State: Bush to enter partisan camp

Several members of the commission, a supposedly independent and bipartisan group, have close ties to President Clinton and have donated money to Hillary Rodham Clinton, Vice President Al Gore and the Democratic National Committee.

Mary Frances Berry, 61, the commission's combative chairwoman, once filed suit against President Ronald Reagan to keep her job.

The eight members include four Democrats, three independents and one Republican appointed late last week. The president appoints four members and Congress names four, but two of those selected by Congress are picked from the minority party.

Last year, Berry had a widely publicized tiff with New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani after it was disclosed that she donated money to Mrs. Clinton's Senate campaign as the commission investigated New York police. She told reporters the contribution may have been a mistake after it became an issue. She also acknowledged contributions to Gore and other Democratic campaigns, according to the New York Times.

The commission issued a report condemning New York police for racial profiling. The report was issued while it appeared that Giuliani would be Clinton's Republican opponent. He later decided against running.

Giuliani called the investigation "a partisan witch hunt" after Berry repeatedly interrupted his testimony and refused to silence hecklers.

The New York Post said the report was "precisely the hatchet job one would expect from an agency chaired by a doctrinaire Democrat" and described the commission as "an adjunct of the Clinton White House." The newspaper noted that the commission's minority members had to file a Freedom of Information Act request to get a transcript of the commission's own hearing.

A professor of American social thought and history at the University of Pennsylvania, Berry was appointed to the commission by President Jimmy Carter in 1980 and managed to win a court battle against Reagan when he tried to remove her in 1983.

Initially a registered Democrat, she currently votes without party affiliation, a change made after becoming a commission member. Federal laws limit the number of members that can come from a single political party.

Another member of the commission with strong ties to Clinton is Christopher Edley Jr., a Harvard Law School professor described by the New Republic magazine as "a member in good standing of Clinton's inner circle."

Edley, initially appointed by Carter, has served as a senior adviser and consultant to Clinton on racial issues and helped Clinton write a book of personal reflections on race in America.

Edley donated the maximum $1,000 to Gore's campaign and an identical amount to Hillary Clinton. He has contributed to the campaigns of U.S. Rep. Barney Frank of Massachusetts and U.S. Rep. Charles Rangel of New York, both Democrats.

Other members of the commission are:

Elsie Meeks, an Oglala Sioux who once ran for lieutenant governor in South Dakota as a Democrat.

Cruz Reynoso, vice chairman of the commission and a Democrat. He regularly has donated to Democratic candidates and made a $1,000 contribution to the Democratic National Committee in 1992.

Reynoso, 70, is a law professor at the University of California at Los Angeles and a former member of the California Supreme Court. He has held numerous presidential and congressional appointments.

Yvonne Lee, an Asian-American rights advocate from San Francisco. A Democrat appointed by Clinton in 1995, she has donated regularly to Democratic candidates and the DNC, according to Federal Election Commission records.

Russell Redenbaugh, an independent who often dissents from majority decision. He is a Philadelphia financial consultant who has regularly donated to Republicans and the National Republican Senatorial Committee.

Victoria Wilson, an independent who works as an editor at Alfred A. Knopf in New York.

Abigail Thernstrom, a civil rights scholar and member of the Massachusetts Board of Education. She and her husband, Harvard University historian Stephan Thernstrom, co-authored a 1997 book, America in Black and White: One Nation, Indivisible.

Thernstrom, a Republican who once supported George McGovern for president, has been a leading critic of affirmative action and engaged President Clinton in a 1997 televised debate on the subject.

She was appointed to the commission last Saturday by House Speaker Dennis Hastert to fill a vacancy before this week's hearing. Campaign records indicate that she and her husband donated $2,000 to George W. Bush.

Established in 1957 at the height of the civil rights era in the South, the commission was re-established in 1983 in the midst of a feud with Reagan. It is primarily a fact-finding body with subpoena power, but does not have prosecutorial powers.

The commission's staff director, Leslie R. Jin, was appointed by President Clinton last September. Jin, an attorney who has worked for the Environmental Protection Agency, has donated money to the Democratic National Committee.

The commission condemned Bush's One Florida plan last spring without contacting the governor or his staff, a Bush spokesman said.

Two members of the commission denounced that report, saying that the commission has politicized the discussion of policies adopted in Florida, Texas and California without an open discussion or hearing.

Berry, who denied political motives last spring, did not return telephone calls to discuss this week's hearings.

The commission will begin hearing witnesses at 9 a.m. today and continue Friday. In addition to the governor, the commission has subpoenaed Secretary of State Katherine Harris; Clay Roberts, director of the Division of Elections; Attorney General Bob Butterworth; Agriculture Secretary Bob Crawford; Col. Charles C. Hall, director of the Florida Highway Patrol; and a number of experts on voting machines and election practices who helped Gore during last year's blizzard of election lawsuits.

- Times researchers Kitty Bennett and Caryn Baird contributed to this report.

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Lucy Morgan

From the Times state desk