Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, February 11, 1995 TAG: 9502130030
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Medium
The Republican-controlled House also passed, 380-20, legislation to boot criminal aliens out of the country faster once they get out of jail.
The two bills are Nos. 4 and 5 in a six-part package, part of the GOP ``Contract With America,'' that aims to remold the 1994 anti-crime law. President Clinton suggested this week he might veto bills that dismantle key elements of last year's law.
The 265-156 vote approving the Violent Criminal Incarceration Act saw 206 Republicans and 59 Democrats voting in favor, and 135 Democrats, 20 Republicans and independent Bernard Sanders of Vermont voting in opposition.
All of Virginia's Republican representatives, as well as Democrats Rick Boucher, L.F. Payne, Owen Pickett and Norman Sisisky, voted for the bill. Democrats voting against it were James Moran and Robert C. Scott.
Democrats contended stiffer sentencing requirements for violent criminals would make most states ineligible for the $10.5 billion in authorized funds for new prisons. But sponsor Rep. Bill McCollum, R-Fla., said: ``There are over 6 million crimes committed in this country every year. We want to get these people to serve their time.
The funding is $2.6 billion more than the $7.9 billion authorized in the $30 billion anti-crime law passed by Congress last year. The measure would require stricter sentencing by states in return.
Sen. Joseph Biden, D-Del., looking ahead to the crime debate in the Senate, said: ``I don't know why [the Republicans] are doing this. ... They say they don't want to mandate to the states.'' Biden is the Senate Judiciary Committee's senior Democrat.
Half the $10.5 billion would be given only to states with so-called ``truth-in-sentencing'' laws requiring serious violent felons to serve at least 85 percent of their sentences. The other half would go only to those states that increase the percentage of violent convicts sent to prison and increase the average time they serve.
``Under present law, every state qualifies; under this law, no state qualifies,'' said Rep. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., chief author of the 1994 bill. ``Don't sell out your states,'' he argued on the House floor.
McCollum countered, ``Every state in the union is going to qualify for'' the half of the funds not tied to ``truth-in-sentencing'' requirements.
The House adopted, by voice vote, a GOP amendment that would allow states to use up to 15 percent of the prison grants for building short-term jails, provided they require people charged with violent felonies to post bond to be released before trial.
by CNB