Weather
Tonight: Light snow, low
200
Tomorrow: Light snow, high
in the upper 20s.

I'Er

t
tt

One hundredfrve years of editonr lfreedom

Thursday
January 25, 1996

__

1-0
. .. r , r ma_;.
., _ , :.. s ra. w «s N- k w; ^r'"., t £ :: 5 '.N z,,:z. § x £ " ~ 3 t :r z !TtiJ t . qt.'l° 4uti'a.. :, ''3° . -- s " .. "' SS x' '' '' SV .y a ii/'QRk
s
v '~Y . y(

I

Clinton
pushes to
raise debi
* President: No social
security checks if
debt limit not raised
I he Baltimore Sun
WASHINGTON - Trying to
the Republican Congress,
&_nton administration is warning
million Social Security recipients
they won't get their March checks
less Congress increases the debt
ing.
In his State of the Union add
Tuesday night, President Clinton u
Congress to approve an increase it
debt limit "on behalf of all Ameri
especially those who need their Si
Security payments at the beginnir
*ch." And yesterday, his chie
staff, Leon Panetta, said, "You're
going to see Social Security chec
out."

I

tr

Newman: Advisory committee
will protect candidates' privacy

pres-
the
g 43
that
s un-
ceil-
dress
rged
m the
cans,
ocial
ng of
ef of
e not
ks go

By Jodi Cohen
Daily Staff Reporter
The names of University presidential candidates
will remain secret until the final stages of the
search, sources close to the search said yesterday.
The timetable presented today will show that a
president won't be named until the fall, the sources
said. University President James J. Duderstadt
plans to step down June 30.
The full details of the search plan will be presented
today to the University Board of Regents, which is
meeting as the presidential search committee.
The plan, designed by Vice President for Uni-

Supreme Court decision
In 1993, the state Supreme Court said the
University violated the state's Open Meetings
Act during the process used to select James J.
Duderstadt as president in 1988. Here's what
the court said.
"We hold that the selection of a public
university president constitutes the
exercise, regardless of whether such
authority was exercised by (an individual
regent), the nominating committee, the
entire board or even subcommittees... and
this authority must be in Act."
The Plan

versity Relations Walter
Harrison, Provost J. Bernard
Machen and Secretary Roberta
Palmer, is expected to detail
how the regents can comply
with the state's Open Meetings
Act while still ensuring candi-
date confidentiality.

Serch
fo a


I

But the Social Security system each
month collects $5
billion more than it
needs to cover pen-
sion and disability
checks, raising
questions about
whethera failure to
raise the debt limit
would prevent pay-
ment of the ben-
efits.
Clinton Nevertheless,
administration offi-
cials insisted yesterday that the com-
plexities of the law and financial prac-
tices prevent them from paying benefits
in March without an increase in the debt
4ing.
Analysts dismissed the threat as po-
I tical rhetoric.
"That's kind of a scare tactic," said
Bruce Schobel, a New York Life Insur-
ance Company vice president and
former actuary for the Social Security
Administration. He said there are sev-
eral ways that Treasury Department
officials could get around the problem'
including simply holding onto Social
urity payroll-tax revenue received
n February and using it to finance the
March checks.
Suggesting, too, that a way could be
found to pay beneficiaries, Henry
Aaron, director of economic studies at
the Brookings Institution and an offi-
cial of the Carter administration, said,
"It seems to me that the Clinton ad-
ministration has decided that this
shouldn't go on, and they're going to
f ce the issue."
addition to Social Security checks,'
administration officials said this week
that veterans, railroad retirement, civil
service retirement, military retirement,
military active-duty pay and certain
Medicare and low-income housing pay-
ments due in March would be in jeop-
ardy.

Regent Andrea Fischer-
Newman (R-Ann Arbor) said Pres
the plan calls for the use of an
advisory committee to help in the search for the
University's next leader.
"It's a presidential search advisory committee
with no regents on it," Newman told The Michigan
Daily yesterday.
The committee, meeting in closed session with
a search consulting firm, intends to allow some
initial candidate confidentiality. Last week, the
regents chose Malcolm MacKay, from the New
York-based consulting firm Russell Reynolds
Associates Inc., to help with the search.
Newman said the committee, according to the
plan, will secretly compile a list of candidates that
"would then be turned over to the regents."
The plan unveiled today will define whether the
committee will have the power to eliminate candi-
dates before presenting a final list to the regents.


Today, the regents are expected to announce a
plan on how to conduct this search.
A search committee will meet in closed session
with a consulting firm.
The committee will secretly compile a list of
names that will be turned over to the regents.
It is unknown whether the committee will be
able to eliminate candidates from the list.
That list will be made public in accordance with
the state Open Meetings Act, which requires that
all board meetings of public bodies be open, in-
cluding discussions about potential candidates.
"If the advisory committee makes any deci-
sions, which it will have to do if it eliminates
candidates ... and if it does it in closed sessions, it
is in violation of the Open Meetings Act," said
communication studies lecturer Joan Lowenstein,
an attorney who specializes in media law.
But Lowenstein added the plan may be in accor-
dance with the law if the committee acts as a purely
advisory body and does not eliminate candidates.
Lowenstein speculated that the committee most
likely will provide the regents with a long list of
See SEARCH, Page 2A

With a little help from my friends
Katie Bowling struggles frantically to catch her teammate during an ice skating performance at
Veterans Ice Arena last night. Katie is on the Ann Arbor Figure Skating Club and the Rhythmics
Precision team.

Hostages traded for bodies of dead Chechens

Los Angeles Times
MOSCOW - Chechen militants released 46
hostages in exchange for the bodies of their slain
compatriots yesterday as President Boris Yeltsin
announced plans to spend $4.2 billion rebuilding
the Chechen territory that his troops have been
bombing for more than a year.
The latest chapter in the hostage saga un-
folded quietly. Chechen rebels relinquished most
of the captives they have held since raiding a
hospital in southern Russia three weeks ago and
forcing a showdown with the Russian military in
the small town of Pervomayskaya, in neighbor-
ing Dagestan.
In return, the separatists received the corpses
of 42 of their fellow rebels killed during the
battle.
The swift swap signaled cooperation after
days of tense negotiations but does not end the
hostage situation. Chechens still claim to control
more than a dozen captives, including police
officers. Russian forces, meanwhile, say they are
holding I1l corpses.

Yeltsin reiterates position, pledges to help
reconstruct war-wrecked Chechnya

The Chechens have been fighting to spring
their oil-rich republic from the Kremlin's control
and create an independent nation.
Reiterating his position that Chechnya will
remain part of Russia, Yeltsin pledged to help the
war-wrecked land by constructing new apartment
buildings, factories and roads.
He also promised $68 million to rebuild
Pervomayskaya, which Russian troops flattened
with rockets and artillery. The destruction em-
bittered local residents - mostly ethnic
Dagestanis, who resent Russia's fierce assault
on their placid farming town. In an effort to
soothe the ethnic tension, Yeltsin's government
promised the Dagestanis generous compensa-
tion.
"The government ... will take all adequate

actions for Dagestani citizens to see that they live
in Russia as in a single family," Deputy Prime
Minister Yuri Yarov told the Itar-Tass news
agency.
But Yeltsin's critics immediately tore into the
notion that the promised cash would turn Russia
into one big, happy family.
Four of Yeltsin's liberal advisers have resigned
from the Presidential Council this week to protest
his violent Chechen policy. In an open letter to
Yeltsin, renowned human-rights activist Sergei
Kovalev declared: "I can no longer work with a
president whom I do not consider either a propo-
nent of democracy or a guarantor ofcitizens' rights
and freedoms."
Yeltsin's plan to give Chechnya $3.2 billion in
federal funds plus another $1 billion in foreign

credits also drew fire.
Finance Minister Vladimir G. Panskov insisted
the program could be paid for from the existing
budget, requiring only a"redistribution oftax flows."
Yet other elected officials demanded to know
exactly what programs would be slighted in the
shuffle.
The president of Ingushetia, the Russian repub-
lic bordering Chechnya, was not willing to de-
nounce the plan outright. But he questioned the
wisdom of pouring so much money into a region
still crackling with daily gunfire.
"The president says there is no money to pay
wages to miners, teachers and doctors, but at the
same time he gives colossal sums of money as
handouts to Chechnya," complained Amangeldy
Tuleyev, a lawmaker from northern Russia.
"Having bombed Grozny (the Chechen capital)
and left hundreds of thousands of people without
any shelter, they then give taxpayers' money to
restore Chechnya, to the detriment of... Russia's
other regions," Tuleyev told the Interfax news
agency.


e in Rush
turnout seen in
winter semester

By Lisa Gray
For the Daily
Fraternities and sororities report a
fair turnout for Winter Rush this year,
but note a change in Rush trends from
1995.
Although no exact figures are
available, the most notable differ-
e this year is in the way people
rushing.
"What's happening now across
campus is people are being more spe-
cific, so we're not seeing the mass
flow from chapter house to chapter
house," said Interfraternity Council
Coordinator Terry Landes. "Rather,

their quotas in the fall or are losing
many members due to December
graduation and study abroad.
Fraternity Rush officially began
Jan. 21, but continues in the chapter
houses today from 6 to 10 p.m., Sun-
day from 4 to 10 p.m., and Monday
and Tuesday from 6 to 10 p.m. The
houses are open so rushees can meet
current members and get a general
feel for each house.
Fraternity Rush is always fairly in-
formal, said IFC Rush Chair Jeff
Izzard. To rush, men choose a house
or houses they want to visit. The so-
rority Rush process is less formal in

Lawmakers
skeptical of
education
funding
By Stephanie Jo Klein
Daily Staff Reporter
In his State of the Union address
Tuesday night, President Clinton
stressed the need to pass the federal
budget and proposed new initiatives for
education.
His costly suggestions prompted
mixed reactions -legislators and edu-
cators say they hope for more educa-
tional funding, but are skeptical of that
occurring.
"In an era of decreases rather than
increases, (increasing student aid)
would be unlikely," Rep. Lynn Rivers
(D-Ann Arbor) said after the address.
Rivers said that education is one of
-~4

Sigma Phi brother Dan Robertson (left) talks to pledge J.J. Saul about the benefits of being in Sigma Phi.



i

i