Clinton Attacks Congress, Vows New Crime Bill

President Clinton on Friday assailed Congress for rejecting his crime bill as Administration officials and congressional leaders scrambled to resuscitate one of the cornerstones of the Administration’s legislative agenda.

Speaking before a group of uniformed police officers here, an apparently frustrated Clinton said: “We did not get you a crime bill yesterday. But we’re going to get you a crime bill.

“To all the police officers in this country who walk out there for us every day,” Clinton vowed, his voice hoarse, “Washington cannot walk away from you.”

Back in Washington, shellshocked Administration officials and congressional Democratic leaders huddled in tense strategy sessions looking for ways to revive the $33.2-billion legislation, which suffered a stunning 15-vote defeat in a procedural vote Thursday in the House. In Democratic ranks, the atmosphere teetered “somewhere between defiance and despair,” said one source.

Indeed, Democrats Friday failed to reach consensus on the basic choice ahead: whether to change the bill in the hope of attracting more votes--or simply to make a second run at passing the measure rejected Thursday. While the White House and Senate Democrats clearly preferred the second strategy, congressional and Administration sources said that House Democratic leaders were uncertain they could change the eight votes needed to pass the bill as it is.

“Obviously, our preference would be to have them bring the bill back up for a vote and support the elements that are part of it,” White House Chief of Staff Leon E. Panetta said in an interview Friday night.

But speaking to reporters Friday morning, House Majority Leader Richard A. Gephardt (D-Mo.) pointedly refused to predict that the House could simply push through the bill on a second try. “We’re going to stay and get a crime bill done,” he said. “(But) I don’t know exactly what the bill would look like that could pass.”

The massive crime bill devoted nearly $9 billion for hiring police officers, $6.5 billion for prison construction, $1.8 billion to reimburse states for the costs of incarcerating illegal immigrants and nearly $8 billion for a variety of crime “prevention” programs. It also would expand the death penalty for more than 50 additional federal crimes and it would ban 19 types of assault weapons.

Because the crime bill has always involved an intricate balancing act between left and right, Democratic leaders acknowledged that their salvage operation has little room to maneuver. If the bill is revised, said one senior House Democratic leadership aide, the most prominent options are either to modify the assault weapons ban or strip it from the bill entirely, allowing a separate up-or-down vote on the controversial issue.

But either of those steps are fraught with political peril, aides acknowledged. A slight modification in the ban would probably be insufficient to satisfy the National Rifle Assn.--and thus might fail to win over enough of the ban’s opponents to pass the bill.

Removing the assault ban probably would bring back substantial numbers of conservative Democrats and several Democrats pressed forcefully for that option at the closed-door meetings Friday. Arguing that not only the presidency but Democratic control of the House could be jeopardized in November if no crime bill is passed, they pressed for “substantial” changes in the ban to ensure that the leadership has more than enough votes to win a new vote.

But, Administration officials believe, diluting the assault weapons ban would constitute a major political defeat for Clinton, who had campaigned furiously for the measure when it passed the House by two votes in May. And dropping the ban could erode support on the left--particularly among the 28 Democratic members of the Congressional Black Caucus, who voted for the bill despite disappointment over abandonment of a provision to make it easier for prisoners on Death Row to challenge their sentences as racially biased.

Still, in the interview, Panetta left open some hint of openness: “We don’t want to see the assault weapon just stripped from the bill. . . . Are there modifications? I guess we would have to see what those might be.”

Similarly, one House Democratic aide said, cutting the legislation’s nearly $8 billion in prevention money to attract Republicans who labeled such spending as “pork” could also prompt an exodus from the bill on the left.

Even narrow changes held out the threat of major disputes. Both the Administration and Democratic leaders had spoken of possibly stripping from the bill a $10-million grant to establish a criminal justice institute at Lamar University in the district of House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jack Brooks (D-Tex.). Republicans had ridiculed the money as symbolic of what they termed bloated spending in the bill. But Friday, the powerful Brooks angrily reacted to that suggestion: “Hell no. You out of your mind? Just because it’s in Beaumont doesn’t mean it’s a bad idea.”

If the Democrats decide to amend the bill, it would be difficult procedurally. House leaders could incorporate a resolution revising the bill into the rule permitting it to be considered on the floor. But one senior Administration official said that is impractical because any changes approved in that manner would be subject to amendment in the Senate--which would effectively reopen the entire crime bill for debate on the Senate floor.

The other option for changing the bill is to return it to the House-Senate conference committee. But both Brooks and Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D-Del.) strongly opposed that idea Friday. “I have no intention of going back to conference for a simple reason,” Biden said. “I know no way of getting out of conference once we go to conference.”

Faced with those calculations, senior officials in both the White House and Justice Department said that the Administration’s clear preference was to avoid major changes in the legislation. Instead, they said, the President would turn up the public pressure in the hope that a wave of public outrage would propel the measure through the House on a second vote. In the search for votes, Administration officials and congressional leaders were hoping for small gains with three groups:

* The 10 Democratic members of the Black Caucus who voted no on Thursday.

* The two or three moderate Democrats who indicated privately that they might have supported Clinton if the bill had a chance to win.

* The 19 Republicans who backed both the assault weapons ban and the overall crime bill in the House this spring but voted against the procedural measure Thursday. Included are Rep. Stephen Horn (R-Long Beach) and Mike Huffington (R-Santa Barbara).

For the most part, those defecting Republicans said that they opposed the measure because they considered it stuffed with wasteful spending on social programs like “midnight basketball” leagues. But the Justice Department compiled figures showing that the final legislation contained $800 million less in social spending than the earlier House version that those Republicans had backed in April.

Even so, congressional aides said Friday there were no signs yet of members recanting their opposition to the bill.

There were, however, some signs that Republicans were uneasy about being blamed by Clinton for derailing action on an issue that tops most surveys of public concern. White House sources said that House Minority Whip Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) called Panetta at 7:30 a.m. Friday to seek an opportunity to discuss the bill. Later in the day Gingrich, Senate Minority Leader Bob Dole (R-Kan.) and four other party leaders wrote Clinton requesting a meeting to negotiate changes.

But Panetta rebuffed the request, criticizing Republicans who switched from earlier support of the legislation to opposition Thursday and calling on the GOP leaders to work directly with congressional Democrats.

Clinton began his lobbying effort before several hundred members of the National Assn. of Police Organizations, which represents 160,000 police officers across the country.

“It’s the same old Washington game--stick it to ordinary Americans,” Clinton said, sounding at times more weary than angry. “But the time has come for those of you to say that the only way for Congress to make their seats safe is to make the rest of America safer.”

Times staff writers Michael Ross, David Lauter and Jim Bornemeier contributed to this story from Washington.

* SOUTHLAND SETBACK: The crime bill’s defeat is a blow to the region, officials say. B1