Senate Rejects Use of Military to Chase Drug Smugglers

A weary Senate, beginning to vote on provisions in a $1.4-billion anti-drug package, late Saturday beat back an effort to enlist the military against drug smugglers but expressed support for the idea of imposing the death penalty for some drug-related crimes.

Final passage of an anti-drug bill is expected later in the week.

Like an anti-drug package passed several weeks ago by the House, the Senate drug proposal stiffens penalties for drug-related crimes and devotes millions to drug education and interdiction. However, it spends significantly less than the $2-billion House bill.

More importantly, the Senate plan does not include some of the more controversial provisions of the House plan, such as imposing the death penalty on drug “kingpins” whose actions cause a death and allowing the use of illegally obtained evidence in drug cases under certain circumstances.

The Senate voted, 72 to 14, not to include in its bill an amendment similar to a House-passed provision requiring the military to hunt down drug smugglers, an idea that has been strongly opposed by the Pentagon and was roundly ridiculed by senior members of the Senate Armed Services Committee.

“You’re asking for the whole kit and caboodle to circle the country,” committee Chairman Barry Goldwater (R-Ariz.) said. “I don’t know what they would do. Stand every 10 feet on the dark Mexican border? And then they wouldn’t catch them.”

However, the Senate’s complex maneuvering on the death penalty issue made it clear that only the threat of a crippling filibuster prevented it from trying to attach to its bill a series of other emotion-laden provisions that were passed by the House. The Senate defeated, 60 to 25, an effort to set the death penalty amendment aside but did not subsequently vote to make the amendment part of the bill.

“The opposition would filibuster (such an effort) and kill this vital bill,” said the amendment’s sponsor, Sen. Mack Mattingly (R-Ga.). Nonetheless, he said, “we’ve had our vote,” and he predicted that it would “send a very strong signal” to a House-Senate conference committee that ultimately may produce a compromise version of the bill.

Although studies show that overall drug use has leveled off, illegal narcotics have emerged as a hot political topic this election season, particularly after the cocaine-related deaths of athletes Len Bias and Don Rogers. Also fueling public concern is publicity surrounding dangerous drugs, such as the form of cocaine known as “crack.”

Sen. Alan K. Simpson (R-Wyo.) attempted to resurrect immigration overhaul legislation by attaching it to the drug package. However, he abandoned the idea when it appeared that it could draw opposition that would impede the progress of the overall anti-drug bill. Many senators had declared the immigration bill dead Friday, when the House voted to block it from being considered, only a week before Congress is due to adjourn.

The immigration legislation, which has died in the past two sessions of Congress, sought to stem the flow of illegal aliens across U.S. borders by levying stiff fines on employers who knowingly hire them. Some government officials have suggested that the controversial legislation also could aid efforts against drug smuggling.