A Futile Veto on Civil Rights

By GEORGE J. CHURCH

The bill on his desk, Ronald Reagan thundered, "would vastly and unjustifiably expand the power of the Federal Government" and could even strike a blow against religious liberty. It was the kind of veto message that in years past the President could almost always make stick. But last week nobody except the Moral Majority, some business groups and a handful of conservative Senators was listening, and the most they could do was put off a Senate vote overriding the veto of the Civil Rights Restoration Act until early this week. Few in Congress or the White House have much doubt that both chambers will vote by a top-heavy majority to make the bill law. Minnesota Republican Senator Rudy Boschwitz predicted that "the veto will be overridden handily."

That will end what civil rights groups regard as a four-year hamstringing of enforcement of the laws barring discrimination on the basis of race, sex, age or handicap. In its 1984 Grove City College v. Bell decision, the Supreme Court ruled that those laws were not intended to apply to entire institutions that receive federal aid, such as colleges, hospitals and corporations, but only to particular programs. Thus a university laboratory that received federal research grants could not discriminate, but the same university's history department that got no cash from Washington could. Legislators howled that the court was misinterpreting the intent of Congress, and began a bipartisan effort to make that intent unmistakable: if any part of an institution gets federal money, no part can discriminate.

Reagan said he agreed with that principle. His main objection to the Restoration Act was that it contained ambiguous language that could be interpreted to allow federal dictation to small businesses and even churches and synagogues. Some foes of the bill took up the cry and unloosed a barrage of phone calls to Capitol Hill. Jerry Falwell's Moral Majority charged, somewhat hysterically, that the bill could force churches to hire a "practicing, active homosexual drug addict with AIDS to be a teacher or youth pastor." Some mainstream religious groups scoffed at these fears as chimeras. Even most Republicans seemed less impressed by the evangelical broadsides than by the dangers of voting against anything called a civil rights act in an election year. Moreover, however valid Reagan's technical objections might be, they were undermined by his reputation for indifference or even hostility to civil rights enforcement.

Two years ago the outcome might have been different. From 1981 through 1986, Reagan vetoed 59 bills; only six of those vetoes were overridden. In addition, the mere threat of a veto caused Congress either to kill or to rewrite many bills. But since the Democrats gained control of the Senate in the 1986 elections, it has been Congress that has been imposing its will on the President. Reagan has swallowed many congressional actions of which he strongly disapproved -- the military-spending cuts forced by last year's budget compromise, for example -- rather than risk what he knew would be futile vetoes.

The civil rights veto is only his fourth since the start of 1987, and almost surely will be the third to be overturned. Reagan's batting average may soon fall even further. He is now threatening to reject a bill that would require the Administration to report to Congress within 48 hours of launching any covert military operations. Nonetheless, the Senate passed the bill last week 71 to 19 -- well over the two-thirds vote needed to kill a veto.

With reporting by Ted Gup and Barrett Seaman/Washington