House Seeks Racial Data on Traffic Stops

Responding to complaints that police target black people in car searches, the House passed a bill Tuesday requiring the Justice Department to determine the racial breakdown for routine traffic stops made by state and local police.

“There are very few of us in this country who have not been stopped at one time for an alleged traffic violation that we thought constituted really simple racial harassment,” said Rep. John Conyers Jr. of Michigan, who is black.

Conyers, ranking Democrat on the Judiciary Committee and chief author of the bill, cited figures showing that blacks, who make up about 14% of the population, account for 72% of drivers pulled over for routine traffic stops.

“This is an issue that has long confronted us and one that we have in some instances accepted and suffered in silence,” said Rep. Sheila Jackson-Lee (D-Texas), who is also black.

The bill, which passed by voice vote, would require the attorney general to conduct a study on traffic stops and include the age and race or ethnic background of the person stopped, the alleged traffic violation and whether car searches were conducted and contraband discovered.

The Senate has not acted.

In other action Tuesday, the House approved legislation defining who is eligible for burial at Arlington National Cemetery and ending waivers for those who are not.

Under the bill, burial at Arlington would be limited to members of the Armed Forces who die on active duty, military retirees, recipients of the Medal of Honor and other top awards, former prisoners of war and the president and former presidents.

It would eliminate the need for a waiver for a spouse and immediate family to be buried together with an eligible veteran.

The bill would bar members of Congress, the vice president, Supreme Court justices, Cabinet secretaries and ranking diplomats from being buried at Arlington based solely on having served in the military. A senator, for example, who had won a major decoration in service would be eligible.

The legislation, which passed, 412 to 0, is an outgrowth of press reports last year that the administration was granting burial plots at Arlington as favors to political donors. A review by the General Accounting Office, the investigative arm of Congress, found no evidence of improper behavior in the granting of waivers but concluded that eligibility rules were unclear.

The Senate has not acted on the issue.

Meanwhile, House and Senate negotiators struck a bargain Tuesday to restore food stamps to thousands of legal immigrants who were cut off by the 1996 welfare law.

The deal would spend $642 million over five years to restore benefits to the immigrants. President Clinton had sought at least $2 billion to cover as many as 730,000 immigrants; congressional aides could not say how many would be covered under the lower figure.

Nonetheless, Agriculture Department officials said the deal, reached in negotiations on an agriculture research bill, was “in the range” of what the administration could support, depending on which groups of legal immigrants--refugees, the elderly and disabled, families with children--are given priority for food stamps.

Advocates for the immigrants said they would continue pressing Congress for more money.

The agreement still would need House and Senate approval.

Also on Tuesday, the House Transportation Committee unanimously approved a $217-billion measure to boost spending on the nation’s highways, bridges and mass transit systems.

Under the measure, funding through 2003 would increase 40% over the six-year period that ended last fall. The six-year bill would fund about 1,000 projects in roughly 350 congressional districts.

The committee deferred decisions on what federal programs would have to be cut to offset some of the highway increase.

Federal transportation programs expire May 1 unless Congress renews them. The Senate passed a $214-billion bill earlier this month.