FORMER SEN. HOWARD BAKER AND FORMER ATTORNEY GENERAL GRIFFIN BELL HEAD
BIPARTISAN NATIONAL COMMISSION STUDYING SEPARATION OF POWERS 

	CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va., April 25 -- Former U.S. Sen. Howard W.
Baker Jr. and former U.S. Attorney General Griffin Bell will head a
bipartisan national commission to help resolve a growing number of
controversies over presidential, judicial and congressional power and
responsibilities. 
	The Commission on the Separation of Powers is sponsored by the
Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia and
includes former members of Congress and the executive branch,
constitutional experts, journalists and others.
	Baker (R-Tenn.), the former Senate majority leader and chief
of staff to President Reagan, and Bell, attorney general in the Carter
administration, said the commission may aim to clarify such current
issues between Congress and the executive branch as the line-item
veto, the independent counsel provision, and executive privilege. It
will systematically examine various "encroachments" in recent decades
by each of the three branches of government on the others. 
	"For generations school children have been taught that the
Founders in 1787 settled the question of the separation of powers
between the three branches of government," Baker said. "But from the
beginning, the distribution of power has been in a state of dynamic
equilibrium. Controversies continue to the present day about alleged
encroachments by one branch of government or another."
	"Because so many contested issues are subject to varied
interpretation and are growing in intensity today, we hope to
recommend ways to reach common ground," said Bell. 
	Other members of the commission, the eighth sponsored by the
Miller Center on urgent national issues, are R.W. Apple Jr., chief of
the Washington bureau of the New York Times; William P. Barr, attorney
general in the Bush administration; Andrew H. Card Jr., transportation
secretary in the Bush administration; William Webster, former director
of the FBI and CIA; Lloyd N. Cutler, former counsel to Presidents
Carter and Clinton; Lawrence S. Eagleburger, secretary of state in the
Bush administration; and former Rep. William Frenzel (R-Minn.), who
was House minority leader. 
	Also, former House speaker Thomas S. Foley (D.-Wash.); Sander
Vanocur, television journalist and commentator; Paul Gewirtz, the
Potter Stewart Professor of Constitutional Law at Yale University;
Juanita Kreps, vice president emeritus, Duke University; Daniel
Meador, the James Monroe Professor of Law Emeritus at the University
of Virginia; and Joshua I. Smith, chairman and CEO of MAXIMA Corp.
	The commission is likely to discuss a variety of issues during
the coming year, including foreign policy, executive orders, judiciary
independence, and campaign finance, and will eventually make a report
with recommendations, said Miller Center director Kenneth W. Thompson. 
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April 24, 1997
	For additional information about the Miller Center Commission
on the Separation of Powers please contact Kenneth Thompson at the
Miller Center at (804) 924-7236.  Television reporters should call our
TV News Office at (804) 924-7550.