Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, June 7, 1990 TAG: 9006070551
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A/1 EDITION: EVENING
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Medium
The vote was 57-37 - three short of the 60 required to choke off debate.
Senate sponsor Joseph Biden immediately blamed the National Rifle Association for the vote, saying, "It was do or die time for the crime bill and it just died."
Republican Leader Bob Dole of Kansas urged the Senate to push ahead with action on the bill even without a limit on debate. "This is an important bill," he said. " . . . If we want a crime bill, the majority Republican Leader Bob Dole urged the Senate to push ahead with action on the bill even without a limit on debate. can have one."
The bill also includes provisions instituting the death penalty for 30 federal crimes and is designed to end delays of up to a decade in carrying out executions.
It also would allow courts to consider evidence gathered with flawed warrants in some cases.
The Senate Tuesday voted 54-37 to impose the time limit, six short of the number required.
Biden said a limit was needed because of more than 240 proposed amendments in the hopper. He said that debating all of them would mean open-ended delays that would prevent the Senate from ever getting to a final vote.
He blamed the NRA for the surge of amendments. The gun group had been widely expected to win a Senate battle two weeks ago to drop restrictions on semiautomatic assault weapons.
In a surprise move, the Senate Senate sponsor Joseph Biden said debating all of the amendments would mean open-ended delays that would prevent ever getting to a final vote. rejected a move to drop the curbs.
Biden said the NRA hoped to block final action on the bill by encouraging lawmakers to let debate flow on indefinitely. The campaign to curb such weapons began in January 1989 after a deranged man with an assault rifle opened fire on a Stockton, Calif., school yard, leaving five youngsters dead and 30 other people hurt.
The NRA as well as federal firearms experts say, however, that the so-called assault weapons differ only in their military styling from normal semiautomatic hunting rifles with their traditional brown wooden stocks.
NRA lobbyist David Conover said Wednesday the group sent out "targeted alerts to half a dozen to eight states, to a portion of our membership in each state," urging them to press senators to vote against shutting off debate.
He stressed the political dividends lawmakers see in keeping alive a death penalty measure with voters aroused over the issue.
Democratic Leader George Mitchell of Maine said Wednesday that rejection of a time limit on debate would mean an end to the bill, which couples capital punishment called for by Senate conservatives with a gun-control plan favored by liberals.
The results of this fight was guaranteed to play out this fall in congressional campaigns where the death penalty has figured heavily.
by CNB