Annotations for People: Newton-frank--frank Cota-robles

A Hispanic coalition has issued a report card grading President Clinton's appointment of high-level Latinos to his administration. As Patricia Guadalupe reports from Washington, the President earned high marks in some departments, low marks in others.

The National Hispanic Leadership Agenda, a coalition of 28 Latino agencies, examined President Clinton's first 100 days. They found that only 16 Hispanics have been appointed to top White House and Cabinet posts. That is less than 5% of all positions available. Four departments; Agriculture, Labor, State, and Veteran Affairs, received an F for having no Hispanics in positions requiring Senate confirmation. The National Hispanic Leadership Agenda applauded the appointments of cabinet secretaries Henry Cisneros and Federico Pena. Still, coalition Director Frank Newton said the overall picture for Hispanics was disappointing. For it's high-level Hispanic appointments, the coalition gave the Clinton Administration an overall grade of C-. For Latino USA, I'm Patricia Guadalupe in Washington.

Since May, the administration has filled well over a hundred Senate confirmation slots. So even though they've added all kinds of people to the administration through their appointments, Latinos are moving backwards instead of moving forward. It's very discouraging and we get a lot of lip service. We get promises that trust us, it'll work out, you'll be happy with the results. And we've been waiting and we're not seeing any results, so.[Background, people speaking]