DAWN BENNETT-ALEXANDER FILES, 1974-77

Dawn D. Bennett-Alexander began working on the Domestic Council as Staff Assistant to Associate Director and Counsel Richard Parsons in March 1976 and continued in that post until the end of the Ford Administration. Appointed as an assistant in the general areas of justice, civil rights, and drugs, Bennett-Alexander's duties were greatly augmented with Kathleen Ryan's resignation in April 1976 and her subsequent assumption of Ryan's duties in the area of consumer affairs. Consumer related materials constitute more than half of Bennett-Alexander's files and include those she created as well a those she inherited from Ryan.

While Parsons as associate director coordinated policy development with other Domestic Council staff and acted as liaison with federal agencies within the subject area, Bennett-Alexander handled more routine matters. She answered correspondence and referrals, monitored legislation, and drafted issues statements in a variety of subject areas, such as justice, crime, civil rights, minority affairs, drugs, customs, busing, delinquency, gun control, illegal aliens, and privacy as well as consumer issues..

Materials include memoranda presenting alternatives and making recommendations with regard to proposed legislation or presidential actions; internal memoranda on Domestic Council matters; press releases and news items; bills, printed testimony and House reports; and correspondence. While most of these materials are copies or printed matter, there is considerable substantive material relating to the Consumer Protection Act of 1975 and President Ford's consumer representation plans. The latter provides a very complete record of the plans from their inception through the stages of their final drafts, including extensive testimony and agency correspondence. The materials in the General Subject File are of a more routine nature with the exception of those concerning privacy and illegal aliens, areas where Bennett-Alexander appears to have had more direct involvement.

Related Materials (April 1980)
Related information may be found in other Domestic Council collections, particularly those of Richard Parson, Kathleen Ryan and Pamela Needham. Another source for consumer materials are the files of Virginia Knauer, Special Assistant for Consumer Affairs.