Rights Group Pans Quayle

Senator and vice-presidential candidate Dan Quayle has an "abysmal" civil rights voting record, while his opponent Sen. Lloyd Bentsen has a vastly better one, according to a Kennedy School fellow who released a study yesterday on Congressional voting records.

Ralph G. Neas, executive director of the Washington, D.C.-based Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, said that Quayle scored 15 percent and Bentsen received a 69 on a 100-point scale, with 100 being the best civil rights voting record.

"The voting difference between Bentsen and Quayle strikes at the fundamental differences between the candidates," said Gene Sperling, domestic policy advisor for the Dukakis-Bentsen campaign. A spokesperson for the Bush-Quayle campaign said, "Senator Quayle has nothing to say about this issue."

"Senator Bentsen is from a conservative Southern state and for almost 40 years has had a solid civil rights record. What you see in Bentsen is a deep commitment to civil rights," said Sperling. "What you see in Bush and Quayle is a fleeting, almost nonexistent commitment to civil rights."

The report also concluded that the 100th Congress had made significant progress in the pursuit of civil rights. "The past eight years have been a bipartisan reaffirmation of civil rights and a bipartisan rejection of the extremism of the Reagan Administration," said Neas, a fellow this semester at the Institute of Politics.

Neas predicted that the progress will continue "irrespective of who is in the White House."

"The most important domestic issue right now is what is going to happen in the Supreme Court," said Neas. "The balance in the Supreme Court is very precarious. Many constitutional and statutory rights that we have today could be gone tomorrow."

The report concludes that although Congress made progress on civil rights issues, the Reagan administration forced it to spend time and resources refighting civil rights battles thatwere won in the 1960s and 1970s.

The biennial report card bases its tally on thevoting records of all Congressman. The study usedas its litmus test legislation on issues such asRobert Bork's Supreme Court nomination, the CivilRights Restoration Act, the immigrationlegalization program, pay equity, disabilityrights, programs for low-income children andfamilies, and minimum wage legislation.

Sperling stressed the importance of thecandidates' voting records on the Civil RightsRestoration Act of 1988, which prohibits federalfunding of institutions that practiceddiscrimination. Reagan vetoed the bill, which waslater overridden by a vote of 73--24. Bentsenvoted for the bill and the veto override, whileQuayle voted against both.

"I think the numbers 69 and 15 speak forthemselves," said Sperling. "Dukakis and Bentsenare in the mainstream of America that believes infurthering civil rights. Bush and Quayle are outon the right. There is no reason to believe anyAmerican would want taxpayers' money to go to aninstitution that discriminates."

The LCCR is a non-partisan organization thatcoordinates civil rights activities within acoalition of 180 national groups representingminorities, women, disabled persons, labor,religious groups, and senior citizens. Neas saidthat the LCCR provides "objective data andanalyses" for the voting public, but does not backspecific candidates