The Public Policy/One Flew Into the Cuckoo's Nest
Funky, Allen
THE PUBLIC POLICY ONE FLEW INTO THE CUCKOO'S NEST A s Senator Alphonse D'Amato walked away from the microphone, Terrence Scanlon knew it was going to be a hell of a day. D'Amato, opening the...
...A Government Accounting Office investigation reported that while at Education Graham used government employees to balance her checkbook, used government cars to go to the beauty parlor and liquor store, and by Allen Funky drank the liquor in her government office...
...If I was a Democrat thinking about switching, I'd look at what happened to Terry Scanlon, and I'd stay as far the hell away from the Republicans as I could...
...Couldn't the Administration find just three conservatives to administer a puny regulatory agency...
...Here is a supposedly conservative Republican senator who owes his election to the New York Conservative party going all out to destroy one of the last Reaganites in Washington, and to put five of his people out on the street," says one staffer...
...ATVs represent a larger problem, however, having been linked to over 900 deaths and 310,000 serious injuries since 1982...
...Some people were wondering how Eckart got the memo so fast," says one Scanlon supporter...
...The only [CPSC] management problem is between your ears," he exclaimed...
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...Why did D'Amato do it...
...But look how the Republicans have treated Scanlon...
...T he Consumer Product Safety Commission, one of nine health and safety regulatory agencies, started out the decade with a staff of 900 and a budget of around $42 million...
...She cited "breathing problems . . . just basic breathing problems...
...A D'Amato amendment tacked onto the infamous 1987 Continuing Resolution called for the dismissal of most of Scanlon's political appointees, including the nephew of New York's Cardinal O'Connor...
...This committed Republican was most famous for telling her government driver to buy a chauffeur's suit or hit the road...
...He joined the CPSC as a commissioner in 1983, and after an 18-month confirmation battle followed Steorts into the chairmanship...
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...Allen Funky is the pseudonym of a Washington writer Though relatively small, the agency oversees some 15,000 consumer products...
...You expect your enemies to fight you...
...Scanlon also took heat from his ladyfriends over the temporary reassignment of CPSC compliance chief David Schmeltzer, who is viewed by consumer activists as an exemplary staffer, and by de-regulators as "a blue ribbon Naderite...
...What the agency is really famous for is the antics of its commissioners, only nine of whom have completed their appointed terms...
...In that case, the complaint was dismissed when it was shown that the automobile was no more dangerous than other cars on the road...
...His story also serves as a lesson for future would-be defectors to the Republican party: think it over real hard, pal...
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...Graham recently hired one of the transferred lawyers as her special assistant...
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...A Scanlon aide explains that the case was referred to the Justice Department four months before the change of attorneys, and that in their place Scanlon appointed more experienced negotiators to face the ATV industry's counsel, former White House chief counsel Lloyd Cutler...
...But if you haven't heard of the CPSC's consumer victories, you're not alone...
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...The story was leaked to the Washington Post, probably by a Scanlon partisan...
...Following the firestorm,"Schmeltzer the Naderite" was returned to his old post as head of the compliance directorate...
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...When these three got together, the fur flew...
...Human Events suggests a more prosaic reason: D'Amato staffer Anne Miano is married to Phil Bechtel, one of the lawyers Scanlon removed from the ATV case...
...When I voted to request that manufacturers stop building the child model ATVs," she said, "I sided with Scanlon against Dawson...
...Statler, at the same hearing, admitted to representing Polaris, an American ATV manufacturer praised by D'Amato...
...She also spent $10,000 refurbishing her office, and was not always on top of her issues...
...He defects, and they walk him to the guillotine and put him at the front of the line...
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...Steorts was totally captured by career staff, and the same thing has happened to Graham, and, to a larger extent, Dawson...
...In addition, it is responsible for child-resistant closures and other safety devices, including a publication that advised swimmers not to dive into empty pools...
...In the meantime, the battle raged...
...During a June 5 subcommittee hearing, Rep...
...When Steorts left (she resigned amid reports that she would not be reappointed), Administration critics feared that a reliable source of entertainment would dry up...
...There are signs that the political pressure is beginning to wear on Scan-Ion...
...We're in the business of frying small fish," says one staffer...
...Scanlon's handling of the case...
...Scanlon supporters do not agree...
...Someone please stop the killing," pleaded another witness...
...He also personally attacked Scanlon, as he had at the earlier hearing...
...It's been that kind of job for Scanlon, who's been called a wimp, brain-dead, and a conspirator with the Japanese "death machine" industry...
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...D'Amato was followed by Scanlon's two colleagues on the commission, Reagan appointees Carol Dawson and Anne Graham, who either charged him with misleading Congress, terrifying CPSC staff, or dawdling while consumers perished...
...Between 1982 and 1984 she served as a special assistant to Donald Hodel at the Department of Energy...
...Scanlon has been in hot water mainly over three issues: All-Terrain Vehicles (ATVs), cigarette lighters, and lawn 26 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR APRIL 1988 darts...
...When Graham brought her dog to the office, complaints about the mutt nipping at a damsel's ankles as she perched_ upon the thunder mug made their way to the agency's union representatives...
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...The Democrats on the subcommittee, who have introduced legislation to blast Scanlon out of his job, were hard-pressed to match the Republican assault, though chief Scanlon critic Rep...
...Reagan fans hoped the Commission would adopt some anti-regulatory attitudes, thus avoiding excesses like the insulation ban voted for by Steorts, which ended up being thrown out of court due to lack of evidence—after many companies went belly-up due to bad publicity...
...Robert Bauman, whose former driver she hired after her confirmation to CPSC...
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...Graham and Dawson continue to deny this explanation...
...W hile envy and spite may explain some of the rancor (the women are said to covet the chairman's job, feeling it should not have gone to a Democrat), there seem to be genuine political passions at work—and not in the way you'd think...
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...Graham says this characterization is inaccurate...
...Anne Graham once worked for Lyn Nofziger, and when the Reaganites came to town she became an assistant secretary at the Department of Education...
...Finally, her executive director stepped in to explain that "a big part of the problem is that there are studies that have attributed menstrual cycle problems to it, as well as difficulty with the fetus attributed in some instances to the formaldehyde...
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...Graham and Dawson brought in Eckart and any other regulator they could lay their hands on...
...The most famous Reagan Republican appointee was Nancy Harvey Steorts, who could have been dreamed up by Herblock...
...Since about Round Two, right-wingers have been asking the same questions: How could this happen...
...Late last year, Scanlon was seemingly vindicated when Dawson switched her vote, apparently in recognition of the overwhelming legal opinion that the refund provision would never stand up in court...
...Instead, he pole-vaulted into the middle of a bureaucratic nuthouse...
...The latter thought they had the perfect all-Reagan ticket with Scanlon as chairman and Dawson and Graham as commissioners...
...What they got was a 30-round cockfight...
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...His director of communication, Ed Martin, says his boss's concern stems from the fact that "New York has the second highest ATV-related death rate in the country...
...Since Reagan came to town, CPSC appointments have led critics and loyalists alike to the same conclusion: conservatives can't govern...
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...Carol Dawson's ties to the conservative movement can be traced back to her former husband, ex-Rep...
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...D'Amato, opening the testimony before the House subcommittee on Commerce, Consumer Protection, and Competitiveness, had charged Scanlon, chairman of the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC), with everything short of murder...
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...Terry, alone, has carried the Reagan Administration's deregulatory agenda at CPSC," says one...
...Eckart produced a memo less than a day old in which Graham and Dawson charged Scanlon with undercutting the ATV case by removing two agency lawyers...
...Whatever the cause, the senator's animosity toward Scanlon erupted during a January 28 oversight hearing on the ATV settlement, during which he denounced the settlement as a "sham" and a "bill of rights for the Japanese-based ATV manufacturers" (D'Amato mentioned the nationality of the manufacturers repeatedly during his testimony...
...When he defected to the Reagan Administration (where he is the highest-ranking Democrat), he thought he was headed for sensible government...
...W hile Scanlon supporters are happy to have Dawson back in their corner on the ATV refund, her role has been taken over by D'Amato, whose attacks on the chairman are more than tongue lashings...
...It was not a case of the commissioners arguing this point among themselves," says an aide...
...At CPSC, the two Republicans have taken what are traditionally Democratic positions, while the Democrat votes an essentially Republican line...
...A resume check suggests there could be something to that: •Terrence Scanlon is no ordinary Democrat, but the nephew of former Senate Majority Leader Mike Mansfield and a one-time presidential aide in the Kennedy and Johnson Administrations...
...Try it for three weeks...
...Flip-flopping like this doesn't do Terry any good," says one...
...Scanlon supporters are disturbed...
...I figure they probably sent Eckart some letterhead and let him write it himself...
...By comparison, over 900 people a year are killed in bicycle accidents, thirty children have been killed in recent years by automatic garage doors, two children died in horseshoe accidents and two others while playing tetherball...
...James Florio (D-NJ) introduced legislation that would lead to Scanlon's removal from the chairmanship...
...If Terry ends up getting dragged from office, it will be behind a team of ATVs with Graham and Dawson riding lead...
...More seasoned observers chalk up the Commission's internal warfare to that rare Washington combination—envy and spite...
...Scanlon supporters argue that their man took the proper approach in resisting the repurchase option, citing the government's failed attempt to force the recall of the General Motors X Car...
...On top of that, D'Amato held up Carter-era appointees David Pittle and Stuart Statler as models for Scanlon: "If either of these gentlemen were now chairing CPSC, I am certain that this debacle of a settlement would not have come about," he concluded...
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...The bottom line," says a Scanlon supporter, "is that a Republican senator is hurting the very people he should be helping...
...This management change earned two sizzling memos from the commissioners, and within weeks Eckart and Rep...
...A proposed industry buyback of the machines—supported by Dawson and Graham and opposed by Scanlon—provoked a bitter year-long fight among the commissioners, leading to charges that Dawson and Graham lent aid and comfort to the enemy...
...The Los Angeles Times, for instance, once asked her why she had voted to ban urea-formaldehyde home insulation...
...The last two are not as significant: around 200 people die each year in lighter-related fires, according to CPSC statistics, 140 in fires started by children...
...The more the senator examined the issue, the more concerned he became with Mr...
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...Three children have been killed by lawn darts in the last seventeen years...
...By the time it was over," says one staffer, "you'd have thought that Scanlon was handing out dead puppies...
...When pressed for details, she had none...
...Retaliation came quickly when Scanlon was tagged for spending just under $500 on coffee and donuts for a press conference—an expenditure not provided for under agency rules...
...Scanlon also voted to force cigarette manufacturers to child-proof their products, a move far beyond what he had advocated in the past...
...D'Amato, Dawson, and Graham are supposed to be on Scanlon's side...
Vol. 21 • April 1988 • No. 4
