Overextended Starr
In March, Orrin Hatch, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, introduced without fanfare a piece of legislation that should be called the Kenneth Starr Bailout Act: The bill would change the provision in the independent counsel law that governs how travel and lodging expenses are reimbursed for investigators like Starr and their staffs. As the law now stands, an independent counsel can be repaid for travel to and from, and lodging in, the principal city of his investigation -- in Starr's case, Little Rock -- for eighteen months. Then he's on his own.
Starr, who assumed this post in August 1994, ran up against the time limit this past February. Since then the independent counsel, who lives in McLean, Virginia, has had to pay for his airfare to and from Arkansas, his rent on an apartment there, the cable TV and electricity, the cleaning woman who comes twice a month and the rent on the furniture (including a love seat, a nineteen-inch color television and a bunk bed). The monthly tab is about $2,000. As a high-priced lawyer, Starr is unlikely to be burdened by these expenses, but his staff attorneys, who shuttle back and forth between Little Rock and home, might feel the pinch. Conceivably some of Starr's staff might have to give up their posts if they aren't willing to relocate to Little Rock. According to one Congressional source, about half of Starr's fourteen lawyers are near or past the eighteen-month limit.
Ironically, Starr and his staff are laboring under restrictions imposed by their number-one fans: Congressional Republicans. Put another way, Bob Dole's revenge has backfired. When Congress was considering the reauthorization of the independent counsel law in 1993 and '94, Republicans struck at a figure they despised: Lawrence Walsh, independent counsel for the Iran/contra scandal. Dole took to the Senate floor in March 1993 to scold Walsh for spending too much money "in an effort to insure that every Government official who somehow came into contact with the Iran/contra issue never wavered from any law or regulation, no matter how obscure or minor that violation." Dole took particular exception to Walsh's food and lodging expenses.
Thus came tighter controls on spending by independent counsels. But the Republicans didn't just have their eye on the public purse: They hoped that such restrictions would keep independent counsels from staying in business too long. (They routinely assailed Walsh for his six-year probe.)
That was then. Now the independent counsel is a Republican darling, and Hatch's bill would allow him and his staff an indefinite series of six-month extensions.
Hatch tried to move the bill quickly, but when Democrats balked he fell silent. He hasn't pushed the bill recently, but neither has he withdrawn it. Hatch is in a bind: He can't come to Starr's aid without embarrassing himself and his party. The independent counsel is one of Dole's most promising campaign assets, but he's hobbled by restrictions Dole had a hand in creating. How fitting that Senator Dole's spiteful crusade against Walsh could adversely effect candidate Dole's presidential prospects.
DAVID CORN
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