Bush Gives Anti-Crime Bill Top Priority

President Bush wants Congress to pass this year, as a top priority, an anti-crime package that leading Democrats claim will do little if anything to slash crime.

In a speech earlier this month, Bush made the anti-crime legislation, along with a cut in the capital gains tax and a clean air bill, the top items on his legislative agenda for the congressional session.

“It’s time--it’s past time for Congress to tend to some of the unfinished business,” Bush said. “It’s time for Congress to act quickly and responsibly because the war on drugs and crime won’t wait.”

Although Bush’s words make music in an election year, the rhetoric obscures the reality that most of the program the President proposed in May passed as part of anti-drug legislation last year.

Of the 19 principal issues in the sweeping anti-crime proposal, only four are left--those dealing with the death penalty, revisions in the habeas corpus and exclusionary rules and controls of firearms.

Under an agreement reached by Senate Democratic and Republican leaders, these four will be considered beginning Feb. 7 as part of an anti-crime package.

In the House, where several subcommittees will be involved and where no hearings have been held, the situation is less clear.

But Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D-Del.) who late last year introduced a version of the Administration’s remaining proposals, said at the time that the four items “do not do much to impact on drugs, if at all, and arguably may, or may not, reduce crime.

Biden said he was not convinced that they will “do very much to produce any significant change in the crime picture in America. The realities of these proposals will do little, if anything.”

The bill alters procedures to meet Supreme Court guidelines for the death penalty for 16 crimes--such as treason and espionage--and adds the ultimate sentence for seven crimes--genocide, murder of a foreign official, murder by a federal prisoner, kidnaping, hostage-taking, murder for hire and murder in the aid of racketeering.

But the bill introduced by Biden, unlike the one that came from the White House, would bar the death sentence if it furthers a “racially discriminatory pattern.”

The other parts would limit appeals by Death Row inmates, write into law the “good faith” exemption for searches without warrant and ban the manufacture, sale and possession of nine weapons.

To this, Biden added new sections to fight money laundering and to create an Organized Crime and Dangerous Drug Division.

Although the revised and expanded Administration proposals will serve as the vehicle when the Senate opens debate, Biden has his own more ambitious plan and the Administration will propose a new anti-drug program Jan. 29 that will include anti-crime elements.

For instance, the Administration, pressed by drug czar William Bennett, wants the death penalty for drug kingpins, even if they are not involved in murder.

The death penalty for drug kingpins linked to murder was approved by Congress in 1988 but no case has been brought under that statute.

Biden approaches anti-crime legislation in a far different manner, and his package does not include the death penalty or the revisions of the habeas corpus and exclusionary rules.

He proposes an additional $600 million to help state and local authorities fight crime; 1,000 new FBI and 350 new drug agents, 300 prosecutors and 20 federal judges; aid to rural police battling drugs; no bail for drug offenses; expanded program of forfeiture by those convicted of drug crimes; new statutes to crack down on public corruption at the state and local level; power to shut down crack houses; more money to combat juvenile gangs; aid to communities suffering from a high level of drug trafficking (also expected to be in the Administration’s new anti-drug program); a Peace Corps-type program to lure people into law enforcement work; increasing penalties for gun-related crimes, and permitting undercover investigations of receivers of stolen property.