Bill Lee Has the Job--Sort of

President Clinton’s decision to appoint Bill Lann Lee as the nation’s acting top civil rights enforcer falls worrisomely short of putting the full authority of the job into the hands of the highly qualified veteran attorney. If Senate Republicans succeed in blocking a vote on the appointment, both Lee and the Justice Department’s civil rights division will be put in a weakened political position.

The president resorted to the less confrontational of two available courses to put Lee in the job in defiance of Senate Judiciary Committee Republicans who blocked his nomination. As acting civil rights chief, Lee can hold the job for the duration of Clinton’s term. The president promised to resubmit Lee’s nomination early next year and push for a formal confirmation vote. In the interim, Clinton leaves Lee vulnerable to congressional pressure and to GOP attack as a symbol of the administration’s support of affirmation action.

The more politically risky alternative would have been for the president to invoke his constitutional authority to make a recess appointment while Congress is out of session. Clinton backed off from that approach after Sen. Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah), the Judiciary Committee chairman, threatened “a slowdown on a lot of things” or further repercussions.

As a recess appointee, Lee could have served one year, through 1998, without confirmation. That alternative would have allowed the Los Angeles attorney to command more authority, and typically recess appointees, if they show they can do the job for the year, are subsequently confirmed. Supreme Court Justices William J. Brennan Jr. and Potter Stewart, for example, were both recess appointees.

Clinton has properly taken a stand for Lee, the first Asian American named to the civil rights post, but he has hobbled him by putting him on the job in an acting capacity.