Washington — End the custom of "racial profiling" that all too often leads to police harassment of innocent African Americans. Reform voting procedures that Democrats claim disenfranchised thousands of black voters last year. Diversify the mostly white federal judiciary.
Those are some of the demands black Democratic lawmakers, incensed by the post-election controversy in Florida, have made to President Bush since he took office.
This week, the Bush administration has stepped up its response. The stakes are high for a Republican president who wants to be perceived as a conciliator but drew less than 10 percent of the black vote on Nov. 7.
On Tuesday night in a national address, the president vowed an initiative to end racial profiling, and on Wednesday Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft followed up with a visit to Capitol Hill to meet with some of his most vehement Democratic critics: members of the Congressional Black Caucus.
It was the first meeting at the Capitol for the former Missouri senator since he took office following a lengthy confirmation fight in the Senate. In that battle, many Democrats, including members of the black caucus, charged that Ashcroft had a poor record on civil rights and had smeared Missouri Supreme Court Judge Ronnie White, who is black, in a campaign to defeat his nomination to the federal bench.
After his 45-minute lunch meeting with the caucus, Ashcroft emerged with black lawmakers to proclaim that he was ready to forge a cooperative relationship.
"It was a frank, candid exchange," Ashcroft said. One lawmaker in the room, Rep. Juanita Millender-McDonald, D-Calif., said the attorney general was "on the hot seat."
Ashcroft, in brief remarks to reporters, said he was "eager" to respond to Bush's call for recommendations to end racial profiling. That is a practice in which some police rely too heavily on race when, for example, they determine who to stop for questioning.
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