New opposition to Labor pick over illegal immigrant revelation

AUSTIN, Texas - Foreshadowing difficult confirmations, Democrats stepped up attacks Sunday on two of George W. Bush's most conservative Cabinet choices as the president-elect's team acknowledged Labor Secretary-designate Linda Chavez provided housing and financial aid to an illegal immigrant.

The disclosure of the arrangement with the Guatemalan woman in the early 1990s sent the Bush camp scurrying to defend Chavez. It volunteered that she also had provided support to two Vietnamese refugees and for the children of a Puerto Rican woman living in New York.

Even as Democrats pledged to explore Chavez' relationship with the woman, a Democratic senator said that while he once was inclined to support the nomination of John Ashcroft to be attorney general, he may wind up oposing it. Joe Biden of Delaware, a senior member of the Judiciary Committee that will consider the Ashcroft nomination, said he is rethinking his position because of new information that has come to light in the past two weeks.

Tucker Eskew, a Bush transition spokesman, confirmed the central elements of an ABC report that the Guatemalan woman was in the United States illegally, had lived in the Chavez home in the early 1990s and had performed odd jobs around the house.

Eskew denied that Chavez considered her an employee, portraying the relationship as ''an act of charity and compassion.'' He said Bush ''has absolute confidence not only in Ms. Chavez but as to her ultimate confirmation.''

''This is not a 'nanny problem,''' Eskew insisted.

But opponents sought to liken the situation to the circumstances faced by Zoe Baird, President Clinton's nominee for attorney general, in 1993. Baird withdrew after reports that she hired an illegal immigrant as a nanny and did not pay the employer's share of Social Security taxes.

Senate Democratic leader Tom Daschle said the accusation, if true, raises questions about Chavez's qualifications to lead the Labor Department. ''I think it would present very serious problems,'' Daschle, D-S.D., said on CBS' ''Face the Nation.''

Democrats also criticized Ashcroft, who lost re-election in November to the Senate from Missouri, for his views on abortion and his record on civil rights issues. Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., called it ''a divisive, not unifying nomination.''

Kerry, appearing on NBC's ''Meet the Press,'' said he was concerned about Ashcroft's opposition, while a senator, to an openly gay ambassador and to the appointment of David Satcher, who is black, as surgeon general.

Biden, also appearing on ''Meet the Press,'' acknowledged that he said just before Christmas that he was inclined to vote for Ashcroft ''unless there's something I don't know.'' He said Sunday he has since learned some things about Ashcroft he did not know and ''I may oppose his nomination.'' Biden is ranking Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and a former chairman of the Judiciary Committee.

Democratic attacks on Ashcroft and Chavez previewed likely bruising confirmation hearings.

Bush advisers viewed the growing opposition to Chavez as the more serious of the two. With the Senate divided 50-50 between Republicans and Democrats, Chavez does not enjoy the general level of good will that Ashcroft does as a former senator.

Chavez, 53, a former Reagan administration official whose nomination has drawn sharp opposition from labor unions, provided shelter and financial assistance to the Guatemalan woman for about a year, Eskew said.

''Ms. Chavez did not employ this woman as a housekeeper or anything else,'' he said.

''On an irregular basis, she was given spending money. On an irregular basis, she did chores around the house,'' Eskew said. He said the money was mainly for ''living expenses and to help her feed herself'' and not compensation for the chores.

He said Chavez suspected at the time that the woman was in the country illegally, although did not focus on it because she did not consider her an employee.

''She didn't know for a fact'' that the woman was undocumented, Eskew added. He said Chavez only realized this for sure a few years later when the woman, who had returned to Guatemala, called to request assistance for coming back to the United States legally to work.

''Ms. Chavez at the time looked into it and reported back that it would take years to do that,'' Eskew said.

He said that two other times Chavez had provided shelter and financial support to those in need. In the late 1970s, she took two Vietnamese brothers into her home and helped support them ''for a number of weeks.''

Again, in the early 1990s, she took in two grade-school-age children of a Puerto Rican woman and helped pay for their private-school education, Eskew said.

''She has a big heart,'' Eskew said.

But the AFL-CIO, whose president John Sweeney has called Chavez' nomination ''an insult to American working men and women,'' issued a statement on Sunday saying that, ''Unfortunately, her explanation sounds too much like the explanation of employers who have tried to skirt the law by saying that individuals are not their employees.''

Also Sunday:

-Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., the temporary chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, said it was ''a very troubling new allegation which needs to be fully addressed at the time of the hearings.''

-The Rev. Jesse Jackson called the arrangement ''indentured servitude,'' telling ABC ''This Week'' that, as labor secretary, ''This woman must now enforce the law.''

-Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., appearing on CNN's ''Late Edition,'' said of the arrangement: ''It doesn't sound good to me - somebody who lived with you did some chores around your house? She really didn't get paid, she just got some living money? It doesn't sound good for a labor secretary. I'll tell you that right now.''

-Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, told CNN she would reserve judgment until she heard from Bush's transition team. ''There are a number of questions there - I think it would be difficult to speculate on it until we have all of the facts.''