[Congressional Record Volume 147, Number 17 (Wednesday, February 7, 2001)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E132]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


                  TRIBUTE TO WILLIAM BENJAMIN GOULD IV

                                 ______
                                 

                            HON. ZOE LOFGREN

                             of california

                    in the house of representatives

                      Wednesday, February 7, 2001

  Ms. LOFGREN. Mr. Speaker, I wish today to recognize the 
accomplishments of William Benjamin Gould IV, the Charles A. Beardsley 
Professor of Law at Stanford Law School. Professor Gould was Chairman 
of the National Labor Relations Board from 1994-1998. While awarding 
William Gould his fifth honorary doctorate, the Rutgers University 
President remarked: ``perhaps more than any other living American . . . 
[he has] contributed to the analysis, the practice, and the 
transformation of labor law and labor relations.''
  William Gould has been a member of the National Academy of 
Arbitration since 1970, and has arbitrated and mediated more than 200 
labor disputes, including the 1989 wage dispute between the Detroit 
Federation of Teachers and the Board of Education of that city, as well 
as the 1992 and 1993 salary disputes between the Major League Baseball 
Players Association and the Major League Baseball Player Relations 
Committee. William Gould was named in Ebony Magazine's ``100+ Most 
Influential Black Americans'' List for 1996, 1997 and 1998. He is a 
member of the Stanford University John S. Knight Journalism Fellows 
Program Committee, and the Rand Institute Board of Overseers.
  I commend to my colleagues the following article by Professor Gould, 
which appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle on January 17, 2001.

           [From the San Francisco Chronicle, Jan. 17, 2001]

                       ``Borking''--Then and Now

                        (By William B. Gould IV)

       When Bill Clinton was inaugurated as president in January 
     1993, most Republicans in Congress commenced a sustained 
     drive against the legitimacy of his election, notwithstanding 
     the undisputed nature of his victory.
       Except for the gays-in-the-military controversy, the most 
     immediate conflicts related to confirmation of his nominees 
     at the Cabinet and subcabinet levels.
       ``Nannygate'' doomed Zoe Baird, his first choice for 
     attorney general, but soon ideas and political philosophy 
     were to affect the debate about Lani Guinier (whose Justice 
     Department nomination as assistant attorney general in charge 
     of the civil rights division was withdrawn), and Jocelyn 
     Elders (who was confirmed as surgeon general).
       Both were African American. I was the third of Clinton's 
     black subcabinet early selections (for chairman of the 
     National Labor Relations Board), and, although confirmed, I 
     attracted the largest number of senatorial ``no'' votes of 
     any administration appointee during that time.
       Bill Lann Lee, a Chinese American lawyer from California, 
     was put forward for assistant attorney general, but his 
     nomination was stymied. He was forced to serve on an acting 
     basis, without Senate confirmation.
       Opposition to Clinton nominees was said by some to be 
     Republican vengeance for the Senate's 1987 rejection of 
     Robert Bork for the U.S. Supreme Court. The press created a 
     verb, ``Borked.'' The term is now attached to the pending 
     nominations of John Ashcroft for attorney general, Gale 
     Norton for secretary of the interior, and the now-withdrawn 
     candidacy of Linda Chavez for secretary of labor.
       The Borking of Clinton nominees differs from the Borking of 
     the Bush triumvirate.
       Formal debate about my nomination, for instance, focused on 
     my proposals to strengthen existing labor law. This contrasts 
     with Chavez, who opposes minimum wage, family leave and 
     affirmative action legislation. The contention was that when 
     I would adjudicate labor-management disputes, I would use my 
     reform proposals aimed at fortifying the law.
       Bork was attacked primarily because he had opposed most 
     civil rights legislation affecting public accommodations and 
     employment. The Senate rejected him because he was outside 
     the mainstream in the race arena and also opposed the Supreme 
     Court's Roe vs. Wade decision.
       Ashcroft and Norton, like Senate Majority Leader Trent 
     Lott, R-Miss., extol the virtues of the Confederacy and 
     lament its defeat, which spelled slavery's extinction. As 
     Missouri's attorney general, Ashcroft fought desegregation 
     orders in that state. He was a vigorous opponent of 
     affirmative action. As senator, he single handedly scuttled 
     the nomination of a black Missouri judge to the federal 
     bench--an act which President Clinton properly denounced as 
     ``disgraceful,'' illustrating the unequal treatment of 
     minority and women nominees.
       As senator, Ashcroft decried the cherished American 
     principle of separation of church and state, railed against 
     common-sense gun control legislation and, like Bork, 
     denounced Roe vs. Wade. Thus, like Bork, the question is 
     whether he can faithfully enforce and promote laws to which 
     is so deeply opposed.
       All of this is in sharp contrast to the three of us Clinton 
     nominees whose sin was fidelity to existing law. In 1993, 
     today's supporters of Ashcroft derailed the nomination of 
     those of us who supported the law. Now they support those who 
     would radically transform it.
       Some deference to a new president's nomination is 
     appropriate. This was not followed in the Clinton era. As a 
     result, the president was obliged to nominate middle-of-the-
     road and sometimes downright innocuous judicial candidates 
     and to accept Republican selections for his own 
     administrative agencies.
       No one's interests are served if the Democrats now wreak 
     havoc for Bush in response to the Borking visited upon 
     Clinton. But elected representatives have the right and duty 
     to both scrutinize and reject nominees who are out of the 
     mainstream and who would disturb precedent in the absence of 
     a mandate. A half-million Gore plurality in the voting and 
     the murkiness of the Florida ballot hardly supply a mandate 
     for George W. Bush.

     

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