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Friday, January 28,1994
NATION/WORLD UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
WASHINGTON
Clinton OKs plan to experiment with welfare in Florida
In a preview of the president's plan to overhaul the nation's welfare system, the Clinton administration gave Florida permission yesterday to experiment with time-limited benefits and subsidies to employers who hire welfare recipients.
A senior administration official said Florida's demonstration project is significant because it mirrors President Clinton's efforts to expand education, training and child-care for parents on welfare while limiting their benefits to two years.
In his State of the Union address Tuesday, Clinton promised to introduce welfare-reform legislation this spring. Although the administration has outlined its plan in broad terms, it has yet to make the tough decisions about costs and financing.
In Florida, parents who participate in the demonstration will be allowed to collect welfare for a maximum of 24 months in any five-year period. While on the rolls, parents will be eligible for training, education, child care, health insurance and intensive case management.
The Clinton administration also wants to limit welfare benefits to 24 months over a certain, but still undecided, length of time, the senior administration official said. Its plan will also include counseling, education or training, and help with child care for recipients preparing to leave the rolls.
In Florida, the state will guarantee a minimum wage job for recipients unable to locate work at the end of 24 months, according to the federal Department of Health and Human Services.
THE NEWS in brief
WASHINGTON
Packwood to appeal court order
Sen. Bob Packwood will appeal a court ruling ordering him to provide his diaries to the Senate Ethics Committee, his lawyer said yesterday. A judge said he would delay transfer of the materials to permit the appeal.
Defense attorney Jacob Stein said he will go to the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia while the diaries are given to a court-appointed hearing examiner, who in turn will prepare them for the ethics committee.
The ethics panel is investigating Packwood for alleged sexual misconduct, witness intimidation and obstruction of the investigation. It wants the diaries to determine whether to expand the investigation to include job offers to the Oregon Republican's wife by lobbyists and businessmen.
Senate attorneys agreed to the arrangement in a closed meeting and later in open court.
Nothing was said at the hearing about a Justice Department subpoena for the diaries. A department criminal investigation has focused on the job offers.
Jackson, who upheld a committee subpoena for the diaries Monday, said he would appoint Kenneth Starr as the neutral examiner.
The former federal appellate judge and U.S. solicitor general will block out information on attorney-client, family and medical matters, and will choose an expert to verify the authenticity of tape-recorded diaries.
Such verification is needed because Packwood's
former secretary, who transcribed the diary tapes, told the committee that Packwood altered some diary materials while awaiting a subpoena. The court took custody of the materials last month after the accusation was made.
Jackson also said Starr "will arrange for transmission of the diaries to the FBI to be copied" for Packwood.
BURLINGTON, Kan. 'Event' shuts down Wolf Creek
The Wolf Creek Generating Station was shut down early yesterday because of a control rod problem, but there was no threat to the public and no release of radiation, officials with the nuclear power plant said.
Company officials declared an "unusual event," the lowest of four emergency classifications that require notification of county, state and federal officials, when a control rood failed to respond properly about 2:45 a.m. The plant was shut down at 4:23 a.m.
There was no problem with the plant's other 52 control rods, said Mona Grimsley, a plant representative. The control rods provide one means of controlling the power output of the plant's reactor, she said.
"We think the problem was a loose cable connection on a control rod drive mechanism," Grimsley said.
Wolf Creek officials said they will take advantage of the shutdown to do other routine work at the plant.
Compiled from The Associated Press.
Gambling ruling fuels feud on Native American casinos
The Associated Press
TOPEKA — In the wake of a state Supreme Court ruling, Gov. Joan Finney said yesterday that the Legislature should ratify casino gambling compacts with Native American tribes.
Finney made her statement even though the chairmen of the legislative committees that handle gambling issues disagreed over the ruling's effect. The ruling said the 1986 constitutional amendment that authorized a state-run lottery was broad enough to allow state-operated casino games.
According to the governor and her attorney, Pedro rrigonegaray of Topeka, the ruling means that Kansas has no legal right to keep the four Native American tribes with reservations inside the state from opening casinos.
The ruling also opens the door to state-operated casinos, but Finney said she wanted lawmakers to act on the tribes' gambling compacts first.
"I believe it is about time that the Kansas Legislature deal fairly and responsibly with the Native Americans and ratify the compacts," Finney told reporters during a news conference.
Rep. Clyde Graeber, R-Leavenworth, chairman of the House Federal and State Affairs Committee, said he expected the decision to be as it was, and that it reopened the issue of Native American casinos. He was joined in that opinion by Attorney General Bob Stephan.
But Sen. Jerry Moran, R-Hays, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said he still didn't think the Indians could open casinos unless the state did it as well. He said that would take an act of the Legislature, and he didn't think such an act would pass.
Two compacts — one with the Kickapoo Nation and another with the Prairie Band Potawatomi — were negotiated by Finney but rejected by the Senate. Two others, with the Sac and Fox and the lowas, still are pending.
Stephan said the ruling should convince legislators that they cannot stop Native American casinos. He said he believed the state never could, based on federal law.
"Think of all the consternation that gone on in the Legislature, the high blood pressure, the nights of worry, that I tried to save them from," Stephan said. "It was a waste of time, and I said so."
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