Bush Makes New Labor Pick
President-elect Bush has settled on a new pick for labor secretary - and his choice for U.S. trade representative.
In a news conference in Washington on Thursday afternoon, Mr. Bush nominated Elaine Chao, former Peace Corps director and the wife of Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), to head the Labor Department.
And the president-elect chose Robert Zoellick, who served in previous Republican administrations at the State and Treasury departments, to be U.S. trade representative.
Mr. Bush's first pick for the labor post, Linda Chavez, withdrew Tuesday in the face of disclosures that she provided shelter and financial support to an illegal immigrant who did household chores for her.
The president-elect said he expects tough questioning when his Cabinet nominees appear before Senate hearings, and he also expects them all to be confirmed.
"I never expected our nominees to sail through without harsh questioning," said Mr. Bush, before flying back to Texas one last time to prepare for his inauguration at the Capitol a week from Saturday.
As the new labor secretary nominee, Chao told reporters she would work to "protect, nurture and develop America's most precious resource," its working men and women.
Trade rep designee Zoellick promised to work closely with Congress, "both sides of the aisle, from day one," to promote the free trade policies Bush supports.
Chao served as deputy transportation secretary under Samuel Skinner at the beginning of the administration of Mr. Bush's father - and was tapped to run the Peace Corps in 1991.
"She seems like a much safer choice than some new quantity would have been - and in her past jobs, her demeanor has been quite professional and not someone who is an out and out ideologue," said CBS News Political Director Dotty Lynch.
"Chao, however, is (a fellow) at the Heritage Foundation - a conservative think tank - and her husband Mitch McConnell is certainly a stalwart of the conservative part of the United States Senate, but she is not a bomb thrower by any means," Lynch added.
At the same time, Lynch noted that McConnell "has been in forefront of trying to stop labor unions contributing so much money to campaigns, so whether this will send a signal to the unions that they someone in there who will try to stop their clout politically if not on policy will be interesting to watch in the next couple of days.
The president-elect said "yes" when asked whether he had expected some of his nominees would have trouble over confirmation. He said he wasn't surprised at the opposition to Attorney General-designate John Ashcroft, a staunch conservative, and that he is confident the Senate will approve him in the end.
Mr. Bush was asked whether a 1996 speech by Gail Norton, his nominee for secretary of the interior, lamenting the undermining of states' rights after the Civil War, might indicate a retreat from minority rights now.
"I'd sy that just is a ridiculous interpretation," he said. He said special interests in Washington "like to tear people down," and the criticism of Norton is an example.
As for the environmental critics who oppose her because she advocates oil and gas exploration in the Alaska National Wildlife Reserve, Mr. Bush said, "it shouldn't surprise people that I pick people who share a philosophy with me."
Mr. Bush said the same applies to the Ashcroft nomination. To Democrats who say the Ashcroft hearings will be divisively hostile, the president-elect said it will be up to the Senate questioners to decide "how civil" the proceedings will be. He said the answers will be delivered with dignity.
"I expected at least one member of my Cabinet to get a pretty tough hearing," Mr. Bush said. "... I've never known a Senate just to say, `Gosh this is just a wonderful selection and we'll let them all sail through.'"
And Mr. Bush was asked his reaction to President Clinton's remark in a Chicago speech that he won the White House because the Republicans stopped the vote counting in Florida.
"I won the recount, I think, three or four times," Bush said. "... When they counted the ballots in the state of Florida, I won, and he can say what he wants to say."
As for Mr. Bush's new nominees, Chao was on his short list to be transportation secretary, but lost out to Norman Mineta, a Democrat who heads the Commerce Department. After leaving government, she took the reins of the United Way of America from 1992 until 1996. Betty Beene, the organization's current president, says Chao turned around the charity after her predecessor, William Aramony, was ousted amid charges of financial mismanagement and lavish spending.
Zoellick is a close associate of former Secretary of State James A. Baker III. When Baker was treasury secretary in the Reagan administration, Zoellick served as an undersecretary of treasury. He later was a deputy secretary of state when Baker headed the State Department in the administration of Mr. Bush's father.
The trade representative, who carries the rank of ambassador, is the chief U.S. negotiator in trade talks with other nations. The post traditionally has been given Cabinet rank, although Mr. Bush had previously indicated that his former campaign manager, Don Evans, whom he has said he would nominate to be commerce secretary, would take the lead on trade issues.
Earlier Thursday, Mr. Bush met with sympathetic education and business leaders, telling them he would hold fast to his promises of testing students for accountability and offering them transfers from lagging schools.
The Senate appeared ready to give easy approval later this month to Rod Paige as education secretary. The former Houston schools chief sought to reassure top Democrats that private-school vouchers wouldn't be a priority in the new administration.
During his campaign, Mr. Bush proposed givinstudents in chronically lagging schools the financial means to go a different school - including private institutions. Paige, who's run the Houston schools since 1994, supported private-school vouchers in limited form.