared ready to drop the matter and offer Weld another post. It was Lugar, already upset with Clinton for refusing to challenge Helms on payment of U.S. arrears to the United Nations, who intervened to save the nomination.

In a rare breach of the senatorial courtesy, Lugar publicly accused Helms of being “dictatorial” and launched an effort to get a majority of committee members to force a hearing. He also indicated that, as chairman of the Senate Agriculture Committee, he was prepared to take similar high-handed action against tobacco interests. Helms’ North Carolina is the largest tobacco producer in the United States.

His action was cheered by other internationalists who have been deeply disappointed by Clinton’s eagerness to appease the Helms.

“The skirmish over Weld is …part of what may develop into the finest moment in a distinguished career on Capitol Hill,” wrote a Washington Post columnist. ‘The Helms fight is only one point of attack in a broad campaign by Lugar to defend an embattled internationalist agenda within his party and the U.S. Senate.”

With solid Democratic support, Lugar successfully persuaded one other committee Republican to join his quest for a hearing, giving the pro-Weld side a majority on Helms’ committee. Under Senate rules, a majority of committee members can demand that the chairman hold a “special meeting.”

That meeting was held Friday. But Helms, acting as chairman, refused to discuss the Weld nomination. “Rule 3 authorises Sen. Lugar and his supporters to request a meeting, but (it) does not provide that they can place any further restrictions on the agenda,” he said, quickly banging his gavel when his foes tried to address the topic.

He also complained bitterly about media accounts which depicted his refusal to hold a hearing for Weld as unprecedented. “Anybody who knows anything about the Senate knows that nothing could be further from the truth,” said Helms, presenting a list of 154 presidential nominations on which committee chairmen had refused to act.

Biden, the ranking member of the committee, demurred. Technically, he said, Helms was right on procedures, but, he added, “I’m unaware of any (case) where a clear majority of a committee wanted to have a hearing where the chairman has said, ‘No, there will be no hearing’.”

He also argued that the the U.S. constitution requires the Senate to give its “advice and consent” to ambassadorial nominations. If Helms was able to quash the nomination, he said, “we are denying our colleagues …a chance to exercise (their) constitutional responsibility.”

Helms says he opposes Weld’s nomination because of his support for the use of marijuana for medicinal purposes and his alleged failures as a U.S. attorney in the 1980’s vigorously prosecute trafficking cases. “Sending Mr. Weld to Mexico at this critical juncture….would send the wrong message to Mexico about our seriousness on the drug issues,” he wrote Clinton earlier this month.

Weld, however, remained unrepentant. Insisting that he should be given a chance to explain his views on drugs and other issues, he said that Helms’ refusal to bow to a majority of the committee was “not the American way.”

Noting “thrilling” events in Mexico in “the development of participatory democratic institutions right now,” Weld said, “it would send the worst possible message to them if we, as a nation, said ‘We encourage you to have participatory democratic institutions, but we don’t need them in the United States.”