Democratic Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.) and Patty Murray (Wash.) pledged to do whatever it takes to undo a new regulation they say will limit women's access to medical care.

The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) unveiled a regulation Thursday that the administration says will protect healthcare workers from being forced to take actions that go against their conscience.

When the rule takes effect next month, physicians, nurses, pharmacists and a host of other classes of healthcare workers will have strengthened legal rights to refuse to perform, or discuss, abortions, or take part in any other activity about which they have a moral objection.

"Doctors and other healthcare providers should not be forced to choose between good professional standing and violating their conscience," HHS Secretary Mike Leavitt said.

To Clinton, Murray and a plethora of women's groups and, the last-minute "conscience clause" rule is a parting shot against women's rights to abortion and contraceptive services by the outgoing administration.

"It's clear that the Bush administration's assault on healthcare protections for women will continue up until their very last day in office. This is the kind of desperate, ideologically driven politics that helped convince Americans it's time for change," Murray said.

"This regulation threatens access to critical healthcare services and information, while upending the carefully crafted religious protections for patients and providers already in law," said Clinton, who has been chosen by President-elect Obama to be secretary of state next year.

"Under the next administration and Congress, we will reverse this policy and ensure that the health of patients always comes first. I will work with President-elect Obama to explore every possible option to ensure women continue to have access to the healthcare they need," Murray said.

Doing so could prove tricky and time-consuming.

The incoming Obama administration cannot simply cancel the regulation because, once it is published Friday, it will have the force of law on Jan. 18. Obama's HHS could issue a new regulation to repeal or replace the Bush rule but that process typically takes at least six months.

Congress has several legislative methods of undoing regulations but votes on abortion issues are always heated.

Obama has been clear about his views on the regulation.

"This proposed regulation complicates, rather than clarifies the law. It raises troubling issues about access to basic health care for women, particularly access to contraceptives. We need to restore integrity to our public health programs, not create backdoor efforts to weaken them. I am committed to ensuring that the health and reproductive rights of women are protected," Obama said in August.

Clinton and Murray met with Leavitt in September but were unable to change his position. After the meeting, 28 senators - including Obama, Clinton and Murray - expressed their opposition to the regulation in a letter to Leavitt. Clinton and Murray drafted legislation to block the rule but it was not considered before Congress recessed for the year.

To Leavitt, the regulation is needed to protect healthcare workers from workplace discrimination, or even firing, if they refuse to participate in medical services that violate their moral or religious beliefs.

Under the regulation, any medical facility found to inadequately protect workers' rights to refuse to "participate in services to which they object" would lose federal funding.

The administration ignited a firestorm of protest from abortion-rights advocates and cheers of approval from anti-abortion-rights groups when it initially proposed the rule in July on the grounds that current law is not being properly enforced. Planned Parenthood Federation of America President Cecile Richards described the rule as "disastrous."

The American Civil Liberties Union spoke out against the rule Thursday. "Contrary to existing federal law, today's rule fails to carefully balance protections for individual religious liberty and patients' access to reproductive healthcare," said Vania Leveille, the group's legislative counsel.

Many healthcare groups disagree with the rule. The American Medical Association, American Hospital Association, the National Association of Chain Drug Stores and others have come out against it.

A federal agency, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission also expressed its opposition.
Others, such as anti-abortion-rights groups and religiously affiliated hospitals, applauded the Bush administration for taking action.

"This is a huge victory for religious freedom and the First Amendment," Family Research Council President Tony Perkins said. "No one should be forced to have an abortion and no one should be forced to be an abortionist," he said.




By Jeffrey Young, The Hill, December 18, 2008

WASHINGTON - Former President Bill Clinton has collected tens of millions of dollars for his foundation over the last 10 years from governments in the Middle East, tycoons from Canada, India, Nigeria and Ukraine, and other international figures with interests in American foreign policy.

Lifting a longstanding cloak of secrecy, Mr. Clinton on Thursday released a complete list of more than 200,000 donors to his foundation as part of an agreement to douse concerns about potential conflicts if Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton is confirmed as secretary of state in the Obama administration.

The donor list offers a glimpse into the high-powered, big-dollar world in which Mr. Clinton has traveled since leaving the White House as he jetted around the globe making money for himself and raising vast sums for his ambitious philanthropic programs fighting disease, poverty and climate change. Some of the world's richest people and most famous celebrities handed over large checks to finance his presidential library and charitable activities.

With his wife now poised to take over as America's top diplomat, Mr. Clinton's fund-raising is coming under new scrutiny for relationships that could pose potential conflict-of-interest issues for Mrs. Clinton in her job. Some of her husband's biggest backers have much at stake in the policies that President-elect Barack Obama's incoming administration adopts toward their regions or business ventures.

Saudi Arabia alone gave to the foundation $10 million to $25 million, as did government aid agencies in Australia and the Dominican Republic. Brunei, Kuwait, Norway, Oman, Qatar and Taiwan each gave more than $1 million. So did the ruling family of Abu Dhabi and the Dubai Foundation, both based in the United Arab Emirates, and the Friends of Saudi Arabia, founded by a Saudi prince.

Also among the largest donors were a businessman who was close to the onetime military ruler of Nigeria, a Ukrainian tycoon who was son-in-law of that former Soviet republic's authoritarian president and a Canadian mining executive who took Mr. Clinton to Kazakhstan while trying to win lucrative uranium contracts.

In addition, the foundation accepted sizable contributions from several prominent figures from India, like a billionaire steel magnate and a politician who lobbied Mrs. Clinton this year on behalf of a civilian nuclear cooperation agreement between India and the United States, a deal that has rankled Pakistan, a key foreign policy focus of the incoming administration.

Such contributions could provoke suspicion at home and abroad among those wondering about any effect on administration policy.

Matthew Levitt, a senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, said donations from "countries where we have particularly sensitive issues and relations" would invariably raise concerns about whether Mrs. Clinton had conflicts of interest.

"The real question," Mr. Levitt said, "is to what extent you can really separate the activities and influence of any husband and wife, and certainly a husband and wife team that is such a powerhouse."

Mr. Clinton's office said in a statement that the disclosure itself should ensure that there would be "not even the appearance of a conflict of interest."

Stephanie Cutter, a spokeswoman for Mr. Obama, said the president-elect had chosen Mrs. Clinton for his cabinet because "no one could better represent the United States."

"Past donations to the Clinton foundation," Ms. Cutter said, "have no connection to Senator Clinton's prospective tenure as secretary of state."

Republicans have addressed the issue cautiously, suggesting that they would examine it but not necessarily hold up Mrs. Clinton's confirmation as a result. Senator Richard G. Lugar of Indiana, the top Republican on the Foreign Relations Committee, which will consider her nomination, was in Russia on Thursday and unavailable for comment, according to Mr. Lugar's office.

But in an interview on Nov. 30 on "This Week" on ABC, Mr. Lugar said Mr. Clinton's activities would raise legitimate questions, adding, "I don't know how, given all of our ethics standards now, anyone quite measures up to this who has such cosmic ties."

Still, he indicated that he would vote for Mrs. Clinton and praised Mr. Obama's team for doing "a good job in trying to pin down the most important elements" in its agreement with Mr. Clinton.

To avoid potential conflicts, the Obama team, represented by its transition co-chairwoman, Valerie Jarrett, signed a memorandum of understanding on Dec. 12 with the William J. Clinton Foundation, represented by its chief executive, Bruce R. Lindsey. The five-page memorandum, provided to reporters on Thursday, required Mr. Clinton to disclose his past donors by the end of the year and any future contributors once a year.

The memorandum also requires that if Mrs. Clinton is confirmed, the Clinton Global Initiative, an offshoot of the foundation, will be incorporated separately, will no longer hold events outside the United States and will refuse any further contributions from foreign governments. Other initiatives operating under the auspices of the foundation would follow new rules and consult with State Department ethics officials in certain circumstances.

Federal law does not require former presidents to reveal foundation donors, and Mr. Clinton had until now declined to do so, arguing that many who gave expected confidentiality. Other former presidents have taken money from overseas sources, including President George Bush, whose son has sat in the Oval Office for the last eight years. The elder Mr. Bush has accepted millions of dollars from Saudi, Kuwaiti and other foreign sources for his own library.

Mr. Clinton's foundation has raised $500 million since 1997, growing into a global operation with 1,100 paid staff members and volunteers in 40 countries. It said it had provided medicine to 1.4 million people living with H.I.V./AIDS, helped dozens of cities reduce heat-trapping gases and worked to spread economic opportunity.

Mr. Clinton's advocates said that the disclosure on Thursday showed he had nothing to hide and that most of his largest contributors were already known.

Yet while unprecedented, the disclosure was also limited.

The list posted on the foundation's Web site - www.clintonfoundation.org - did not provide the nationality or occupation of the donors, the dates they contributed or the precise amounts of their gifts, instead breaking down contributors by dollar ranges. Nor did the list include pledges for future donations. As a result, it is impossible to know from the list which donations were made while Mr. Clinton was still president or while Mrs. Clinton was running for president.

Many benefactors are well-known Americans, like Stephen L. Bing; Alfonso Fanjul; Bill Gates; Tom Golisano, a billionaire who ran for New York governor; Rupert Murdoch; and Barbara Streisand. Bloomberg L.P., the financial media empire founded by Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg of New York, contributed, as did Freddie Mac, the mortgage company now partly blamed for the housing market collapse.

Another potentially sensitive donation came from Blackwater Training Center, part of the private security firm hired to protect American diplomats in Iraq. Five of its guards have been indicted for their roles in a 2007 shooting that left 17 Iraqi civilians dead.

The potential for appearances of conflict was illustrated by Amar Singh, a politician in India who gave $1 million to $5 million. Mr. Singh visited the United States in September to lobby for a deal allowing India to obtain civilian nuclear technology even though it never signed the Non-Proliferation Treaty. He met with Mrs. Clinton, who he said assured him that Democrats would not block the deal. Congress approved it weeks later.

Other donors have connections with India, a potential flashpoint because of tensions with Pakistan. Among them was Lakshmi Mittal, a steel magnate and, according to Forbes magazine, the fourth-richest person in the world. Mr. Mittal, who donated $1 million to $5 million, was involved in a scandal in 2002 in London, where he lives. After Mr. Mittal made a large donation to the Labor Party, Prime Minister Tony Blair helped him persuade Romania to sell him its state steel company.

Another donor was Gilbert Chagoury, a businessman close to Gen. Sani Abacha of Nigeria, widely criticized for a brutal and corrupt rule.

Mr. Chagoury tried during the 1990s to win favor for Mr. Abacha from the Clinton administration, contributing $460,000 to a voter registration group to which Democratic officials steered him, according to news accounts. He won meetings with National Security Council officials, including Susan E. Rice, who is now Mr. Obama's choice to be ambassador to the United Nations.

By Peter Baker and Charlie Savage, The New York Times, December 18, 2008

After half a century of trying to stay out of the spotlight unless she had a book or charitable cause to promote, Caroline Kennedy is being dissected like never before as she seeks an appointment to the U.S. Senate.

The 51-year-old Ivy League-trained lawyer and author's interest in replacing Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton has raised issues of political privilege, entitlement and the perils of the mommy track - and some resentment even though she has earned a lifetime of respect as the daughter of assassinated President John F. Kennedy.

In a year of increased democratization of the political process and record turnout by first-time voters, some are incensed that someone who has never sought political office nor campaigned much for anyone outside her own family could leapfrog to high federal office without having to dirty her hands or shake many others. Outside of education, Kennedy has taken few political positions.

After lunching at Sylvia's, a Harlem soul food restaurant, Thursday with the Rev. Al Sharpton, she vaguely described herself as "a Kennedy Democrat, a Clinton Democrat" and said she shares values with President-elect Barack Obama. Her presidential endorsement of Obama earlier this year was powerful because it was her first other than one for her uncle Ted Kennedy in 1980.

She is not the only scion of a prominent political family who eventually could land in higher office as chairs switch during the next few years. Beau Biden, Delaware's attorney general, could land in the Senate chair held by his father, Vice President-elect Joe Biden. Ted Kaufman, an aide to the senior Biden, was named his replacement but has said he will not seek election in 2010. And Rep. John Salazar, D-Colo., is among the contenders to replace his brother, Interior Secretary-designate Sen. Ken Salazar, D-Colo.

But there's a difference: Beau Biden and John Salazar have sought and been elected to political office.

"It is unseemly that she's being considered for the seat simply because of her family lineage and her ability to pick up the phone and ring the governor, but pointing that out is 'bashing Caroline.' It's all ridiculous, and yes, depressing," Markos Moulitsas, founder of the highly trafficked liberal political blog dailykos.com, wrote this week.

Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y., who said he was considering running against Kennedy in 2010 should she be appointed, told CNN on Wednesday: "There's no evidence that she's qualified. And I'm not saying you have to be a politician or to have held office to be a United States senator. But you have to be somewhere in the public arena, whether it's business or labor, or civil rights or fighting for a particular cause, or the military.

"She has led, I believe, a life which is separate from what most New Yorkers do. I don't know if she's ever had to worry about mortgage payments or worry about working her way through school," King said.

A Kennedy spokesman declined to tell the New York Times this week whether the Park Avenue resident had ever traveled to Buffalo, Syracuse or Rochester - at least before Wednesday.

Down-to-earth behavior

Until her surprise endorsement of Obama, Kennedy had tried to keep her profile as low as possible given her lineage. She has not indulged in behavior that would make her a tabloid staple and is lauded for her intellect and down-to-earth behavior. On "Meet the Press" this month, Obama said she "has become one of my dearest friends and is just a wonderful American, a wonderful person. But the last thing I want to do is get involved in New York politics."

She has raised millions for New York public education causes and has served on the boards of nonprofit organizations ranging from the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund Inc. to the American Ballet Theater to the John F. Kennedy Library Foundation. But outside her writing - she has co-authored books on constitutional law and has edited best-selling collections of poetry - and a 22-month, part-time stint as director of strategic partnerships for the New York City schools for a $1-a-year salary, her focus has been on her three children, the youngest of whom will turn 16 in January.

"I don't like the idea that she is being dismissed because of her experience," said Debbie Walsh, director of the Center for Women and Politics at Rutgers University, who did not take a position on Kennedy's candidacy. "She has a different kind of experience that many women have when they're raising children. And if that is seen as disqualifying, it sends a message to many women that that kind of work isn't valued."

For Kennedy, that experience involved dealing with corporate, nonprofit and educational leaders while working with multimillion-dollar budgets as she raised a family.

"There are very few women in the Senate and very few mothers," her cousin, Kerry Kennedy, told CNN. "And we really need someone with that experience, and I think Caroline will be great."

Indeed, should New York Gov. David Paterson appoint a man, there would be 18 women serving in the Senate - the same as before November's election. (There are 75 women in the House, up four since last term.) One of the women being mentioned as Clinton's replacement is Democratic Rep. Kirsten Gillibrand. The National Organization for Women PAC endorsed Rep. Carolyn Maloney.

The wrong message?

Political dynasties are not that uncommon, said Stephen Hess, a senior fellow emeritus at the Brookings Institution and author of "America's Political Dynasties." Hess found that 17 percent of federal office-holders from 1774 through the mid-1990s were related to other federal officeholders, "and on average these people have been better-than-average legislators," Hess said. "I don't see Caroline Kennedy as being so unusual in that way."

"But there are many kids who have nothing," wrote contributor Emily Yoffe on Slate.com. "Some of them go to the New York public schools Caroline Kennedy raised money for - who think there's no point making an effort because everything is already wired for the haves. They think that when the haves want something, all they have to do is pick up the phone and life's opportunities are handed to them. So Caroline Kennedy picks up the phone and announces that for her first full-time job, she would like to be senator from New York and thus is anointed. That's a bad message to send."

One thing didn't change this week during Kennedy's first day on the road. She gave a 30-second statement after pitching her credentials to Syracuse officials, then reporters asked what her credentials were. Before she could answer, an aide whisked her away.

"Hopefully, I can come back and answer all those questions," she said. Then she sped away in an SUV.

By Joe Garofoli, San Francisco Chronicle, December 19, 2008

Perhaps the plummest appointment in President-elect Barack Obama's Cabinet went to a woman: Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, who was nominated for secretary of state. But his track record on picking women for his Cabinet is no different from that of the two presidents who preceded him.

With his 20-member Cabinet nearly filled, Obama has tapped four women -- Clinton, Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano (homeland security secretary), New Jersey official Lisa P. Jackson (head of the Environmental Protection Agency) and Susan E. Rice (U.N. ambassador) -- and women's advocates are clamoring anew for the president-elect to nominate more.

At the start of his first term, President Bush nominated four women to his Cabinet. Bill Clinton had five women in his Cabinet at the start of his presidency, and George H.W. Bush and Ronald Reagan each had two, according to research conducted by New York University's Wagner School of Public Service in partnership with The Washington Post.

"So far the numbers of women don't look great," Kim Gandy, president of the National Organization for Women, said of Obama's picks. "George Bush started off with this many, and Bill Clinton, at the height of his presidency, had nine out of 19."

Ellen Malcolm, president and founder of Emily List, said Obama "obviously started off with a bang, with Janet Napolitano, Hillary Clinton and Susan Rice." She added: "We've been disappointed to see women suggested for some positions and not chosen."

So where could Obama place more female candidates? Only three Cabinet positions remain open, and all bets are that a woman could land at the Labor Department, where the two leading contenders are Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm (D) and Mary Beth Maxwell, the founding executive director of American Rights at Work, a pro-union advocacy group.

Granholm, who is serving her second term, is rumored to be itching for a one-way ride out of Michigan. But asked yesterday whether Granholm would take a position in the administration, spokeswoman Megan Brown said only that she "is looking forward to serving as governor of Michigan with a partner in the White House."

Maxwell, a longtime outspoken advocate for labor unions and blue-collar workers, has the enthusiastic backing of David E. Bonior, the former Michigan congressman and House Democratic whip who is believed to have been Obama's top choice for the job before he took himself out of the running. Maxwell would become the first openly gay member of Obama's Cabinet. (Nancy Sutley, also openly gay, was appointed to chair the White House Council on Environmental Quality, which is not Cabinet-level.)

By Al Kamen, The Washington Post, December 17, 2008

NEW YORK -- Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton Monday night held her first fundraiser since being named as President-elect Barack Obama's choice for Secretary of State, still aiming to erase the debt remaining from her presidential campaign against him.

A total amount raised was not available for the sold-out event, but as of her last Federal Election Commission filing the New York Democrat carried $7.6 million in debts to some of her top consultants and strategists.

The invitation for Monday night's fundraiser at Manhattan Center Studios here -- planned before she was nominated -- noted that supporters who recruited at least 10 people to give the maximum $1,000 donation will get a "VIP seat upgrade and backstage photo with Hillary."

Legally Mrs. Clinton can continue to collect money from supporters toward the debt relief even after she is confirmed, as expected, to be Mr. Obama's Secretary of State.

A narrow exception for Cabinet members will even allow her to attend fundraisers to retire the debt, so long as she limits her remarks at the event to a brief expression of appreciation. Her campaign committee also legally can continue to solicit funds as long as the pitches do not come directly from Mrs. Clinton.

The fundraiser would have brought in at least $60,000 if each of the ballroom's 1,200 seats were taken by $50 donors and as much as $1.2 million if each attendee donated the $1,000 maximum.

The tone of the evening was light-hearted, according to two participants present for the private fundraiser that did not allow for press to observe.

Mrs. Clinton joked at the fundraiser she won't be able to keep the same early hours as her predecessor Condoleeza Rice.

According to a participant in the sold-out event, Mrs. Clinton talked about her recent two-hour dinner with Miss Rice, who rises at 4:45 a.m. each day for a 60-minute workout and goes to bed early.

"I don't think I can take that advice, I think I am going to see what the world looks like from a later perspective," Mrs. Clinton said, to laughs from the 1,200 donors in the audience.

Former President Bill Clinton served as the warm-up act, receiving a prolonged standing ovation as he offered praise for his wife.

According to one attendee, Manhattan resident Victor Armando Bernace, Mr. Clinton joked about the relief effort, saying Mrs. Clinton needs to get rid of the debt in the same way the federal government must pay off its debts.

"Ugly Betty" star America Ferrera served as a moderator for the 90-minute fundraiser, asking Mrs. Clinton questions that were submitted by supporters ahead of time.

Miss Ferrera, who traveled to seven states for the former first lady during the long Democratic primary season, told her that whenever she had a tough time she thinks of Mrs. Clinton.

"That is one lasting legacy," Mrs. Clinton quipped, to laughter. "If you think you are having a hard day, just think of me."

"That is not what I meant!" the young actress protested.

Miss Ferrera asked about her senate achievements, allowing Mrs. Clinton to talk about her work helping firefighters after the 2001 terrorist attacks.

"Their heroism was the rebuke to the evil visited on us and helping them sort out their legal issues and get them help was amazing," she said.

When someone in the audience told Mrs. Clinton she will be missed, she responded she is not planning to move.

"I am not going anywhere," she said, adding she wants "I am a New Yorker" on her tombstone.

Supporters said the mood was light, and that applause often broke out during a host of the Democrat's self-depricating jokes.

Mrs. Clinton retold a story from her daughter Chelsea's youth where the family had never tried to crack open a coconut, and used several methods from slamming it against the pavement to busting it with a hammer.

Miss Ferrera joked that the story had "significance at so many levels," and the audience laughed, according to Mr. Bernace, a traffic lawyer in the Bronx.

Mrs. Clinton also relayed one of her favorite jokes that a summer job "sliming" fish in Alaska prepared her to work in Washington.

She briefly mentioned Mr. Obama -- who recently allowed the sending of an e-mail from his supporter list to encourage his donors to help her debt relief efforts.

Mrs. Clinton told attendees she had held a private meeting with Mr. Obama and the rest of the national security team earlier in the day in his Chicago transition office.

She said she will work with him to help solve the world's problems and Mr. Clinton noted that Mr. Obama has done a good job selecting his team.

Mr. Bernace, who supported and fundraised for Mr. Obama during the primary, donated $500 to attend Monday's Clinton event. He said he thinks she is a good senator and will make a great secretary of state for Mr. Obama.

"She is just so smart and cool and calculating, she will represent our country well and that is what all Americans want after eight years of mismanagement, not a perfect Camelot but some semblance of competence," he said.

Over the course of the campaign Mrs. Clinton raised more than $217 million for her presidential bid and loaned herself $13 million.

As of her latest Federal Election Commission filing, she owed $7.6 million, the largest portion of which -- $5.3 million -- is for her former chief strategist Mark Penn. She owes direct mail firm MSHC Partners $831,000 and former spokesman Howard Wolfson's Gotham Acme is owed $250,000.

She has paid off all of the small vendors such as hotels in Iowa and bills for campaign events.

By Christina Bellantoni, The Washington Times, December 16, 2008

The daughter of John F. Kennedy, who wants to replace Hillary Rodham Clinton, is calling New York's governor and other key Democrats to press her desire to extend the family dynasty.

But Mitchell Moss, a New York University urban policy professor, said Caroline Kennedy "has a platinum name and enormous appeal to New Yorkers."

"She brings energy and charisma," Moss said. "She brings immediate access to President Obama" and would carry the stature to overcome many of the challenges that a rookie senator would face.

Kennedy, who spent nearly three years as a little girl in the White House, has shied away from public attention most of her life. But she assumed a much higher political profile over the last year, endorsing Barack Obama at a key stage of the presidential race and helping oversee the selection of his vice presidential running mate. She did so in part, she said, because Obama inspired her three children the way earlier generations were inspired by her father, President John F. Kennedy, who was assassinated in 1963.

A resident of Manhattan's Upper East Side, Kennedy has never held elected office. But the Ivy League-educated lawyer has devoted years to charitable works and other activities associated with her family and public service. If chosen, she would take her place on Capitol Hill alongside another uncle, Massachusetts Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, and a cousin, Democratic Rep. Patrick J. Kennedy of Rhode Island. Another cousin, Joseph P. Kennedy II, served 12 years in the House representing Massachusetts.

The word that Caroline Kennedy was campaigning for the appointment transformed efforts to succeed Clinton from a quiet, albeit intense, competition into a much splashier affair, filled with visions of Camelot-on-the-Hudson and competition between two powerful clans: the Kennedys and the Cuomos.

New York Atty. Gen. Andrew Cuomo, who was wed for 13 years to one of Kennedy's cousins before a messy divorce, is also interested in the seat.

Kennedy's name was among those surfacing in early speculation. But most of the attention was focused on elected officials, including Cuomo and several members of New York's large Democratic congressional delegation. That changed when Kennedy placed a call early this month to Paterson, who described an "informational conversation" in which it was clear she was intrigued by the job but not certain to seek appointment.

By last weekend, Kennedy had made up her mind. She began placing calls to top figures in New York politics to share her views and hear what they considered pressing issues for the state and nation. Among those she called, according to a person close to Kennedy, were Time Warner Chairman Richard D. Parsons; New York Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver; New York City Council Speaker Christine Quinn; and U.S. Rep. Louise M. Slaughter, an upstate Democrat.

In making his pick, a key consideration for Paterson is self-preservation. A former lieutenant governor, Paterson assumed New York's top job in March when Eliot Spitzer resigned in a prostitution scandal. Paterson is expected to seek reelection in 2010 on the same ticket as Clinton's successor.

Paterson has heard from about 20 prospects who would like to succeed Clinton, assuming she is confirmed, as expected, as secretary of State in the Obama administration. The governor, who has sole discretion in making the pick, has said he would announce a selection after Clinton steps down, which is not likely until late January at the earliest.

Some New Yorkers questioned Kennedy's qualifications.

"You don't want a partner who is a novice," said Hank Sheinkopf, a Democratic strategist who was dubious of Kennedy's supposed electoral "magic."

"The people on Long Island don't care about magic," Sheinkopf said. "They care about delivering jobs and money. Buffalo doesn't care about tea parties with Manhattan's social elite, and how much money you can raise for charities."





By Mark Z. Barabak and Michael Finnegan, Los Angeles Times, December 16, 2008

Outgoing U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice had high praise Monday for her designated successor, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, and for President-elect Barack Obama's nominee for U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Susan Rice.

She told reporters in response to a question about Obama's choices for the two posts that the three women also have a link to Stanford University in California.

"I know Senator Clinton very well," Rice said. "I have known her since she brought her freshman daugter (Chelsea) to Stanford when I was provost at Stanford."

"She's someone of high intelligence, great integrity and in fact has what one needs most in this job which is a profound commitment to the United States, its interests, its values ... and so I think she will do a really very fine job as secretary of state."

"Susan Rice was a student when I was at Stanford," the secretary of state said, adding with a smile, "there seems to be a theme here."

"We know each other well. She is also somebody who's highly intelligent and will work very hard, and I think she will put her heart and soul into the U.N. because she's a great believer in this institution and what it can do."

Both Clinton and Rice must be confirmed for their posts by the U.S. Senate.

The Associated Press, December 16, 2008

ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) - Caroline Kennedy told New York's governor on Monday that she's interested in the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by Hillary Rodham Clinton, making her the highest-profile candidate to express a desire for the job. Democratic Gov. David Paterson will choose the replacement. "She told me she was interested in the position," Paterson said. "It's not a campaign. She'd like at some point to sit down."

Caroline Kennedy's spokesman, Stefan Friedman, declined to comment.

Clinton is expected to be confirmed as President-elect Barack Obama's secretary of state.

At an afternoon news conference to discuss last week's paralyzing ice storm, New York's senior senator, Charles Schumer, said he has also talked to Caroline Kennedy about the job.

"And she's clearly interested," he said.

Kennedy is the daughter of the late President John F. Kennedy. Her uncle, the late Robert F. Kennedy, once held the Senate seat she wants. Paterson has sole authority to name a replacement for Clinton, who was first elected in 2000 and re-elected by a wide margin in 2006.

Over the past week, Kennedy, who lives in Manhattan, has reached out to several prominent New York Democrats to tell them of her interest in the Senate seat. They included Joel Klein, chancellor of the New York City Department of Education. Kennedy worked closely with Klein as executive of the Office of Strategic Partnerships for the New York City Department of Education, where she raised about $65 million for the city's schools.

"I think she's thought about it a long time," Klein said of a conversation he had with Kennedy on Monday. He said the campaigning she did for Obama this year helped acquaint her with the gritty rituals of retail politics.

"She's a highly determined woman and she's clearly been thinking about her life and how to make an effective contribution," Klein said. "Everyone knows Caroline, and everyone has a great historical respect for the Kennedy family."

Other Democrats who appear to be on Paterson's short list include New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, who won't say publicly whether he's interested.

One of the early front-runners, Rep. Nydia Velazquez of Brooklyn, took herself out of the running Friday.

Paterson will appoint someone to fill Clinton's seat for two years if she is confirmed as secretary of state.

Republicans wasted no time in criticizing Kennedy as unqualified for the job and unfamiliar with the state.

"If anything, it makes me more determined to run," said Rep. Peter King, a Long Island Republican who has already expressed his interest in the seat.

"As far as record of achievement, I strongly believe that I'm much more qualified, much more experienced, and have an independent record," King said. "Nothing against Caroline Kennedy, but I don't think anyone has a right to a seat."

Besides being a member of America's most famous political family, 50-year-old Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg is president of the John F. Kennedy Library Foundation and a member of the John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage Award Committee.

She is also a director of the Commission on Presidential Debates; a director of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund; honorary chairwoman of the American Ballet Theatre; and vice chairwoman of New York City's Fund for Public Schools.

She has a bachelor's degree from Harvard and a law degree from Columbia University. She and her husband, Edwin Arthur Schlossberg, have three children.

The Rev. Al Sharpton, a prominent civil rights activist, said Kennedy called him Monday. For Democrats, Sharpton could be an important ally, and an early call on such political matters can be a critical show of respect. If Sharpton eventually supports Kennedy, his endorsement could go a long way in helping ease any criticism that a black candidate was passed over.

Sharpton said he disagrees with those who say she isn't qualified to be U.S. senator.

The Associated Press, December 15, 2008

Whomever Gov. David A. Paterson appoints to succeed Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton most likely gets to keep the seat without having to seek election until 2010, instead of having to run next year. Why is that?

If, as expected, the governor appoints a successor after Jan. 1, 2009, an odd-numbered year, New York State law provides for an election in the next even-numbered year, 2010, to fill out the remainder of Mrs. Clinton's term, which runs through 2012.

The rationale for New York's political calendar is rooted half a century ago in Harry Truman's hatred of Thomas E. Dewey, and only goes to prove that while most politics is local, it's nearly always personal.

In 1950, two years after barely losing the presidency to Truman, Dewey, a Republican, decided not to run again for governor of New York. The Democrats were poised to finally recapture the governorship and sweep statewide offices, including the Senate. But they needed some way to galvanize New York City's traditionally heavy Democratic vote.

That was how they had won statewide office the year before. An interim United States senator, John Foster Dulles, lost to the Democrat, Herbert H. Lehman, in a special election - in large part because of the big 1949 New York City mayoral vote in which William O'Dwyer was re-elected.

In 1950, though, there was no mayoral election. No problem.

"What," said Edward Flynn, the wily Democratic boss of the Bronx, "if O'Dwyer resigned?"

Mayor O'Dwyer was ailing, physically and politically. Truman was no fan of Mr. O'Dwyer, a fellow Democrat, but given the potential for the party to sweep state offices and help Mr. Lehman retain his newly won Senate seat, Truman agreed to name the mayor ambassador to Mexico.

Mr. O'Dwyer's resignation was timed to avoid an early special election, which meant a new mayor would have to be elected that November at the same time as the governor and senator. But New York Democrats were divided. Mr. Lehman was elected, but Dewey got back in the gubernatorial race and won a third term.

The next year, Republicans introduced legislation in Albany seeking to prevent a mayoral race in mostly Democratic New York City from overwhelming the suburban and upstate vote. The bill barred a mayoral election in New York in any general election in which voters were also choosing state or national officials.

The bill also said any Senate vacancy occurring within 12 months of a presidential election would not be filled by voters until the next even-numbered year.

So since New York's mayoral election is always in an odd-numbered year, the election of Mrs. Clinton's replacement must be delayed a year to avoid a conflict with the mayoral election.

The Truman library and museum in Independence, Mo., found no references to the implications of Mr. O'Dwyer's appointment in Truman's memoirs or diary. But Justin Feldman, a lawyer close to several Truman confidants, swears the story is true.

Like Mr. Dulles, most interim Senate appointees haven't fared very well. Since 1960, governors have appointed 50 interim senators. Of the 38 who sought election, only 18 won. New York's most recent interim appointee, Charles E. Goodell, lost when he ran for a full term in 1970.

If Governor Paterson were tempted to extricate himself from Albany by appointing himself to the Senate, the historical record is worse. In the last 75 years, nine governors have filled Senate vacancies by appointing themselves. Only one - Albert Chandler of Kentucky in 1939 - retained his seat (no wonder his nickname was Happy).

So if Mr. Paterson's appointee wants to keep the Senate seat, he or she will have to go before the voters in 2010 to run for the remainder of Senator Clinton's term and then run again in 2012 for a full six-year term.

One other variable is when Senator Clinton resigns. If she waits until she is confirmed as secretary of state, which would most likely occur after the presidential inauguration Jan. 20, her successor will lose seniority to at least seven other Democratic freshmen being sworn in Jan. 3.

Her spokesman says "it would be presumptuous to assume confirmation before the full Senate actually takes up the matter." Maybe she remembers what happened to William Weld. He quit as governor of Massachusetts to accept a job from President Clinton, but his fellow Republicans in the Senate failed to confirm him. What was his job going to be? Ambassador to Mexico.

ALBANY, N.Y. - The corruption scandal engulfing Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich puts a spotlight on the nation's only other vacant Senate seat - that of Hillary Rodham Clinton in New York.

New York Gov. David Paterson, who will choose Clinton's replacement, can expect more intense scrutiny after Blagojevich's arrest on charges that he tried to sell the seat vacated by President-elect Barack Obama.

The day Blagojevich was arrested, Paterson spokesman Errol Cockfield said the New York governor would "take any necessary steps to ensure that the selection of a new senator is not compromised in any way."

But Cockfield did not identify any specific additional safeguards. A day later, Paterson said his process was unchanged: He's looking for someone with integrity, with ideas to move the state, and a hard worker.

But in addition to a candidate's qualifications, Paterson's choice also needs to serve his own political and fundraising needs - both now and when he seeks election on the same 2010 ticket as the next senator.

Paterson needs a strong candidate who can raise plenty of money and attract important voting blocs in his quest to be elected to the job he fell into in March, when Eliot Spitzer resigned after it was revealed that he patronized a high-priced prostitution ring.

"This is a country with a two-party system, and politics will play a significant role" in Paterson's decision, said Karl Sleight, former prosecutor and head of the New York Ethics Commission under Republican and Democratic governors. "Unlike any other job, you have to take that into consideration."

So what should potential senators do to seek the job? Not a thing, Paterson said, other than demonstrating their qualifications.

The governor said he would not accept any "attempts at undue influence or anything that would in any way impinge upon the process."

He spoke Wednesday at a fundraiser in Manhattan, where he had just collected a reported $3 million for his 2010 campaign.

It's impossible to know if some potential senator tried to curry favor with the governor by purchasing a $5,000 ticket to attend the gala because Paterson isn't required to release the names of attendees until January.

Neither Paterson nor the state Democratic Party would talk Thursday about Senate hopefuls or the fundraiser.

And neither of two potential senators - New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo and Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg - attended the fundraiser.

New York Republican Party coordinator Henry Wojtaszek has already complained that the selection process has not been transparent. He would like to see Paterson identify possible candidates and have a public review of their qualifications.

"Stop playing footsie with the Kennedy and Cuomo clans and instead announce an open and transparent process that will publicly identify potential candidates," Wojtaszek said. "We have already seen what happens in Illinois."

By MICHAEL GORMLEY, Associated Press, December 12, 2008