With No Death Penalty, House and Senate Declare Victory : Congress Approves Anti-Drug Bill

Congress on Friday approved and sent to President Reagan a broad anti-drug bill after the Senate stripped the legislation of a House-passed death penalty provision.

The painstakingly choreographed maneuver enabled the House and Senate to declare victory on the politically sensitive legislation. Rep. Charles B. Rangel (D-N.Y.), chairman of the House Select Committee on Narcotics Abuse, said the bill set forward “a strategy that may not win, but at least we can go back home to our constituents and say we’ve tried.”

The bill, which will cost more than $1.7 billion during this fiscal year, would stiffen penalties for most drug crimes, pour hundreds of millions of dollars into federal and local drug programs and strengthen federal drug interdiction efforts.

It was approved on a 378-16 vote by the House and was passed by the Senate on a voice vote.

Civil Liberties Issues

While both houses had agreed on the basic outlines of the legislation, the bill had bounced between the House and Senate several times over the last few weeks as they squabbled over a number of House-passed provisions that raised difficult civil liberties questions.

Early on, the House had abandoned its initial proposals requiring the military to chase and arrest drug smugglers and allowing courts to use illegally obtained evidence under some circumstances.

But it had insisted twice that the bill allow capital punishment for big-time drug dealers who order or commit murders. Each time, the Senate had refused to approve the death penalty provision.

In the end, the House passed the controversial proposal separately from the rest of the legislation, knowing that the Senate would merely ignore the death penalty language and pass the drug bill without it.

“Think of what a dog the House would have put on the American people,” said Rep. Don Edwards (D-San Jose), who had sided against the House majority on the civil liberties issues. “We got a real good bill just by being obstinate and sticking with our principles, especially in the Senate.”

‘Huffed and Puffed’

However, Rep. George W. Gekas (R-Pa.), leader of the death penalty forces in the House, saw it differently: “They huffed and they puffed, but they could not blow the House down.”

Others complained that the bill lost important features in the shuffle between the House and Senate. Rep. Esteban E. Torres (D-La Puente) complained that an amendment cracking down on money laundering, a means of disguising drug profits by funneling them through bank accounts, had been severely weakened in the bill.

“The banking industry lobbyists went into high gear,” Torres said.

Although federal studies show that overall drug use has leveled off, public opinion polls show that concern over narcotics rose dramatically last summer. The awareness centered on the cocaine-related deaths of athletes Len Bias and Don Rogers, as well as news accounts of new and dangerous drugs, such as the cocaine derivative known as “crack.”

Sensed Opportunity

Political strategists immediately sensed an opportunity in an election year that otherwise has produced few strong national themes. The result was a scramble on Capitol Hill and in the White House that ultimately produced the legislation approved Friday.

Critics have dismissed the effort as political opportunism.

But House Majority Leader Jim Wright (D-Tex.) argued that it showed Congress at its best, with both parties banding together to fight “the most serious social problem that confronts our country . . . the menace of deadly drugs that invades our streets and our homes and our schoolyards.”