Bill Lann Lee isn't about to have the word "acting" removed from his job title, says Jeanne Lopatto, press secretary for the Senate Judiciary Committee. "Senator Hatch has not changed his position on Lee," she said. Last Friday, Clint Bolick of the Institute for Justice wrote in the Washington Times of "rumors" that Judiciary Chairman Hatch would strike a deal making Lee, a rigid advocate of racial preferences, the undisputed head of the Justice Department's civil rights division. Such a move by Hatch would make it even harder for him to win any conservative support for his presidential campaign.

Democratic senator Tom Harkin of Iowa, opposing an amendment to block a $25 million funding increase for the National Labor Relations Board, railed: "If they are not able to do their job, our whole society breaks down." His plea worked. Republicans John Chafee, Peter Fitzgerald, Jim Jeffords, and Ted Stevens joined the Democrats to defeat the measure, offered by Tim Hutchinson, and thereby to preserve Western civilization.

Vice President Gore is spending much more on campaign overhead than his competitors. No wonder. A new State Department report finds that Gore's chairman, Tony Coelho, lived it up last year while serving as the Clinton administration's lead man at the World Exposition in Portugal. He rented an $18,000-per-month apartment, sported around town in a chauffeur-driven Mercedes, arranged a series of questionable payments to contractors and his own consulting firm, and gave his niece a job. Coelho was supposed to raise private funds to build and operate the U.S. pavilion, but came up short. American taxpayers paid $6.7 million for Coelho's failure — more than 80 percent of the total cost. Over the weekend, Gore said that Coelho, who resigned from Congress in 1989 because of ethical lapses, has done a "terrific job." No question, but for whom?

Updated By:
Ramesh Ponnuru - Senior Editor
John J. Miller - National Political Reporter
Kate Dwyer - Editorial Associate