2001 US press briefings
The James S. Brady Briefing Room
12:15 P.M. EDT
MR. FLEISCHER: Good afternoon, rambunctious national press corps.
The President intends to nominate Jack Martin to be Chief Financial Officer of the Department of Education. The President intends to nominate Joan E. Ohl to be Commissioner of Children, Youth and Families, with the Department of Health and Human Services. The President intends to nominate Melody Fennel to be Assistant Secretary of Housing and Urban Development for Congressional Intragovernmental relations. The President intends to nominate Frederico Juarbe Jr., to be Assistant Secretary of Labor for Veterans Employment and Training.
And the President intends to nominate seven individuals to serve as members of the Board of Directors at the Commodity Credit Corporation -- that will come out in writing. The President intends to appoint nine individuals to serve as members of the President's National Security Telecommunications Advisory Committee. That, too, will be provided in writing. And the President intends to appoint six individuals to serve as Directors of the Board of Directors for the Student Loan Marketing Association. That, too, will be available in writing shortly.
Q Ari, how is it that the President is having to work so hard at this point in the legislative calendar to try to get his measures through Congress?
MR. FLEISCHER: Well, if you take a look at what's happened since the President took office in January. You'll see that he is simply turning the corner, having passed his most important initiative to get the economy growing again. He is now urging Congress to focus on additional vital actions that Congress needs to take. And they are all the issues on which the President ran and which the President committed himself to in his first three weeks of office.
Q Well, are they not paying attention?
MR. FLEISCHER: Clearly, when it comes to education, the Senate has gotten off on the slower track than was the case just a month ago. Education is a national priority. Education is an issue on which the President ran. Education is an issue that's been put on a back burner in the United States Senate in the last month.
The President thinks it should be a top priority for the Senate and for the House to get to a conference committee so that an education bill can be signed into law before the children go back to school in September.
Q Ari, on the question of education and conferees, House Republicans haven't even appointed their conferees. So why --
MR. FLEISCHER: I just said that.
Q No, you said, the Senate.
MR. FLEISCHER: No, I added the House in that same sentence.
Q So is the House Representatives equally derelict in moving on the President's agenda?
MR. FLEISCHER: As the President said today, it's important for Congress to act and send him a bill that he can sign before the students go back to school in September.
Q But, Ari, I mean, it seems clear that the House and the Senate have got their legislative priorities. Are they just at odds with the President?
MR. FLEISCHER: Well, I think it's typical in our government system for the President to call on Congress to do things. Congress's agenda is not always the peoples' agenda. Congress's agenda is not always the President's agenda.
In this case, the President today is making very clear to the Congress that education reform, a patients' bill of rights, helping people who have been left out and left behind in our society through faith-based programs are all vital, top priorities; and he's calling on Congress to focus their attention on those matters.
Q Does the President feel like for the first time now, six months into his term, the Democrats are starting to at least try to thwart his agenda?
MR. FLEISCHER: I don't think I would use the word thwart, but clearly, the Senate changed hands. The Senate is no longer a Republican Senate. The Senate is now a Democratic Senate. And I think there's no question that if the Senate were under Republican control, education would have been done. I think you would have seen the conference committees get appointed. And it is one of the facts that the new Senate is placing less attention on education than the previous Senate did.
Now, both the House and the Senate need to act to appoint conferees, so that the education bill on which great progress has been made can be brought to fruition, and therefore signed into law.
Q How would having had a Republican Senate made appointment of conference committee members come any quicker? Why would that influence -- the fact that the House hasn't moved on it, either?