House Pushes Revision of Omnibus Crime Bill : Congress: Amendment is approved to give California and other qualifying states millions for costs of imprisoning illegal immigrants.

The House, forging ahead with revision of last year’s omnibus crime bill, approved an amendment Thursday to reimburse California and other qualifying states with as much as $650 million a year for costs of imprisoning illegal immigrants.

In what is likely to be the last show of bipartisan agreement in an otherwise bitter fight over Republican efforts to rewrite the crime bill passed last August, lawmakers agreed by unanimous voice vote to include the reimbursement in a bill that would add another $2.6 billion to the $7.9 billion that last year’s crime bill provided to states for new prison construction.

The additional money--both for prison construction and to reimburse states for the costs of jailing criminal aliens--would come with a catch, however. To qualify, states in most cases would have to tighten their sentencing rules to ensure that violent felons serve at least 85% of their jail terms.

GOP leaders said that the purpose of this “truth-in-sentencing” provision, which was not included in last year’s crime bill, is to encourage states to impose tougher sentences on violent felons and to keep them in jail longer. “If they’re not willing to change their laws to do this, then they should not be given the money,” said Rep. Bill McCollum (R-Fla.), sponsor of the bill.

But with Atty. Gen. Janet Reno on Capitol Hill to lead their offensive, Democrats charged that the provision would eat up the money that most states were promised under the $30-billion anti-crime package that the Clinton Administration narrowly pushed through Congress last August. The reason, they said, is that most states must make room in their prisons for newly convicted felons by freeing convicts.

At a news conference, Reno asserted that virtually no state currently meets the qualifications for new prison funding under the GOP bill. The new legislation could force states to reduce the sentences they set for violent crimes if they are to meet the 85% threshold and qualify for the funds, she said.

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“This year’s bill says it’s tougher, but it misfires and would actually put fewer criminals behind bars,” Reno said.

California last September adopted a “truth-in-sentencing” law requiring violent felons to serve 85% of their terms but most other states grappling with the problem of badly overcrowded prisons have not done so.

“This is a get-out-of-jail-early card for murderers and rapists,” charged Rep. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.), one of the authors of last year’s bill. He said that he doubts any state could meet the GOP conditions for prison funding.

Republicans, however, sharply disagreed. They portrayed the conditions as incentives to the states to strengthen their sentencing laws.

The amendment originally was proposed by Rep. Howard L. Berman (D-Panorama City). Strongly pushed by Gov. Pete Wilson and backed by House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.), the proposal would reserve $650 million each year for five years, starting in fiscal 1996, for states like California and Florida that have high numbers of illegal immigrants in their prison populations.

Slightly more than half that amount--$330 million--would be available for qualifying states even if they do not meet the truth-in-sentencing provisions applying to the rest of the bill. That sum represents the amount that last year’s crime bill set aside for the cost of incarcerating illegals.

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But under the amendment offered Thursday by McCollum, an additional $320 million would be added for states that have or will adopt the 85% minimum sentence requirement.

“This Congress has taken a first step toward a new federal immigration policy based on full responsibility and fairness to state and local governments,” Wilson said in a statement issued from his Sacramento office after the vote. “Today’s action demonstrates the commitment of the Speaker and of the new Republican majority . . . to make illegal immigration a federal responsibility.”

Democratic sources noted that the amendment was inserted into the prison funding bill after the House Rules Committee refused to approve a similar amendment that Berman had offered for another anti-crime measure.

“The Republicans have been in a terrible dilemma all day,” one Democratic source said. “Gingrich wanted to do this for California, for Wilson, but not in a way that gave Howard any credit.”

But Rep. David Dreier (R-San Dimas) and other senior GOP leaders sharply disagreed, noting that Berman’s amendment, as originally written, would have violated budget rules by establishing an entitlement program to fund the reimbursement.

The GOP amendment, on the other hand, uses “already appropriated funds” by combining the reimbursements contained in last year’s bill with money that is to be taken from other parts of the legislation as the Republicans continue their rewrite of the Clinton Administration’s crime bill.

Over Democratic protests, the House already has approved and sent to the Senate new legislation to require criminals to pay restitution to their victims, expand the exceptions under which evidence obtained without a search warrant can be used in trials and limit the time that Death Row prisoners have to appeal their sentences.

While the House was not expected to complete action on the prison bill until today, passage was a foregone conclusion after the lawmakers defeated an amendment by Schumer that would have removed the truth-in-sentencing requirements and consolidated the prison funding into a block grant.