WASHINGTON IN BRIEF

House Passes Ban on Job Bias Against Gays

The House yesterday approved the first federal ban on job discrimination against gay men, lesbians and bisexuals.

Passage of the Employment Non-Discrimination Act came despite protests from some gay rights supporters that the bill does not protect transgender workers. That term covers transsexuals, cross-dressers and others whose outward appearance does not match their sex at birth.

The measure would make it illegal for employers to make decisions about hiring, firing, promoting or paying an employee based on sexual orientation. It would exempt churches and the military.

After the 235 to 1 84 vote, supporters are expecting a tough fight in the narrowly divided Senate, where Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) plans to introduce a similar version.

A veto from President Bush is expected if the proposal does pass the Senate.

Backers of the House bill proclaimed it a major civil rights advance for gays.

"Bigotry and homophobia are sentiments that should never be allowed to permeate the American workplace," said House Majority Whip James Clyburn (D-S.C.).

O'Connor Criticizes Election of Judges

Retired Supreme Court justice Sandra Day O'Connor said she favors doing away with electing judges and making prosecutors and defense lawyers interchangeable as a way of improving the U.S. justice system.

O'Connor, who has spent much of her 21 months in retirement defending judicial independence, said judges who must run in partisan elections risk being compromised by the growing amount of campaign cash they must raise.

"If I could wave a magic wand . . . I would wave it to secure some kind of merit selection of judges across the country," O'Connor said at a conference on her majority opinion in Strickland v. Washington in 1984, which set standards for determining whether a lawyer is providing competent representation.

O'Connor's home state of Arizona switched from partisan elections of judges to an appointed system in the 1970s. "I watched the improvement of the judiciary in that state," O'Connor said at the conference sponsored by the nonpartisan Constitution Project. She was elected a trial judge under the old system and later appointed an appellate judge by then-Gov. Bruce Babbitt.

O'Connor was on crutches at the event, the result of what a court official said was a temporary condition in her right hip.

Fake Briefing Costs FEMA Press Official

Federal Emergency Management Agency press secretary and national spokesman Aaron Walker has resigned effective Dec. 7, becoming the latest casualty of a fake news conference staged by FEMA on Oct. 23 in response to wildfires in Southern California, an agency spokesman said.

Walker resigned after an internal investigation into the event, in which FEMA staffers posing as reporters questioned Paulison's deputy, Vice Adm. Harvey E. Johnson, while actual reporters listening on a telephone conference call could not speak.

Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell earlier withdrew a job offer to FEMA's director of external communications at the time, John "Pat" Philbin, to serve as the DNI's director of public affairs.

-- From Staff Reports and News Services