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Senator Presses White House on Hiring Veterans

Sen. Charles E. Grassley, left, wasn't satisfied by Bush adviser Karl Zinsmeister's reply to his letter.
Sen. Charles E. Grassley, left, wasn't satisfied by Bush adviser Karl Zinsmeister's reply to his letter. (Matthew Putney - AP)
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The White House "attempted to change the subject and ignore my request," Grassley wrote. He again asked the president to commit to a 10 percent hiring goal for each agency.

Grassley also asked the president for a reply by next Friday.

Concerns About Diversity Bills

The Bush administration yesterday lodged "initial concerns" about legislation that would provide for more diversity in the Senior Executive Service, a group of about 6,000 career leaders who usually hold high-level management jobs in government agencies.

Minorities are underrepresented among federal executives compared with lower levels of the government. Rep. Danny K. Davis (D-Ill.) and Sen. Daniel K. Akaka (D-Hawaii) have been holding hearings on diversity in the executive ranks.

Bills sponsored by Davis and Akaka would require the Office of Personnel Management to create a Senior Executive Service resource office. The bills also would order each federal agency to create three-member SES panels, each of which would include at least one member of a racial or ethnic minority and at least one woman.

Nancy H. Kichak, an associate director at the OPM, said at a House-Senate hearing yesterday that the Justice Department has advised that imposing race and gender requirements on the proposed panels "are likely unconstitutional" under equal-protection precedents.

And creating a new office in the OPM would substantially increase costs for the agency, she said.

Several employee groups said the Davis-Akaka bill is long overdue. William A. Brown Sr., president of the African American Federal Executive Association, said the legislation would provide a substitute for current methods of selecting federal executives "that will give us better results."

The bill provides for "a diverse panel and a better way, if you would, of doing business," he testified.

Talk Shows

Randy Wolverton, a supervisory special agent at the FBI, will be the guest on "FedTalk" at 11 a.m. today on http://federalnewsradio.com and WFED (1050 AM).

Roy A. Bernardi, acting secretary of housing and urban development, will be the guest on the IBM "Business of Government Hour" at 9 a.m. Saturday on WJFK (106.7 FM).

Stephen Barr's e-mail address isbarrs@washpost.com.


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