Rule Throws a Curve, Bill Falters

The great irony of President Clinton’s defeat on the crime bill Thursday is that even his opponents agreed that the bill would have passed if it had actually come to a straight up-or-down vote. What happened, however, is that supporters of the bill got defeated on a procedural motion known as a rule.

Normally a technical vote that precedes consideration of every bill that comes to the House floor, the rule sets forth the procedures under which a given piece of legislation can be debated, amended and voted upon. Traditionally, its passage signifies that the bill that follows it will pass by a similar margin.

But in recent years, even Republicans who support a bill have tended to vote against its rule to protest their exclusion by the Democratic majority from the rule-making process. While that happened with the crime bill, opposition to the rule also came from lawmakers who wanted to use it as a political cover to kill the bill without being accused of voting against it. This group included conservative Democrats upset with its gun-control provisions and liberals angered by its expanded death penalties.