A Bill Too Far

The House of Representatives last month adopted an anti-drug bill that contained three egregious provisions: allowing the use of illegally obtained evidence in drug trials, ordering the military to patrol the borders against drug smuggling and mandating the death penalty for drug-related murders. The Senate version of the bill included none of these features.

A compromise worked out earlier this week dropped the first two ideas but retained the death penalty. On Wednesday the House passed it by a vote of 391 to 23.

Now 11 Republican and 14 Democratic senators say they are still opposed to the enactment of a federal death penalty for murders committed in the course of drug crimes. They are prepared to conduct a filibuster to prevent the bill from coming to a vote as long as it contains what Sen. Daniel J. Evans (R-Wash.) correctly describes as the “blatantly unconstitutional” death-penalty provision.

At present, airplane hijacking is the only federal crime for which the death penalty is in effect. All other death-penalty laws were swept away by the Supreme Court’s anti-capital punishment ruling in 1972, and Congress has not enacted new statutes to take their place. The death penalty is the most solemn and serious punishment that a state can impose. If it is to be adopted, it should be done in the context of a broad policy with thoughtful consideration, not on an ad-hoc basis in the midst of a frenzy to show the voters how tough their lawmakers are on drugs. It’s not even clear that the drug crisis is all that much of a crisis.

The Founding Fathers envisioned the Senate as the deliberative body in Congress, the proper check on the House, which would be too closely tied to popular passions. The senators who are prepared to prevent the enactment of the death penalty for drug crimes are fulfilling their historic legislative role. They should do whatever it takes to keep Congress from making this mistake.