Word: rumsfeld
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...central question is whether the program's most visible achievements were successes or excesses. OEO Director Donald Rumsfeld, who did the firing, apparently felt that Lenzner's activist approach failed to take account of political realities. When California legal services offices won expansion of the medical aid rolls, for instance, the state government somehow had to find an extra $200 million. Governor Ronald Reagan's complaints could be heard clearly in Washington...
Crunch. Lenzner's backers argue that legal rights are legal rights whatever the political realities. And they see other indications that the program is being emasculated. A year ago, it was decided that all new lawyers had to be cleared by the White House. More recently, Rumsfeld proposed to move basic responsibility for the program from Lenzner and the 850 local OEO law offices to regional OEO directors, who are all political appointees. Rumsfeld scrapped the plan in the face of harsh criticism by the American Bar Association among others, but replaced it with a variation that some A.B.A...
Besides the Moynihan shift, there were two other significant items on the Administration's personnel front. Donald Rumsfeld, chief of the Office of Economic Opportunity, fired Terry Lenzner, 31, head of OEO's program providing legal services to the poor (TIME, Oct. 26). The OEO recently tried to turn over to field offices some of Lenzner's administrative responsibilities. Lenzner accused Rumsfeld of "caving in" to politicians "who are determined to keep us from suing special interests close to them on behalf of the poor." Rumsfeld said Lenzner was "either unwilling or unable" to carry...
...present controversy smoldered more or less privately until the Senate Subcommittee on Employment, Manpower and Poverty summoned OEO Director Rumsfeld to explain his intentions. Rumsfeld insisted that "regionalization" is merely an administrative shuffle, not an emasculation. He stressed that the independence of the Legal Services attorneys would not be impaired. Anyway, he added, the matter is still "an open question." Nevertheless, Senator Walter Mondale of Minnesota produced a confidential memo from one of Rumsfeld's lieutenants treating decentralization as a virtual fait accompli and outlining procedures to carry it out. Rumsfeld denied that the memo contradicted his position...
Largely because of its success, the program has been able to retain its independence. Until now, however, it enjoyed the active protection of its parent OEO. Rumsfeld says that he is not likely to decide on decentralization until he hears the results of a study by the National Advisory Council for his legal services later this month. He may further defer the matter until after the November elections. But Legal Services lawyers fear that they will soon, in the words of Terry Hatter Jr. of Los Angeles' Western Center on Law and Poverty, "end up handling nothing but divorces...