Reagan Campaigns for Tough Drug Law : Urges Senate to Pass House Bill, Saying ‘Time Is Running Out’

President Reagan demanded Saturday that the Senate enact a tough House-passed anti-drug bill before it adjourns for the election, but a Democratic senator said that a newly drafted bipartisan compromise had a better chance of passage.

Observing in his weekly radio talk that “time is fast running out” on a pending bill that passed the House, 375 to 30, on Sept. 22, Reagan endorsed provisions of the House bill that would impose the death penalty on drug dealers who kill police officers and relax the “exclusionary rule” by which federal courts bar use of illegally obtained evidence.

“I challenge the Senate to get that bill passed,” Reagan said as he ended his talk. “The nation demands it and there’s no time to waste. Compromises on the key provisions are unacceptable. We must let the drug kingpins know--your days are numbered.”

Senate Bill Backed

Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan (D-N.Y.), responding for congressional Democrats, said the Senate compromise, drafted by a bipartisan working group of which he was a member, is the version with the best chance of passage. It also authorizes the death penalty for police killings linked to drugs, but it leaves the exclusionary rule untouched.

“We have four legislative days left in the 100th Congress,” Moynihan said. “We can’t pass the House bill. It has just too many extras . . . . But we can pass the Senate bill, and the House will take a clean bill.”

Behind Moynihan’s advice was the threat of a filibuster that 14 liberal senators raised last week against provisions of the House bill, particularly the death penalty. Procedurally, it will be more difficult to filibuster a Senate bill that includes unwanted provisions.

Reagan endorsed the death penalty for “vicious killers” who “pull out a machine gun and murder a police officer in line of duty,” and he criticized those who oppose the House bill’s relaxation of the exclusionary rule in drug cases where evidence that would otherwise be found illegal is turned up in good faith.

“I believe these people are more concerned with the abstract rights of criminals than the right of our society to save itself from those in this country and outside who seek their fortune in our national misfortune,” Reagan said.

Cabinet-Level Director

The Senate measure authorizes a two-year, $2.6-billion program to be coordinated by a Cabinet-level director. It would also increase federal financing for state and local anti-drug efforts, stiffen penalties for drug trafficking with children, require drug testing of key transportation employees and increase funding for drug education and research.

The legislation does not provide full funding for the program, partly because of the deficit-reduction ceiling set by the Gramm-Rudman balanced-budget law. Sen. Warren B. Rudman (R-N.H.), who helped draft the bill, has said he would offer legislation to increase alcohol and tobacco taxes to help finance the measure beyond the $450 million a year now earmarked for drug programs.

The House bill is similar in many respects to the Senate version. It authorizes $2.1 billion in addition to present funding, but suggests no source of added funds; it provides for coordination under a drug “czar,” but not at the Cabinet level, and it carries stiff penalties, some heavier than proposed in the Senate alternative, for drug violations.

Both Refer to Election

Reagan and Moynihan both made references in their talks to the Nov. 8 election.

The President asserted that Vice President George Bush, the Republican presidential nominee, had personified “the leadership and passion of this Administration” heading a drug task force as its “point man on drugs.” He went on to endorse Bush’s demand for drug testing of all prisoners who seek early release from jail.

Moynihan noted that sponsors of the compromise Senate bill included both of the vice presidential nominees, Sens. Dan Quayle (R-Ind.) and Lloyd Bentsen (D-Tex.).