House Defeat of Crime Bill

The failure of the House of Representatives to take a meaningful vote on the crime bill is not a blow to President Clinton, as stated in your headline “Vote on Crime Bill Is Blocked; Major Setback for Clinton” (Aug. 12). He is guaranteed personal security for life. It’s a blow to the American public and is another knock against the credibility of the Congress.

I find it incredible that the most important issue to the American public, crime prevention, gets mired in special-interest scare tactics and procedural ploys to not take a vote on this critical issue.

Was the bill perfect? Certainly not. But at least it would put more officers on the street and increase prison capacity while we try and address the root societal causes of rampant crime.

STEVE GERHARDT

Redondo Beach

* It’s time for President Clinton to stop whining about the National Rifle Assn. and the Republicans and tell the truth. The crime bill fizzled because the President lost 58 votes in his own party. The Democrats control the Senate and the House. The Republicans don’t have enough votes to block anything the Democrats want to pass. Perhaps the Democrats also saw the folly in supporting a bill with $9 billion in new social spending.

Write a more simple bill that adds police, is tough on criminals, builds prisons and does not seek to make villains of 70 million law-abiding gun owners. Then we may yet see strong bipartisan support.

MICHAEL COONEY

Glendale

* The majority of Americans wanted Clinton’s new tough crime bill to pass. Living here in Orange County, the likes of Reps. Robert K. Dornan (R-Garden Grove), Dana Rohrabacher (R-Huntington Beach) and Christopher Cox (R-Newport Beach), and egotists who try to explain their no votes on the bill as being for the taxpaying public’s benefit need their heads and their wallets examined.

The bottom line is special-interest groups like the National Rifle Assn. lining the pockets of Republican and Democratic politicians’ campaign funds at election time.

Crime is nonpartisan and I believe we’ll be seeing a lot of replaced and shocked politicians at voting time--one thing special interests won’t be buying.

JOAN L. WILDER

Corona del Mar

* Hooray! To all the Republicans and some of the Democrats who had the courage to stand up and defeat the crime bill. It is reflective of the typical lard-laden legislation for which the Democrats are famous. We don’t need midnight basketball, ballet lessons, or Rep. Jack Brooks’ (D-Tex.) alma mater to solve our crime problems--just a tough crime bill with no pork or election year goodies. This fiasco is but another example of Bill Clinton’s weak, ineffectual leadership, and the Democratic Party’s attempt to cash in on an issue which the public considers important. Happy filibustering on the health-care issue!

JOHN PALAZZINI

West Hollywood

* Let the record reflect that when it comes to fighting crime, only 11 House Republicans were for the crime bill and 167 were against it. In the perverse culture of Washington politics and pack journalism, this will undoubtedly be portrayed as a defeat for Clinton and the Democrats! It is a sad commentary when the defeated party that supported the crime bill is heaped with scorn and ridicule in the press, while the party that opposed it is ignored in “victory.” On an issue that most Americans say is their No. 1 priority, the press coverage has been shoddy and shameful.

STEVE GORDON

Pasadena

* I would like to thank and commend Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Los Angeles) for voting against the huge, unconstitutional, excessive, pork-laden anti-crime bill. The bill itself was a crime.

I found that there were many things in the bill that I opposed, the pork-barrel spending, the Draconian use of the death penalty, the assault rifle ban and overall the increased practice of federalizing law enforcement.

Every few years since the 1960s the federal government has taken more and more control over local law enforcement, while at the same time attacking the Constitution in the name of public order. In spite of massive increases in federal involvement in law enforcement, we have seen no improvement in public safety. In fact, we have seen our streets get more dangerous, and our local law enforcement becoming unaccountable to the people it is supposed to protect.

I thank Rep. Waters for putting common sense, constitutional rights and we the people before party loyalty, political correctness and special-interest politics.

BRADLEY D. FALK

Los Angeles