Civil Rights Commission Votes for Audit
By Darryl Fears, Washington Post Staff Writer, Saturday, March 19, 2005

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Deeply in the red, the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights voted yesterday to conduct an audit of how it has spent its $9 million annual budget over the past several years.

The meeting came a day after commission Staff Director Kenneth L. Marcus told a congressional subcommittee that the agency had failed to pay $75,000 in rent last year and that employees who won an equal opportunity complaint against the agency had not received the $188,000 partial payment owed them.

Marcus had more bad news yesterday, saying that the commission was more than likely underfunding its employee benefits package, and that budget shortfalls would force the board to consider a significant number of layoffs as it undertakes reforms recommended by the Government Accountability Office.

Commissioners said they had been kept in the dark on financial problems by former staff director Les Jin and the panel's former chairwoman, Mary Frances Berry. Two commissioners, Chairman Gerald A. Reynolds and Peter N. Kirsanow, asked Marcus whether he had uncovered any evidence of possible criminal wrongdoing. Marcus said he had not.

But commissioners were upset that the agency's acting budget director, George Harbison, had not seen its ledger of income and expenses for the past year. It was last known to be in Jin's possession, Harbison said.

"If a private company didn't have a ledger, then somebody goes to jail," Reynolds said.

The news of possible layoffs swept through the small audience, most commission employees.

"There's a lot of concern, because we don't know what they are going to do, what's going to happen to the commission, what's going to happen to employees and their careers," said Vanessa Williamson, vice president of the union local that represents commission workers.

Partisan wrangling that has plagued the commission's proceedings since the early 1980s also arose again yesterday, when members discussed a study that would examine federal contracts to businesses owned by minorities and women.

The study, approved in early 2004, was to examine whether the government was including firms owned by both genders and all races in the contract awards. But Marcus said that he had changed the study's parameters without the board's knowledge to reflect only concerns that the government use strict race-neutral measures when awarding contracts.

Michael Yaki, a liberal commissioner recently appointed to the board, charged that such an action clearly violated attempts to achieve a new bipartisan spirit of the board. Commissioner Jennifer Braceras, a conservative, said she had asked Marcus to add the language on race-neutral contracting because the study approved under Berry seemed one-sided. But Braceras also criticized Marcus, saying it was her intention to address both liberal and conservative concerns about minority contracting.

The study has already been distributed to several agencies, including the departments of Defense, Education and State and the Small Business Administration. If commissioners were to amend it, staff members said, it might not be finished before the end of the year as required by the commission's mandate.

Commissioner Russell G. Redenbaugh resigned from the panel Wednesday, effective April 1, citing many of the problems raised by the commission yesterday. His imminent departure appeared to have an immediate impact, prompting commissioners to spend most of the meeting discussing the changes he said were needed and ignoring their monthly agenda.

"I am not going to rest a day until I get an inspector general to look at our budget," Kirsanow said.

Redenbaugh Resigns
Wednesday, March 16, 2005
By Brit Hume, Fox Nws

"A National Embarrassment"?

The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights' longest-serving member has abruptly resigned, saying, "The commission, once the nation's conscience, is now a national embarrassment beyond repair." Russell Redenbaugh (search), a conservative independent, says he's had enough of the commission spending money irresponsibly, resisting independent oversight, and pursuing partisan agendas -- a criticism repeatedly lodged against the commission, which was under a liberal majority until three months ago. In a letter to Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, Redenbaugh says, "Chronic mismanagement and a fatally flawed organizational structure eliminates the commission's institutional capacity to even participate in (a discussion about change)."

Ex-Member Questions Rights Panel's Mission
Fox News, Friday, March 18, 2005
By Kelley Beaucar Vlahos

WASHINGTON - Russell Redenbaugh, the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights member who unexpectedly resigned this week, said he isn't sure the panel even has a purpose anymore, adding that its very design is resistant to accountability and reform.

"It's not the people, it's the missing process, the missing accountability," Redenbaugh told FOXNews.com on Wednesday, a day after he sent a resignation letter to Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn. Republicans in Congress appointed him to the commission post 15 years ago.

"Previously, I was blind to the fact that we have a structural problem here," he said. "If you don't report to anybody, you aren't accountable to anybody. The commission can't act any better than a trust fund casualty. The money is going to come anyway, so it's no surprise the kids turn out that way."

Redenbaugh is referring to what some commissioners call a fiscal "hole," created by 12 years of near-secret bookkeeping. No independent audit has ever been conducted on the $9 million-a-year government agency.

Former chairwoman Mary Frances Berry, who finished her term in December and left the panel after 25 years, has been largely blamed by Redenbaugh, an independent who votes with the Republicans, and other Republican appointees for the financial morass. Democrats on the panel have staunchly defended Berry, saying she has been unfairly maligned by Republicans.

Related Stories

Berry Resigns From Rights Panel
Fox News, Wednesday, December 08, 2004

WASHINGTON - Mary Frances Berry, blunt-spoken chairwoman of the U.S. Civil Rights Commission, resigned Tuesday after more than two decades of criticizing the governments, both Democratic and Republican, that she served.

Berry, an independent, and Democratic Vice Chairman Cruz Reynoso sent resignation letters to President Bush a day after the White House moved to replace the two. Both had resisted leaving Monday, arguing their terms wouldn't expire until midnight Jan. 21, 2005.

The White House maintained that their six-year terms expired Sunday, and Berry and Reynoso had been replaced.

In brief letters to Bush, Berry and Reynoso said they believed they still had more time to serve but it wasn't worth the fight.

"Given that the conclusion of my tenure is only a few weeks away, a legal challenge would be an unwise expenditure of resources," wrote Berry, a civil rights history professor at the University of Pennsylvania. "Therefore, I am resigning my position as commissioner on the United States Commission on Civil Rights effective immediately."

Berry did not reflect in her letter on her more than two decades on the commission, during which she served under five presidents and criticized them all.

GAO: Mismanagement Plagues U.S. Civil Rights Commission
Monday, November 17, 2003
By Peter Brownfeld

WASHINGTON - A vote Friday to prevent commissioners from reviewing draft reports before they are posted on the Web site bears the markings of an ongoing controversy at the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights.

The General Accounting Office concluded in a report released last month that lack of communications among board members along with inadequate financial oversight are two of the problems plaguing the USCCR.

"Commissioners lack the opportunity to review many of the reports and other products drafted by commission staff before products are released to the public, which serves to significantly reduce the opportunity for commissioners to help shape a report's findings, recommendations, and policy implications of civil rights issues," the report concluded more than a month before Friday's decision to post draft reports without comment from commission members.

"Little, if any, external oversight of the commission's financial activities has taken place in recent years. An independent accounting firm has not audited the commission's financial statements for the last 12 years," the investigative arm of Congress also wrote in its report.

"The report reaffirms my longstanding concerns," said Jennifer Braceras, a Republican commissioner appointed by President Bush in 2001 to serve on the controversial eight-member board. No more than half of the commissioners, evenly appointed by Congress and the president, can represent one political party.