Letter to the Majority and Minority Leaders of the Senate Concerning Funding for the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

Dear Mike:

As I did last year, I am once again seeking your help in obtaining sufficient operating funds for the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. For Fiscal 1971 I have requested a total of $19 million.

During the last session of Congress I wrote you on the same subject, asking that you try to win approval on the Senate floor of my full Fiscal 1970 budget request for the Commission. I was gratified then by the Senate's favorable response, but unfortunately the amount was later trimmed in Conference to $12.5 million. One result of the cut is that the Commission now faces an even greater backlog of unfinished work than it did last year, and the effectiveness of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 has thus been further diminished.

In my State of the Union message this year, I made the point that "we can fulfill the American Dream only when each person has a fair chance to fulfill his own dreams." Title VII is designed to help realize that goal. However, consistent underfunding of the Commission has seriously hindered fulfillment of the high hopes raised by the Act's passage six years ago. The cost in human terms has been substantial.

In order to improve the efficiency of the Commission's operations, a joint Civil Service-Bureau of the Budget team has recently been working with the Commission's Chairman and, as a result of its study, has recommended a set of new administrative procedures. These will ensure that the new funds are put to the most effective possible use. However, the case backlog is immense, and the funds I recommended in my budget are needed.

Therefore, I am again prevailing on you in the hope that you will use your good offices toward ensuring that the relatively modest resources necessary for the Commission's efficient operation in the current fiscal year are provided. Even in a period of extreme budgetary stringency, $19 million hardly seems too much to spend on so important a goal.

I am sending this same letter to the Minority Leader.

With warm personal regards,

Sincerely,

RICHARD NIXON

[Honorable Mike Mansfield, Majority Leader, U.S. Senate, Washington, D.C.]