In da Vault: the Trib's Clarence Page on Zoe Baird

Jan. 24, 1993

President Clinton jettisoned Zoe Baird swiftly enough when the going got a bit too rough for her nomination to be attorney general, but the controversy lingers on.

How, one wonders, after days of what initially looked like smooth sailing despite her having hired two undocumented Peruvians as domestic help, did the tide turn so swiftly against her?

The answer is complex, but I think the essence of it is contained in two words: her income.

There are sins Americans might be willing to forgive when committed by poor, struggling working folks that they find unforgivable when committed by the rich and well-educated.

I don't think most begrudge the waiters or waitresses who fail to report some of their tips as they struggle to support a family or work their way through college.

Similarly, I think it was easy for politicians, reporters, news anchors and other professionals who were the first wave of people to hear about the Baird case to forgive, if not entirely justify, her acts, based on her passionate pleas of parental need, pleas she expressed to the Senate Judiciary Committee.

It was also quite easy for many of us in this populist age to appreciate the complexity of tax laws, the ambiguity and historical hypocrisy of immigration laws and her otherwise exemplary record of public and private sector service.

Zoe Baird inherited considerable good will and political capital from Clinton, who seems remarkably to generate in many Americans regardless of party affiliation the sense that he has at least the potential to be a great president and, in turn, help the country.

As the first woman to be nominated to be attorney general, Baird also inspired enough of a sense that important history was being made that many were willing to forgive a transgression that, in the absence of any other embarrassments, could be dismissed as minor.

I think most Americans these days can identify easily with Baird's plea that she was behaving as a parent, not as a lawyer, when she hired a Peruvian couple at the same wage she had paid a nanny who had quit. Working couples, once the exception, are now the norm. The need for day care has never been greater.

Senators know. If they don't have an immigrant, legal or illegal, working at home, chances are good that somebody on their staff does or that some friends and neighbors do.

But once it began to sink in with the people whom candidate Bill Clinton called ordinary folks who "work hard and play by the rules" that this corporate lawyer and her Yale law professor husband made more than a half million dollars last year alone, suddenly a single message began to make its way across the land through telephones and radio talk shows: "Hey, no way!" Most Americans who work hard and play by the rules have a hard time dealing with the notion that, regardless of her other qualifications, she can serve effectively as an attorney general, whose job it is to enforce the very laws she admitted violating.

Yet, the letters didn't start pouring into senators' offices until enough days had passed for word to get around that she and her husband were wealthy enough to afford to pay the Social Security taxes for the Peruvian couple even after they received legal advice (wrong advice, as it turns out) that they didn't have to.

As Georgetown Law Professor Patricia King, an outspoken advocate for women's rights and other civil rights, points out, the failure of Zoe Baird and her husband to pay Social Security taxes makes this "a crime with victims."

Bill Clinton campaigned successfully to the needs of Americans who work hard and play by the rules. Suddenly he had to enforce the rules.

Perhaps now Clinton and Congress might consider some valuable lessons left by the legacy of the Baird case. Maybe it will inspire them to do something about what has become for many a day-care crisis.

Or perhaps they might reconsider revising the employer sactions that were included in the 1986 Simpson-Mazzoli immigration act and that Zoe Baird violated.

When the act was debated, many wanted to exclude families who employed household workers. Perhaps they should be excluded now. Immigration policy is complex and often hypocritical because our attitudes toward immigrants rise and flow with the economic tide. In good times we say, "Y'all come." In hard times we say, "Stay home."

Otherwise, the Baird case, like those of other Baby Boomers, will noticeably change the process of nominations and confirmations.

To the by now routine inquiries into past marijuana smoking or draft-card burning, add another question: How are you finding good household help these days?