waste & abuse

0 Comments | Insight on the News, Dec 4, 2000 | by Sean Paige

Bad Blood Between Cuomo, Gaffney Continues at HUD

Even in a town where political battles get personal and personal grudges long linger, few feuds in recent memory approach the streetfighting nastiness of the Andrew Cuomo-Susan Gaffney donnybrook at the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD).

In one corner is unctuously ambitious HUD secretary Cuomo, a thin-skinned Machiavelli with a reputation for losing his marbles. In the other corner is Inspector General Susan Gaffney, HUD's rabidly independent internal watchdog whose unpleasant task is pointing out the management problems plaguing Cuomo's pet programs.

In the latest dustup between Cuomo and Gaffney, Gaffney has filed a voluminous sexual-discrimination and harassment complaint against Cuomo and one of his lieutenants, Deputy Secretary Saul N. Ramirez Jr., claiming that they have used ad hominem attacks and media smears (including allegations of racism) to undermine her independence and force her out, then punished her when they could do neither. Department mouthpieces, however, say Gaffney's complaints are "absolutely false" and a smoke screen to cover her alleged failure aggressively to investigate the downloading of Internet pornography by top people in her office -- for which several individuals reportedly have been disciplined.

Gaffney's 19-page complaint, a copy of which was obtained by waste & abuse, presents a recounting of Cuomo's overt and covert efforts to intimidate and tame his department's internal watchdog and punish her when she couldn't be brought to heel. According to Gaffney, Cuomo outlined his personal philosophy regarding the politics of personal destruction -- and perhaps presaged his own actions against her -- while still a HUD undersecretary in 1995. Cuomo at that time told Gaffney that in today's society, criminal sanctions were less effective than punishment through "adverse publicity, reputational harm, budget-cutting and legislative action" -- a philosophy that Gaffney would see put into practice once Cuomo rose to the department's top job.

Though she doesn't rule out the pursuit of "other appropriate relief," Gaffney for now is demanding written apologies from Cuomo and Ramirez, plus written guarantees that they'll end their allegedly discriminatory behavior toward her. But the most immediate relief Gaffney may get will come on Jan. 20, 2001 -- Inauguration Day -- when former secretary Cuomo will be forced to find another foothold from which to pursue his ongoing conquest of the world.

Legal Eagles Find Uncle Sam Easy Prey

Like most predators, lawyers, having sensed a weakness, will exploit it. So if land sharks were circling before the government's hasty settlement of a class-action discrimination lawsuit brought by black farmers against the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) -- a capitulation that could cost taxpayers $1 billion, making it the largest civil-rights settlement in U.S. history -- they seem in its aftermath to be in a full feeding frenzy.

Though the USDA's settlement with black farmers seems more a consequence of abysmal management within its Office of Civil Rights than any pervasive, departmentwide pattern of racism, very similar accusations and lawsuits quickly have followed against the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the U.S. Secret Service.

According to one lawsuit, nearly 40 current or former agents or managers in the Secret Service allegedly have been the targets of racially motivated words, acts or deeds, according to their lawyers. In another lawsuit, EPA employees have charged the agency with discriminating against women and minorities -- complaints linked in the media to a recent $600,000 payment to EPA official Marsha Coleman-Adebayo, who said she had endured "seven years of the most heinous discrimination at EPA."

But Secret Service spokesman Jim Mackin has said that minorities and women are well-represented in the agency, pointing to the fact that two of the agency's seven assistant directors are African-Americans and that minorities are in charge in seven of the agency's 11 largest field offices. And EPA says that it, too, has been fair to minority and female employees. In recent years, in fact, minority representation within EPA's Senior Executive Service has increased from 4 percent to 15 percent, a department spokesman has pointed out, and the number of executive women has increased from 20 percent to 30 percent.

Yet the lawyers and lawsuits keep coming. Just weeks ago, in an instant replay of the black-farmers' lawsuit (and no wonder, since it is being orchestrated by the same lawyer who represented the farmers, Alexander J. Pires Jr.), nearly 700 American Indian farmers announced that they, too, would be suing USDA for discrimination. But this just may be the prelude for an even greater payday for Pires and his fellow plaintiff-chasers. Pires reportedly is pouring some of the proceeds from his previous settlements into his next big score -- an effort to win cash reparations for African-Americans descended from slaves (see Washington in brief, p.34).