House Supports Expanded Death Penalty : Congress: Lawmakers working on a crime bill reject efforts to pare list of capital offenses, substitute life imprisonment without parole.

The House showed overwhelming support Thursday for expanding the federal death penalty to 66 offenses, including murders committed during carjackings or drive-by shootings, as work began on a comprehensive crime bill that has been embraced by President Clinton.

Lawmakers voted almost 3 to 1 to retain the expanded death penalty provisions, rebuffing attempts to substitute life imprisonment without parole or to narrow the list of federal offenses subject to capital punishment.

Liberal Democrats argued that the cost of hearing appeals of death sentences is far greater than the expense of imposing a life prison sentence.

But Rep. Jack Brooks (D-Tex.), chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, said: “Society must express its revulsion at these heinous acts by imposition of the death penalty.”

A death penalty for drug kingpins--even without evidence of a death resulting from their activities--also easily survived attempts to knock it out of the bill.

In a related move, the House narrowly approved a proposal to allow federal prosecutors more leeway in seeking to persuade juries to impose a death sentence.

The House also voted to add a series of non-controversial crime-prevention programs to the legislation, including federal matching grants for parks and recreation facilities in high-crime urban areas and subsidies for boys’ and girls’ clubs in public housing projects.

Also approved were proposals to expand narcotics control in rural areas and to set up coordinated efforts to identify and prosecute young violent offenders.

House leaders said they expect to complete work on the legislation next week and then send it to a Senate-House conference committee, which will iron out differences with a Senate-passed crime bill.

The Senate measure contains more severe sentencing provisions and extends federal jurisdiction to include virtually every crime committed with a handgun.

Clinton kept up pressure on Congress to pass a crime bill, meeting with big-city mayors and dozens of police officers at the White House in order to promote the legislation approved by the Democratic-dominated House Judiciary Committee.

Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan, a Republican, introduced the President, possibly to defuse House Republicans’ claims that the Clinton-backed bill is too soft on criminals.

“The people you and I work for have waited long enough,” Clinton told the law enforcement officials. “They don’t care about amendments that could slow the process down. They don’t want partisan bickering.”

Republicans, who once threatened to delay passage of the crime bill because their amendments had not been accepted, appeared to pull their punches as the death penalty provisions were considered.

GOP lawmakers forced only one procedural roll call and voted with the Democratic majority to expand the list of federal offenses subject to the death penalty.

An effort by Rep. Mike Kopetski (D-Ore.) to reduce the maximum penalty from death to life in prison without possibility of parole was defeated, 314 to 111.

The House passed, 226 to 188, an amendment by Rep. George W. Gekas (R-Pa.), that would allow prosecutors to mention more aggravating factors for juries to consider when deciding whether to impose the death penalty.

Gekas’ proposal also removed a provision from the bill that would have required that jurors be told they are not compelled to vote for a death sentence.

Times staff writer David Lauter contributed to this story.