2 in GOP Join in Fight Against Racist Group

WASHINGTON —  For nearly two months, Republican congressional leaders have played down calls for condemnation of the Council of Conservative Citizens, a white supremacist group that espouses anti-black views on its Internet Web site.

But the issue, which gained attention partly because of news reports that Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott (R-Miss.) has spoken to the council at its conventions, has not disappeared.

On Thursday, two moderate Republican leaders stepped out front of an emerging coalition of liberal Democrats, civil rights groups and GOP activists to demand that Congress pass a resolution that “condemns the racism and bigotry espoused by the Council of Conservative Citizens.”

Backers of the legislation said during a news conference at the Capitol that they have the votes to pass the resolution, counting nine GOP House members among 138 co-signers. But House leaders so far have refused to bring it to the floor. In the Senate, Lott has declared his opposition to pushing the measure, and no one has stepped forward to introduce a corresponding resolution.

Pressure Appears to Build in Congress

“We are not going to go away,” said Rep. Michael P. Forbes (R-N.Y.). He and Rep. Fred Upton (R-Mich.) were the only Republican lawmakers at the news conference. “I think the pressure is mounting on all members of Congress, especially the leadership in both houses because so many members are concerned . . . about this group.”

Council officials attended the news conference, and some members came to the organization’s defense.

“Congress can ignore Bill Clinton’s perjury and obstruction of justice, but it has time to condemn an innocent group of law-abiding, hard-working conservative Americans,” Gordon L. Baum, the council’s chief executive, said in a statement. “It is grotesquely inappropriate for Congress to condemn an entire organization for its political views.”

The House resolution, introduced last month by Rep. Robert Wexler (D-Fla.), is modeled after a similar 1994 resolution that condemned a speech by former Nation of Islam activist Khalid Abdul Muhammad for “outrageous hate-mongering.” That resolution sped through both houses of Congress in 20 days, while the resolution citing the council has languished for nearly two months.

Lott Unlikely to Introduce Bill

The controversy began late last year after reports about links between Lott and the group. John Czwartacki, a spokesman for Lott, said that the Mississippi senator “would be inclined to support legislation opposed to all forms of racism and bigotry” but has no plans to introduce any legislation on the issue. Czwartacki cautioned that, “when you get into singling out a group for a few individuals, there could be a problem.”

Offering what some GOP leaders hope will be an alternative, Rep. J. C. Watts Jr. (R-Okla.), the only African American GOP legislator in Congress, introduced a bill Thursday to condemn all groups that promote racial hate or intolerance.

Watts’ legislation, however, drew immediate criticism for being, in the words of one Capitol Hill staff member, “a transparent, watered-down version offered by befuddled Republicans who don’t know what to do when the subject of racism emerges.”

Faye Anderson, president of the Douglass Policy Institute, a Washington-based group of black Republicans, called on Lott and all GOP presidential candidates to repudiate the council.

“The Republican Party, the party of Frederick Douglass and Abraham Lincoln, isn’t inclusive when its leaders refuse to condemn racism directed at black people,” said Anderson, who has led an effort to make the GOP more receptive to black and other minority voters. “This party can’t talk about inclusion when under that tent are the very people who would enjoy seeing people like me swinging from a tree.”