Critical GAO Report Sparks Squabble at House Hearing : Rights Panel Renews Clash Over Audit

WASHINGTON —  Members of the U.S. Civil Rights Commission, increasingly noted more for their raucous debate than for discussion of issues, took their squabbling on the road Tuesday, clashing during congressional testimony over a government audit that harshly criticizes the agency’s operations.

Summoned by the House Judiciary subcommittee on civil and constitutional rights to testify on the General Accounting Office report, four of the eight commissioners, including controversial Chairman Clarence M. Pendleton Jr., responded.

Their appearance was a virtual replay of commission meetings during which personal attacks and harangues over procedural matters often predominate.

Weeks of Debate

For several weeks the audit has been the subject of debate by the commission, with its conservatives complaining that the panel was not allowed to include its response in the report. During the hearing, those complaints continued. The conservatives also complained that the commission director, J. Al Latham Jr., was not allowed to testify at the hearing. Thus, the substance of the report was forced into a back seat.

At issue are details of “irregularities” in commission hiring, questionable travel, poor record keeping and a failure to account for $175,000 in the commission budget. The report portrays the commission as shoddily run, and it notes that Pendleton, who lobbies and travels extensively, last year billed the commission for $67,344, making a traditionally part-time post virtually a full-time job.

As at commission meetings, a liberal-conservative split was evident at the hearing. The three conservative commissioners who testified--Pendleton, Morris B. Abram and Robert A. Destro--dismissed the GAO report as “partisan” because it was requested by California Rep. Don Edwards (D-San Jose), the subcommittee chairman, and three other Democrats.

“Unfair, inaccurate and incomplete” is how Pendleton described the report.

Called an ‘Inquisition’

It was an “inquisition” that contained “unending innuendoes” but failed to prove that any law was broken, said Abram. “The real issues here are individual rights versus group rights, colorblindness versus color-preference and the struggle between the fair-shakers . . . and the social engineers,” he said.

But Mary Frances Berry, one of two liberal holdovers on the reconstituted commission, speaking for herself and Blandina Cardenas Ramirez, hailed the GAO report, asserting that the commission was “engorged with political appointees” and urged Congress to give the commission “less flexibility” in spending money.