C'ompromising on CRLA
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INAUGURATION This new Ripon FO RUM newsletter, supplementing the ON FO RUM, will be mailed to 0111' subscribers on the 15th of the month. The editors wel FORUM collle colllments and sllgges ti01lS . ......... ~ ......... "", ...... .... .. .. .... w,.,... •• JULY 15, 1971 VOL. VII, No. 8 25 CENTS .-... "., After Swann Reagan} Price Nixon's New C'ompromising on CRLA Busing Line WASHINGTON - The latest joke going round the Office of WASHINGTON - The Nixon Economic Opportunity asks "what can you buy for $2.5 million?" administration continues to take a The answer, of course, is "the California Republican delegation." low-profile approach to implementa Once again, the White House, seeking to protect its flanks from tion of the Supreme Court's April conservative defections, either at the national convention or in the 20 ruling on busing and school de final election, has caved in to pressure from California Governor segregation. In Swann v. Charlotte Ronald Reagan at a cost which is no laughing matter for the Ameri Mecklenburg Board of Education, can public. the Court held that school districts On June 30 OEO Director Frank with a history of discrimination Carlucci announced his decision, must take all available steps to elim after six months of inquiry, to over inate segregated schools, including ride Reagan's veto of $2.6 million "bizarre" zoning and pairing where in federal funds for the California necessary, and that busing of stu Rural Legal Assistance program dents is a legitimate tool for de (CRLA). For months Reagan has segregation. been fuming over a series of suc cessful class action suits instigated BUSING IS LEGAL by CRLA in state and federal courts The first test of the Administra which blocked cuts in services to tion's intentions came in Austin, the poor. Texas, where a Federal judge had ordered the Department of Health, REAGAN'S PET PROJECT Education and Welfare to submit Instead of being miffed by the a plan to the court. HEW's Office OEO decision, however, Reagan of Education drew up a plan that YR's Fail praised it, perhaps because it con paired schools in the black and tained an additional grant of $2.5 Mexican-American ghettoes with To Disband million for "Judicaid", his own others in all-white areas, and re state OEO plan for an experimental PHOENIX - Last April's FOR legal service program, which Carl quired a sizeable increase in busing. UM repoJited the view among Unlike the plans drawn in the pre ucci indicated could ultimately ab "many Republicans of all philo sorb CRLA. "Judicaid" would turn Swann era, the Austin plan, since sophical stripes" that the Young it locked inner-city and outlying poverty clients over to practicing Republican National Federation lawyers who would in turn bill the schools into the desegregation ef (YRNF) and the College Repub fort, promised stability and an end government directly - assuming of lican National Committee (CRNC) course they would be willing to to the destructive cycle of reseg "are not just useless to the GOP, regation. take poverty cases. but rather are damaging their own The program will go into effect Reportedly, the Austin plan had party." in January, just at the time when to survive a confrontation between But as usual, the two Young Re CRLA will come up for another HEW Secretary Elliot Richardson publican organizations have failed review under the agreement an and Attorney General John Mitchell either to change or to disband. nounced by Carlucci. If Reagan on its way to court. Outsiders can Holding its 17th Biennial Conven wants to make trouble again for only deduce from the results - the tion at the end of last month in CRLA, Carlucci certainly left the plan emerged virtually intact - Phoenix, the Federation enacted its door· wide open. that Richardson was tougher in the sixth biennial right wing platform clinches than his predecessor, Rob and resolutions and chose between TOTALLY IRRESPONSIBLE ert Finch. two officer slates dominated by right The inquiry commission's final Ironically, Judge Jack B. Roberts wingers. Though the winners all report concluded that "CRLA has rejected the HEW plan for Austin, professed support for the Presi been discharging its duty to provide and ordered the Government and dent's renomination, the policy dec legal assistance to the poor ... in the school board to seek agreement larations implicitly oppose much of a highly competent, efficient and ex on a less radical approach. But on his program, including national emplary manner." Reagan's charges the other side of the ledger, Judge welfare reform, the "full employ against the CRLA, the jurists re L. Oure Morton upheld a simi ment budget," and China policy. ported, "were totally irresponsible lar HEW plan for Nashville and The college YR convention, mean and without foundation." Davidson County, Tennessee. while, also in Phoenix but nomi Carlucci did not quote a single On other fronts, the Administra nally separate, reelected Chairman line of the commission's positive tion has been moving more slow Joe Abate of New Jersey, flaunting findings in announcing the CRLA ly. In late June, the Office for Civil red white and blue flag buttons from decision. Instead he said that the continued on page 4 continued on page 4 continued on page 4 People in Polities Kennedy (a Republican) requested the study. "What else is there left to pollute in Eastport? There isn't • President Nixon has appointed a fine young politi much left," Kennedy was quoted as saying. cal technician with conservative credentials and a high price to run his youth campaign in 1972. • Quoting Teilhard De Chardin, "To have an effect The new appointee, Kenneth Reitz, 29, of the in one's home, one mllst first live in it," Father John Allison, Treleaven and Reitz political consulting firm, McLaughlin, a liberal Jesuit priest, Senatorial peace will work directly under John Mitchell in an effort to candidate, and one-time classmate of Daniel Berrigan, reach the millions of young voters enfranchised under moved into the White House early this month as a the new voting age law. Presidential speechwriter. As a campaign manager Reitz is credited with McLaughlin, who had run as a Republican in bringing large numbers of young people into William Rhode Island against Senator John Pastore in 1970, Brock's 1970 Senatorial race and into William Mills' said the President had "deeply comforted and im recent winning Congressional effort on the Eastern pressed him" with his commitment to a free exchange shore of Maryland. He has close connections with the of ideas within the Executive. conservative leadership of the Young Republicans but McLaughlin's appointment was strongly opposed his willingness or ability to appeal beyond the con by Human Events which charged that the father is ventional Republican categories is yet to be demon in favor of permissiveness, abortions and the Ripon So strated. ciety, and by Senator Pastore, who charged that the To Reitz's credit are reports that he was unhappy father's campaign had shown insufficient reverence for with the bitter right-wing. t~n~r of the Brock campaign. Pastore. The priest's appointment came through with out a hitch, however, after a six-week security investi • Senator Jack Miller of Iowa has proved just as gation by the FBI. hawkish as he always has been, despite his rather The naming of Father McLaughlin represented dovish proposal in April to set a 12-month deadline a victory for Ray Price, his chief sponsor in the White for withdrawal from Vietnam following release of House. McLaughlin's title is Deputy Special Assistant American prisoners. Miller's office made it clear at to the President. the time that the Senator was "flexible" both on the exact timetable and the form of prisoner agreement. • Those who feared that Dr. John Knowles, the A congratulatory telegram followed from the Ripon volatile head of the Massachusetts General Hospital, office, which was quickly picked up by Clark Mollen would be lost to politics after the withdrawal of his hoff of the Des Moines Register. When Republican nomination as HEW Assistant Secretary for Health Senators Cook and Stevens adopted the main intent of underestimated his resourceful ambition to serve the the Miller proposal, however, the senior Senator from people. Iowa (who is up for re-election next year and will Although at the time of his appointment he pur probably face a Democratic dove) went down the line ported to be a Republican - and was strongly de with the Administration in opposing the measure. fended by Senator Edward Brooke against opposition from Minority Leader Everett Dirksen and the AMA • John A. Nevius, unsuc~e~sf~l Republican candidate the Boston Globe now reveals that Knowles had long for D.C. delegate this spring, has been appointed been registered as an "independent." He turned Deputy Assistant Secretary for Community Develop Democrat in January 1970 in protest against the Presi ment in the Department of Housing and Urban Develop dent's withdrawal of his nomination. Nixon, the doctor ment. He will serve under Floyd H. Hyde in the newly charged in a highly emotional statement, was a "captive created Community Development Division which was of the far right" and was motivated by the "Southern set up March 1 to combine seven HUD programs in strategy" in abandoning him and naming California cluding Model Cities and urban renewal. Nevius' record liberal Democrat Roger Egeberg to the post. Later, of community involvement and his progressive campaign however, Knowles let it be known he was available drew 30 percent of the two-party vote in a city where to run as a Republican against Senator Kennedy. the GOP lists only 14.4 percent of the two-party regis Now Knowles feels called to run for the Senate tration.