Queen Victoria
A Civil Rights Commissioner demands the royal treatment.

By John J. Miller & Ramesh Ponnuru
December 6, 2001 11:40 a.m.

resident Bush appointed Cleveland lawyer Peter Kirsanow to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights yesterday, but commission chairwoman Mary Frances Berry is expected to refuse to seat him at tomorrow morning's commission meeting.

That's because Victoria Wilson, the commissioner Kirsanow ostensibly replaces, says she deserves to stick around until 2006. She had been appointed to complete the term of the late Leon Higginbotham, which expired last week. Now she insists that she's entitled to her very own six-year term, rather than merely the remainder of Higginbotham's.

The Associated Press reports that White House counsel Al Gonzales and Berry engaged in "a heated phone conversation" on Tuesday, in which Gonzales insisted that Berry accept the Bush administration's reading of the law. Berry refused, saying, "If you send somebody to the meeting, there will be no vacancy."

Kirsanow, who is affiliated with the Center for New Black Leadership, is an outstanding choice for the commission — and certainly an improvement on Wilson, whose claim to fame is not civil-rights work but editing the vampire novels of Anne Rice at the Knopf publishing company.

So far, the Bush administration has made a series of excellent appointments in the area of civil rights — but it has shown no stomach for fighting the personnel or policy battles that really matter. But Kirsanow won't get his seat unless the White House backs him vigorously.

Last summer, the commission issued a scandalously biased report on the presidential election in Florida. Its sole purpose was to delegitimize the Bush presidency. The commission's liberal members were able to operate with impunity — even refusing to publish a dissent by their GOP-appointed colleagues — because they held a 6-2 majority.

With the recent appointment of Jennifer Braceras to replace Yvonne Lee, however, that majority has slipped to 5-3. If Kirsanow now replaces Wilson, it will shift to 4-4. This would not only make it impossible for Berry to enact her anti-Bush agenda, but also put her position as chair at risk.

So tomorrow, when Berry refuses to recognize Kirsanow, the Bush administration will face an important gut check.