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Wednesday, January 17, 2001
Opinion
Page 9
THE BATTALION
The problem with Chavez
Was Linda Chavez a victim of corrupt politics, or was she just corrupt herself?
F t
following a trouble-ridden presi
dential administration, the actions
of Linda Chavez, President-elect
Bush's initial nominee for labor secre
tary, helped prepare Americans for the
next round. Chavez, a prominent activist
in Washington politics, disregarded her
factual violations of U. S. immigration
laws 10 years ago during her interview
process with Bush’s transition team.
Her apparent act of compassion, harboring illegal
Guatemalan immigrant Martha Mercado, included pro
viding Mercado with free room and board and so-called
“monetary allowances.” Chavez’s actions undermined her
qualifications to lead the Department of Labor; therefore,
her withdrawal from Bush’s nomination was the only cor
rect decision. Trusting such a person to represent the
working people of America and enforce U.S. immigra
tion laws would be an insult to the hard-working, tax-pay
ing individuals whom she would be representing for the
next four years.
By concealing information from the public eye,
Chavez destroyed her credibility and trustworthiness.
Bush advisers noted that information about Mercado was
never disclosed while they conducted their many inter
views with Chavez. In fact, according to The Wall Street
Journal, Chavez worried about her fate, calling a neigh
bor who had employed Mercado at one point to discuss a
| possible FBI investigation. She even asked if the neigh
bor planned to speak with the media in the event Chavez
were named to Bush’s Cabinet.
Chavez obviously went to great lengths to keep the sto
ry from surfacing. Once the story broke, Chavez called
Regardless of her apology, the
nation cannot trust the
highest-ranking labor official to
protect workers in America if she
cannot abide by the rules herself
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her violations of the law assisting someone in need, which
is exactly the excuse labor unions hear when employers
are found employing illegal aliens. The laws Chavez
broke are the very laws that the labor secretary is sup
posed to enforce.
Ironically, Chavez found herself in the center of yet
another issue. She publicly opposed one of President
Clinton’s Cabinet nominees in 1993 for essentially the
same reason that others opposed her nomination. Zoe
Baird, Clinton’s 1993 nominee for attorney general, em
ployed two illegal immigrants and failed to pay Social Se
curity taxes on their wages. Now, eight years later, and
faced with an identical scenario, Chavez said that Baird
was treated unfairly.
Only when high-ranking officials across the nation
caught wind of the allegations did Chavez reluctantly de
cide to withdraw her nomination. Some say Chavez
should be commended for withdrawing. However, her
withdrawal was not the act of a martyr, but simply an act
of responsibility.
She said her future with the Bush administration looked
grim as long as the politics in Washington focused on “search
and destroy” tactics. Chavez must have forgotten that a
background check is standard procedure for Cabinet nomi
nees. She does say she made a grave mistake by not dis
closing this information when she first had the opportunity.
Regardless of her apology, the nation cannot trust the
highest-ranking labor official to protect workers in Amer
ica if she cannot abide by the rules herself. Chavez’s ac
tions, while compassionate, are not appropriate behavior
for secretary of labor.
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'ipxnerience^ X from Texas’Con-
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^ rm going 1 Dec. 13 has top officials
i 6 from the Texas Depart-
c *- , ptylnent of Criminal Jus-
only h °P ke tice searching for an-,
1 Pfn piri swers an d somewhere
nly a ,|c re ;: |° point the blame. The
)0 Big 1^ . daylight prison break led to the death of
ings more it‘ -Irving p 0 ]i ce officer Aubrey Hawkins,
loor. Heah 0 was g Unne( j down as he attempted to
j Stop the robbery of an Oshman’s Sporting
one was th^ Goods store. In a serious incident review,
o during hi s “ ! Gary Johnson, director of the state prison
J.J. Trevino is a senior
journalism major.
A 11
A f
x Ysi
THOMAS
CAMPBELL
RUBEN DELUNA/The Battalion
trusted
friend
eshowed up
at Linda Chavez’s
doorstep with a
young woman, a
homeless victim
of domestic abuse
who was hungry
and lacking basic language skills.
Chavez did not ask for Marta Merca
do’s citizenship papers before invit
ing her into her home and taking care
of the battered, homeless woman —
an act of compassionate conser
vatism Chavez thinks exemplifies the
necessary character for President
elect Bush’s Cabinet. Bush is looking
for people in his Cabinet who are not
only qualified, but represent the same
values he believes have not been seen
in the executive branch in the past
eight years. In this light, Chavez’s
withdrawal from the secretary of la
bor nomination was a mistake; she is
a victim of the politics of personal
destruction.
As soon as Chavez was an
nounced as Bush’s secretary of la
bor nominee, the outspoken conser
vative pundit was attacked by
liberals, to the pleasure of organized
labor lobbyists.
Chavez’s opposition to affirma
tive action and raising the minimum
wage angered many union mem
bers. Like attorney general nominee
John Ashcroft, Chavez has been the
victim of “an organized effort to de
rail nominations,” said Jeff Sessions
(R - Ala.).
The same unrelenting attacks
have not been made against Envi
ronmental Protection Agency head
nominee Christie Todd Whitman, the
current Republican governor of New
Jersey, who admitted seven years
ago she unlawfully employed two il
legal immigrants without paying the
proper taxes.
One can only assume that, be
cause of Whitman’s liberal ideology
and support for ideas like abortion
rights, gay rights and gun control, she
is immune to attacks from the liberal
elements 'of society.
Chavez, with experience as a
columnist for USA Today, a delegate
to the United Nations sub-committee
on human rights, and the Civil Rights
administrator under former -Presi
dent Reagan, has also served as a po
litical analyst.
Zoe Baird, the former attorney
general designee of President Clinton
in 1993, stepped down amid similar
accusations that she illegally hired and
paid two illegal immigrants. When
asked about what America thought
about the Baird affair, Chavez stated,
“I think most of the American people
were upset during the Zoe Baird nom
ination that she hired an illegal alien.
That was what upset them more than
the fact that she did not pay Social Se
curity taxes. I do believe that Zoe
Baird was treated unfairly.”
Chavez did not lead the charge
against Baird, but merely answered
a question about why she thought
Americans were upset with Baird."
Chavez’s history of compas
sionate conservatism would riot
compromise her ability to be labor
secretary. . Helping a homeless
woman get back on her feet should
not call one’s ethics into question.
If anything, it demonstrates a
strong sense of morality, compas
sion and a belief in making Ameri
ca a better society.
Because of the drawn out elec
tion, the nomination process for the
nearly 1,000 open executive posi
tions had to be shortened by five
weeks, thereby preventing a de
tailed examination into each nomi
nee’s background. The nominees
should have been as open as possi
ble about their pasts to expedite the
nomination process and prevent
disasters like this. Chavez should
have been more forthcoming with
the Bush team, and she admits as
much.
Because of her
compassion,
Chavez has become
a victim of the poli
tics of personal "5
destruction.
Because Chavez was not open
with the Bush team, the team wa^
unable to soften the impact of the|
revelation that Chavez harbored an
illegal alien. Chavez refutes allega
tions that she tried to silence her
neighbors about Mercado by staU
ing, “That’s false. I was trying to re-j
fresh my memory.”
The Bush team did not have the:
time to defend someone who wa^
not forthcoming with all possibly
damaging personal actions.
Chavez was attacked for he?
staunch conservatism, not for hen
past association with Mercado. The
Mercado incident was an excuse for
political opponents to force Chavez
out of a position for which she is
well qualified.
The assertion that Chavez was
instrumental in defeating Clinton’s
appointment of Baird is an un
scrupulous attempt to make Chavez
look hypocritical.
The fact that Chavez has been
defeated, while liberal Gov. Todd
Whitman remains unscathed, shows
a clear double standard. Chavez
helped an abused, homeless woman
get on her feet, and because of h£r
compassion, Chavez has become a
victim of the politics of personal
destruction. u 1-
Thomas Campbell is a junior
agricultural journalism major.
Prison Blues
Texas prison system needs major overhaul; recent prison break shows current incompetence
s young
practice <
tend to mitt 01
»on the mo#;
ities of set^
rosttf lystem’s Institutional Division, cited hu-
and
game
out.
an error and procedural noncompliance
f three guards as the key reasons for the
scape.
While Texas Criminal Justice Depart-
ent officials are quick to identify inept
uards as the cause of the escape, they are
hesitant to admit that departmental policy
needs to be re-evaluated. To blame an elab
orate prison escape, in which 16 prison
y/orkers and inmates were subdued, and 16
firearms were stolen, on a certain few cor-
. fcdions officers is laughable at best. There
Lincoln > s 1 is a larger problem to contend than a few
journalisn'*
, the coiife'”
j ihe team*
; ready toP*
lax prison guards, and the prison adminis
tration’s knowledge of these unsupervised
conditions is at the heart of this problem.
“This report is ludicrous. It’s a joke,”
Jayne Hawkins, mother of the late
Aubrey Hawkins, is quoted as saying in
The New York Times. “You’re using
words like ‘blame’ and ‘fault’ when you
should be talking about responsibility and
accountability.”
The Texas Department of Criminal Jus
tice was aware the Connally Unit may have
presented an ideal environment for an es
cape, according to Randy Albert, a correc
tions officer subdued during the escape.
Albert told the Fort Worth Star-
Telegram, “If you have people working
for you, and they’re not doing their job,
and you just keep letting it happen, you’re
just as much at fault as those people
working for you.”
Various prison employees, speculated
that it was only a matter of time before
something like this happened. The Con
nally Unit is not the only Texas prison that
lacks skilled staff; the growing compla
cency of underpaid, overworked correc
tions. officers forced to work in under
staffed prisons has led to loose security in
prisons across Texas. This carefree atmos
phere enabled seven convicted felons to
overtake a maintenance warehouse and
office, subdue and gag several guards, and
impersonate prison personnel before es
caping in an unattended Texas Depart
ment of Criminal Justice truck.
This poor pay has led to understaffed
Texas Prisons
160,000 inmates in 116 prisons
Texas ranks 43rd in prison
employee pay.
Salaries begin at $18,000
annually and do not exceed
$28,000
prisons throughout the state, and according
to statistics, at least one in five Texas cor
rections officers quit last year.
Union officials also report that the Con
nally Unit was 22 officers short of staff re
quirements at the time of the escape. Other
reports claim the unit to be as many as 80
officers short.
In addition to operating with skeleton
crews, Texas prisons are becoming home
to increasingly violent and hardened crimi
nals who have nothing to lose. The number
of prisoner attacks on guards in Texas was
2,267 in 2000, a dramatic increase from
previous years.
The Texas prison system’s only re
sponse to its weakening situation has been
more prisons. The billions of dollars spent
on building prisons corresponded with a
tripling of the state’s inmate population
over the past decade.
The Texas Department of Criminal
Justice must take responsibility for the
worsening condition of the state’s pris
ons before an incident of this magnitude
occurs again. Steps must be taken to en
sure officers receive the best training
available and are prepared to deal with
escape and hostage situations. Pay
should be increased in an effort to bolster
employee self-esteem. Guards must be
held responsible for even the smallest of
procedural breaches, and problems must
be isolated and eliminated before they
get worse.
Electronic monitoring, which has
proven to be effective elsewhere, may
also become widespread as prison offi
cials try to cope with the increasing in
mate population.
The system should re-evaluate how
prisoner security-risk classification is
handled-and must better enforce the use of
identification, within prison walls and ; *
along its perimeter. Above all, prisoners-^'
should never remain unattended or loose
ly supervised. Given the opportunity to ■ *
escape, a person in prison will not turn it
down. --
A Texas prison system overhaul may bfc
closer now than ever, but until such an v „
overhaul is implemented, the Texas De-
partment of Criminal Justice must learn the
hard way the problem with prisoners: if
you ignore them, they will go away.
George Deutsch is a sophomdre
journalism major.
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