Crime Bill Passes Easily in Congress

Congress overwhelmingly approved an anticrime bill Thursday that would expand the interstate Amber alert system for abducted children, stiffen sentencing rules for sex criminals and kidnappers and outlaw certain forms of child pornography on the Internet.

Passage came despite a late appeal from Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist to leave intact federal guidelines that give judges discretion in sentencing.

The House approved the bill, 400 to 25. The Senate followed suit hours later, 98 to 0. The bill, written by senior House and Senate Republicans, is expected to be signed by President Bush.

Despite the lopsided votes, some leading Democrats sided with Rehnquist -- a conservative Republican -- in complaining about the provisions that would constrain the sentencing authority of federal trial judges.

Republicans rebuffed the criticism.

“Those who try to stop this bill are subverting the will of the American people who want us to put kidnappers in jail and protect our children,” said House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.). “It is time to help parents protect their children.”

In the House, 23 Democrats joined independent Rep. Bernard Sanders of Vermont and Republican Rep. Ron Paul of Texas in voting against the bill. Those opposed from California were: Reps. Barbara Lee of Oakland, Pete Stark of Hayward and Maxine Waters of Los Angeles.

In the Senate, Democrats Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer of California were among those voting for the bill.

The bill’s signature provision would fortify the Amber alert network, named for Amber Hagerman of Texas, a 9-year-old who was kidnapped and killed in 1996. The network, now operating in more than 30 states, publicizes missing-children cases through electronic road signs and TV and radio broadcasts. In California, the system has aided in the rescue of 20 children since the state adopted it last year.

The bill, building on actions Bush took in October, would make the network nationwide and would authorize $10 million in increased Justice Department assistance.

The issue received renewed attention after the case of Elizabeth Smart, a Utah teen who was returned to her family in March nine months after being kidnapped. The Smart family lobbied Congress to pass the bill.

The Senate twice passed bills to extend nationwide the Amber alert system. But in the House, Judiciary Chairman F. James Sensenbrenner Jr. (R-Wis.) added several provisions to the alert system bill and persuaded a House-Senate conference committee to accept them.

One major section, responding to a 2002 high court ruling that struck down a federal ban on “virtual” pornography on the Internet, would clarify the law in an attempt to make it constitutional. It would narrow the definition of prohibited forms of child porn circulated on computers and would allow those accused of trafficking in such pornography to escape conviction if they could show they did not use actual children to produce sexually explicit images.

The bill also would:

* Require mandatory life imprisonment for twice-convicted child sex offenders, a provision dubbed “two strikes, you’re out.”

* Require 20 years in prison for nonfamily members who kidnap a minor.

* Expand wiretapping authority in criminal sex cases involving children.

* Make it a federal crime to use a misleading domain name to trick adults into viewing obscenity on the Internet or cause children to see “material that is harmful to minors.”

* Make it easier to prosecute sex tour operators and people who travel overseas for sex with minors.

* Require law enforcement agencies to report missing people under age 21 to the National Crime Information Center -- current law requires the reporting of those only under age 18.

* Impose changes meant to force judges to adhere more strictly to federal sentencing guidelines or document why they don’t.

Some of the sentencing provisions drew fire from Rehnquist, who as chief justice of the U.S. heads the federal Judicial Conference, a policymaking group of top judges that advises Congress.

“The Judicial Conference believes that this legislation, if enacted, would do serious harm to the basic structure of the sentencing guideline system and would seriously impair the ability of courts to impose just and responsible sentences,” Rehnquist wrote in a letter to Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.).

Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle (D-S.D.) accused Republicans of “kidnapping the Amber alert bill in an attempt to achieve partisan and wholly unrelated goals gutting judicial sentencing guidelines.”

Still, he voted for the measure, a testament to the political popularity of other parts of it.

Rep. Tom Feeney (R-Fla.) defended the expanded bill, saying a nationwide alert system is needed to protect children.

“Amber alert is wonderful at attempting to retrieve children who are kidnapped and taken across state lines,” he said. “What we’ve tried to do is [also] to deter and punish people and put them behind bars.”