House Passes Two More GOP Anti-Crime Bills

House Republicans surged ahead with their reconstruction of President Clinton’s 1994 crime bill Friday, easily overcoming Democratic opposition to win approval for two bills that would encourage states to keep inmates in jail longer and make it easier to deport criminal illegal immigrants.

Even some GOP strategists admitted surprise at the House vote of 380 to 20 to expand the offenses for which illegal immigrants can be swiftly deported and 265 to 156 to approve $2.6 billion in additional funds for prison construction, with the proviso that it go only to states that make violent felons serve at least 85% of their sentences.

The bill also would ban “prison perks” from federal penitentiaries, such as weightlifting equipment and in-cell TV sets, in an effort to make the prospect of prison time more of a deterrent.

House Democrats--whom the White House had hoped would defend the 1994 legislation more aggressively--acquiesced to the changes in the face of what Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) conceded was “the fear of being seen as soft on crime.”

With far less trouble than they initially had expected, House Republicans in only four days of debate have succeeded in passing five of the seven anti-crime measures that they had pledged to redraft in their “contract with America.”

Democrats continued to predict that few of the major changes would become law because of opposition in the Senate and prospects for presidential vetoes. Even so, the House has now passed legislation that would:

* Expand the exceptions under which improperly obtained evidence may be used in trials.

* Require convicted felons to pay restitution to their victims in federal cases.

* Limit to one year the time that Death Row inmates have to file appeals of state-ordered death sentences in federal courts.

* Provide $10.5 billion for new prison construction over five years and set aside $650 million per year to reimburse states for the costs of incarcerating illegal immigrants.

* Expand the list of offenses for which illegal immigrants can be deported while speeding the process by allowing deportation proceedings to start at the time of sentencing.

It was the last two of these measures, all contained in the GOP contract’s “taking back our streets act,” that were passed Friday. Approval came after the Republican majority easily defeated Democratic attempts to loosen the strings that the GOP had attached to the prison grants by stipulating that half of the $10.5 billion would be available only to states that require prisoners to serve 85% of their sentences.

The Democratic measure would have allowed states to qualify for the money if they could show that the average time served for a violent offense in their state exceeded the national average by 10%.

Last year’s crime bill, approved when the Democrats controlled Congress, provided $7.9 billion for new prison construction but attached no similar qualifying conditions to the funding.

Besides arguing that the conditions would be too tough for many states to meet, Democrats opposed the GOP measure because it would draw its extra $2.6 billion in funds from the Clinton bill’s crime prevention programs, which the Republicans intend to dismantle next week as they continue to rewrite the 1994 law.

Both sides agreed that the next stage will be where the real showdown over the crime bill takes place as the Republicans move on Monday to convert nearly $14 billion in spending on new police hiring and crime prevention into a single $10-billion block grant that states can use as they see fit.

The block grant “will be very controversial,” conceded House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.).

“The hardest part is yet to come,” agreed Frank, who said that Republicans face a “tough vote” Monday when Democratic women members will offer an amendment to use some of the money to pay for security around abortion clinics.

The ease with which the GOP leadership has been able to rewrite last year’s bill is striking in view of the extended difficulties that the Democratic leadership had in passing the original bill.

Part of the reason has to do with the GOP’s floor strategy. Rather than try to pass one omnibus bill as the Democrats did, the Republicans have broken their legislation into seven separate crime bills, saving the most contentious for last, while putting off their plans to repeal last year’s ban on assault weapons until next spring.

But an equally important reason is the ironclad discipline that GOP members have shown in following their leadership--a party loyalty that is in sharp contrast to the difficulties Democratic leaders had holding the party’s fractious rank-and-file together.

“The Republicans are marching in such lock-step that they ought to play ‘March of the Siamese Children’ for them every morning instead of reading the contract,” groused Frank, referring to the GOP’s practice of reading the ‘contract with America’ aloud on the floor every day until all of its provisions are passed.

If discipline were the order of the day in the House, however, the same could not be said for the Senate, where Republican leaders were still struggling for the votes to pass a balanced-budget amendment to the Constitution.

Hoping to preempt a move by Democrats to protect Social Security from the massive spending cuts that will be needed to balance the budget, Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole (R-Kan.) won approval for a non-binding amendment that would ask the Budget Committee to draw up plans for eliminating the deficit without touching Social Security.

While the amendment was overwhelmingly approved by an 87-10 vote, Democrats derided it as a “fig leaf” designed to “mask the fact,” in the words of Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.), “that Social Security will never be the same” if the budget amendment is passed.