Democrat Rights Bill Passes House : Congress: Bush has threatened a veto but the margin of victory is 15 votes short of assuring an override. The measure goes to the Senate, where compromise is sought.

WASHINGTON —  Defying President Bush, the House Wednesday approved a hotly disputed civil rights bill and sent it to the Senate, where hopes were raised for a compromise that would satisfy both the Administration and Democratic congressional leaders.

The margin of victory in the House--273 to 158--fell 15 votes short of the two-thirds majority that House Democratic leaders had sought to signal that they can override a veto threatened by the President. The measure is designed primarily to overturn a series of 1989 Supreme Court decisions that narrowed the scope of laws against job discrimination. But it also would allow limited damage awards in cases of intentional discrimination against women, the disabled and members of religious groups. Bush, whose alternative was rejected by the House Tuesday, opposes the measure passed Wednesday as being a “quota bill.”

Despite a series of concessions aimed at wooing wavering Democrats and moderate Republicans, proponents managed only one more vote than on a similar measure last fall. A total of 250 Democrats, 22 Republicans and 1 independent voted for the House bill Wednesday while 143 Republicans and 15 Democrats voted against it.

“The 273-158 vote indicates strong support for sustaining a presidential veto,” White House Press Secretary Marlin Fitzwater said.

Speaker Thomas S. Foley (D-Wash.), while disappointed by the vote, looked to the Senate in hopes that a modified bill would emerge, one that would attract enough additional support in the House to get a veto-proof majority or to persuade the President to sign it.

“This is only the first quarter,” Foley told reporters.

Even the usually combative House Minority Whip Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) called for bipartisan negotiations to produce legislation that both sides could accept and that would avoid a veto.

Bush, who branded the bill as one that would result in hiring by racial percentages, despite its explicit ban on quotas, said through a spokesman that he still hopes to sign a measure this year that contains tougher curbs against job discrimination.

In the Senate, where action on civil rights is expected to begin quickly, Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) called for an end to partisan sharpshooting and a new effort to find common ground.

“The distance between us is actually much less than the overheated rhetoric of this debate would suggest,” Kennedy said. He praised a move by a group of nine moderate Republican senators, led by Sen. John C. Danforth (R-Mo.), to present a compromise plan on civil rights.

“His (Danforth’s) proposals are constructive and many of their features deserve serious consideration,” Kennedy said. “Other provisions, however, fall short of providing the full protection against job discrimination that all working Americans deserve.”

As chairman of the Senate Labor and Education Committee, Kennedy will play a key role in any Senate compromise on the civil rights bill.

Sen. Warren B. Rudman (R-N.H.), who voted to sustain the President’s veto of last year’s civil right bill but is now allied with the Danforth group, also is expected to be a major participant in backstage discussions.

Bush’s own civil rights package was rejected by the House Tuesday on a 266-162 vote. It would have overturned one high court ruling and modified others, but advocates of the bill favored by the House Democratic leaders said that it did too little to restore protections against job bias.

The President also proposed a new remedy for victims of on-the-job harassment. It would have allowed courts to issue injunctions against such conduct and allowed judges to award up to $150,000 in damages to punish it.

A limit on damage awards has emerged as a likely element of Senate legislation because of the controversy in House debate over whether to put a cap on the amount of money that juries could award in cases of deliberate discrimination against women, the disabled and religious minorities. Racial minorities already can recover unlimited damages in such cases.

The House bill provides a cap of $150,000 in punitive damages, or the actual amount of compensatory damages, whichever is higher. Opponents claimed that this is a phony cap that is likely to lead to bigger damage awards, endless litigation and crushing burdens for smaller companies.

Danforth’s group of nine GOP moderates has proposed a much lower ceiling of $50,000 for damage awards from companies with fewer than 100 employees and a cap of $150,000 on other employers. These proposals are likely to run into opposition from civil rights groups, however, and could be modified in discussions with Democrats.

The thorniest issue for the Senate talks may be remedies for unintentional discrimination, or job practices that are neutral on the surface but have a lop-sided impact by excluding opportunities for women and minorities.

The Supreme Court ruled unanimously in 1971 that employers must justify challenged hiring or promotion systems by showing their relationship to actual job performance, if they resulted in a “disparate impact” on minority or female applicants.

In 1989, however, the high court virtually overturned that decision by placing a greater burden of proof on employees challenging job practices and making it easier for businesses to defend themselves in such cases.

The House bill attempts to restore the 1971 decision, but opponents claim that this would force employers to resort to racial quotas to comply with the law. In response, advocates included a provision outlawing quotas and allowing any victims of reverse discrimination to sue employers who use quotas.

Because of the complexity of the issues, much of the debate in the House involved ringing appeals to uphold the civil rights tradition, or dire warnings that the measure would force companies into bankruptcy and destroy jobs rather than remove barriers for women and racial minorities.

“We must not ever allow the clock to be turned back on race relations in this country,” House Majority Leader Richard A. Gephardt (D-Mo.) said in closing the debate for proponents of the bill.

“This bill codifies racial preferences . . . a quantum leap back from Martin Luther King’s dream,” said Rep. Henry J. Hyde (R-Ill.), a leader of the opposition.