Bush to step aside as Texas governor

Thursday, December 21st 2000, 12:00 am

By: News On 6

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) â€” With less than a month before he is sworn in as president, George W. Bush is stepping aside as governor as he races to remake the federal government and forge ties with key constituencies.

Bush was resigning in a Capitol ceremony Thursday after serving six years in the top Texas job, and then watching as his successor, Republican Lt. Gov. Rick Perry, takes the oath of office.

The president-elect has already packed up his statehouse office, including his collection of autographed baseballs. ``I'm going to miss this place,'' Bush said Wednesday as he walked out of the Capitol.

``On the other hand, I'm looking forward to my new assignment,'' he said.

As he hurtled toward the start of that assignment on Jan. 20, Bush's progress in building a new administration accelerated. On Wednesday â€” a week after he claimed victory in the White House race â€” the president-elect announced his nominees to head the treasury, agriculture, commerce and housing agencies.

And he was making advances on other fronts, poised to name Gov. Christie Whitman of New Jersey to the nation's top environmental post and eyeing Wisconsin Gov. Tommy Thompson as front-runner for secretary of Health and Human Services, though final decisions had not been made.

Bush's top candidate for attorney general, Montana Gov. Marc Racicot, told the president-elect Wednesday he did not want the job.

The move upgraded the prospects of Oklahoma Gov. Frank Keating, a favorite of conservatives. Other candidates include outgoing Sen. John Ashcroft, R-Mo. and former Sen. John Danforth, R-Mo.

``I'm just at a point of time in life and with my family that I'm not sure that that would be in our best interest,'' Racicot told The Associated Press after a private meeting with Bush.

Bush, on a hurry-up schedule to press his legislative agenda, was promoting his education plans on Thursday, hosting 19 members of Congress for lunch, mostly Republicans. On the agenda were Bush's proposals to increase local control of schools and institute greater accountability.

Bush has pledged to make improving schools a top priority, but he faces an uphill battle on Capitol Hill selling controversial elements of his education plan, including giving parents taxpayer-funded vouchers to attend private schools.

A second education meeting with Hispanic leaders from around the nation was also planned. Bush aggressively courted Hispanics in his campaign, but lost that bloc nearly 2-1 to Democrat Al Gore.

The meetings were following a Wednesday gathering of Jewish, Christian and Muslim leaders at which Bush promoted his proposals for allowing religious groups to get government money to provide services to the poor. Many of the participants were black, notable in that nine out of 10 blacks across the country voted for Gore.

``Not everybody here voted for me,'' Bush said, prompting laughter from his panel. Looking around the room, he joked, ``I'm hoping to find one or two who did.''

Bush reiterated his pledge to form a White House Office of Faith-Based Action, and the closed-door session turned into a wide-ranging discussion that ranged from race relations to U.S.-Africa policy.

On Wednesday, Bush named businessman Paul O'Neill as his treasury secretary; Californian Ann Veneman as the first woman secretary of Agriculture; Mel Martinez, a Cuban refugee, as secretary of Housing and Urban Development; and his campaign chairman and longtime friend Don Evans as secretary of Commerce.

The president-elect, looking for diversity in his Cabinet, also was searching for a Democrat to fill a top spot, his aides said.

The emphasis was clearly on O'Neill, whose nomination Bush announced in a separate ceremony.

``Our economy is showing warning signs of a possible slowdown,'' Bush said. ``So it is incredibly important for me to find someone who had vast experience, who is a steady hand, who when he speaks, speaks with authority and conviction and knowledge. I found such a man in Paul O'Neill.''

Bush has rushed to assemble an administration in a schedule compressed by the five-week election recount deadlock. He was moving quickly this week before his planned Christmas break, though aides said no Cabinet appointments were expected Thursday.

Other top spots unfilled: attorney general, Federal Communications Commission chairman, and the secretaries of Defense, Education, Energy, Transportation, Interior and Veterans Affairs.

Meanwhile, his transition team in McLean, Va., is plowing through 35,000 resumes from applicants seeking to fill the roughly 6,000 spots in the federal bureaucracy.