CLINTON URGES EXTENSION OF CIVIL RIGHTS POLICIES

With just five full days left in office, President Clinton today will send
to Congress an official statement pleading for a continuation of his
policies on racial reconciliation, an issue that this son of the New South
has been identified with throughout his career.

Clinton's message is in part a rhetorical challenge, and in part an
audacious attempt to pressure Congress and the incoming Bush administration
to endorse Clinton's agenda on criminal justice, poverty and civil rights
even after he leaves the presidency.

For example, White House aides said yesterday, Clinton is announcing the
creation of a new presidential commission to examine disparities in the way
schools are funded in minority communities -- even though he will be long
gone by the time the panel can study the problem or make proposals.

In a list of other recommendations, Clinton is calling for a national ban
on "racial profiling" in criminal cases and for voting reforms that include
making Election Day a national holiday to increase turnout, as well as
returning the vote to convicted felons who have served their punishment. He
said policymakers should study whether mandatory minimum sentences are too
severe, particularly for nonviolent crimes, and that the disparity between
sentences for powder cocaine and its crack derivative, more commonly used
in black neighborhoods, should be reduced.

His message, previewed in an article he wrote for yesterday's New York
Times op-ed page, also includes a plea to President-elect Bush to keep the
White House Office on One America, which Clinton created early in his
second term when he began what he pledged would be a major examination of
the race problem in America. However, neither that office nor the year-long
program of speeches and group discussions was considered a particular success.

Even so, there have been few people who have doubted that the race issue is
one that lies close -- perhaps closer than any other -- to this president's
heart. He grew up as segregation was coming to an end in Arkansas, and his
executive and judicial appointments were far more diverse than any predecessor.

Clinton opens his congressional message with a recollection of how the
struggle for racial equality became "a driving commitment of my life" --
when he observed his home state riven by the showdown over integration at
Little Rock's Central High School in 1957. "I was only 11 years old at the
time," he said. "Like most southerners then, I never attended school with a
person of another race until I went to college."

Clinton argued that in the decades since, America's racial diversity has
evolved from becoming an obstacle to national unity to a competitive
advantage as "the world grows more interdependent."

"Of course racial tension still exists in America," he said. "But, if we
ever are going to overcome them, we must focus more on the things that
unite us than on those that divide us."

Still, most of Clinton's statement addresses problems of continued
discrimination, not the promise created by receding prejudice. Bruce Reed,
White House domestic policy adviser, said Clinton "wanted to leave behind
some challenges to the next administration, the Congress and the country on
an issue close to his heart."

The statement divides its recommendations into several areas:

- - On civil rights, Clinton urges passage of a national bill providing
special penalties against "hate crimes," motivated by prejudice against
racial or other minorities.

- - On health issues, he calls for increased research and investment in
diseases that heavily afflict minority communities, such as HIV and diabetes.

- - On poverty, he calls for an expansion of his "new markets" agenda, aimed
at encouraging economic investment in impoverished rural and inner-city areas.

- - On electoral reform, Clinton appeals for creation of a nonpartisan
commission that would examine disparities in voter turnout along racial,
ethnic and class lines, and recommend reforms to encourage turnout. He said
the commission also should study voter suppression and intimidation --
which some civil rights activists say took place on Election Day in
Florida, a charge that remains in dispute.

- - On crime, he called for a host of reforms aimed at alleviating the
widespread mistrust of the justice system that surveys show minorities harbor.

In sum, Clinton's recommendations endorse many of the top priorities of
civil rights activists. Minorities have been some of Clinton's most loyal
supporters. He generally has endorsed the aims of civil rights groups,
though sometimes cautiously. In 1995, he ordered a review of affirmative
action and ended with a "mend it, don't end it," recommendation that called
for some changes to address criticism that some minorities were getting
unfair help. In 1997, he said he wanted to write a book making a major
statement on race, but a draft composed by aides was not to his liking, and
he never finished the project.