Senate Fails to Break Crime Bill Filibuster

The Senate failed today to break a filibuster against an anti-crime bill that included controversial curbs on semiautomatic weapons, throwing into doubt the fate of the entire measure.

The vote was 57 to 37--three short of the 60 required to choke off debate.

Senate sponsor Joseph Biden immediately blamed the National Rifle Assn. for the vote, saying, “It was do or die time for the crime bill, and it just died.”

Republican leader Bob Dole of Kansas urged the Senate to push ahead with action on the bill even without a limit on debate. “This is an important bill,” he declared. “If we want a crime bill, the majority can have one.”

The bill also includes provisions instituting the death penalty for 30 federal crimes and is designed to end delays of up to a decade in carrying out executions.

It also would allow courts to consider evidence gathered with flawed warrants in some cases.

Biden said a limit is needed because of more than 240 proposed amendments in the hopper. He said that debating all of them would mean open-ended delays that would prevent the Senate from ever getting to a final vote.

He blamed the NRA for the surge of amendments. The gun group had been widely expected to win a Senate battle two weeks ago to drop restrictions on semiautomatic assault weapons.

In a surprise move, the Senate rejected a move to drop the curbs.

Biden said the NRA hoped to block final action on the bill by encouraging lawmakers to let debate flow on indefinitely.

The campaign to curb such weapons began in January, 1989, after a deranged man with an assault rifle opened fire on a Stockton, Calif., schoolyard, leaving five youngsters dead and 30 other persons hurt.