Tucson, Arizona  Sunday, 21 January 2001

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.azstarnet.com/star/today/10121Nbushcabinet.html

WASHINGTON - Only three hours into George W. Bush's presidency, a quick-acting Senate yesterday approved the first seven members of his Cabinet, including Colin Powell, the first black to be secretary of state.

The Senate confirmed all seven with a single voice vote, putting the first pieces of Bush's government into place in an unusual Saturday session just 13 minutes long. Within hours, several of the new Cabinet members had been sworn into office.

They were among the least controversial of Bush's Cabinet-level appointees and stirred scant opposition in the Senate, even though it is divided 50-50 between Republicans and Democrats in the new 107th Congress.

Even before the vote, Bush reiterated to lawmakers of both parties his desire to work with them - a prerequisite in what is the most evenly divided Congress in nearly five decades.

"I'm here to tell the country that things will get done, that we're going to rise above expectations, that both Republicans and Democrats will come together to do what's right for America," Bush said at a lunch in the Capitol's Statuary Hall where members of Congress honored the new president.

GOP leaders hope approval of remaining appointees will come this week, including former Sen. John Ashcroft, R-Mo., to be attorney general and former Colorado attorney general Gale Norton to head the Interior Department.

Despite vocal opposition to them by many Democrats and liberal groups, Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D., conceded there is "a very strong likelihood" the remaining nominees will win Senate approval. He also said he would not support a filibuster of Ashcroft's nomination threatened by Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass.

The only opposition to the nominees approved yesterday was voiced by Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev. He objected to Senate votes by Abraham in support of shipping nuclear waste to Nevada's Yucca Mountain.

The Bush team is due to make a decision on the proposal this spring.

Powell, 63, the most widely known of Bush's picks, was sworn into office early yesterday evening. The son of immigrants from Jamaica and raised in the Bronx, Powell rose through a 35-year Army career to become chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff when Bush's father was president, and even toyed with running for the White House himself in 1996.

Also sworn in after winning the Senate's assent to top-tier Cabinet posts were Paul O'Neill, 65, the former Alcoa Inc. chairman, as treasury secretary; Donald Rumsfeld, 68, as defense secretary, returning to the job he held a quarter-century ago; and former Sen. Spencer Abraham, R-Mich., 48, as energy secretary.

In addition, the Senate confirmed Houston schools chief Rod Paige, 67, as education secretary; oilman and Bush friend Donald Evans, 54, to head the Commerce Department; and Ann Veneman, 51, to be atop the Agriculture Department, where she was deputy secretary from 1986 to 1993.

Besides giving the GOP the White House for the first time in eight years, the inauguration of Bush and of Dick Cheney to be vice president restored Republicans to their position as majority of the Senate.

Because the vice president can cast tie-breaking votes in the chamber, Democrats had control while Al Gore was still in that office. The Senate's rapid action was not unusual for a president's first day.