Getting a jump on Democrats who are expected to push their own major crime bill, Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, introduced a Republican version this week.
Hatch's bill includes an expanded federal death penalty, limits on appeals by convicts, beefing up federal law enforcement in rural areas, toughening laws against violence to women and loosening laws that exclude evidence from trials.Democratic versions usually include gun-control provisions that are absent from Hatch's provision, and often exclude the evidence and appeals provisions that are in Hatch's.
Republican filibusters and veto threats by former President Bush have blocked Democratic crime bills in recent years. But President Clinton made passage of a crime bill a prime goal in his inauguration speech, and quick action on it is expected.
The bill by Hatch, the ranking Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, outlines what areas Republicans support.
Hatch added, "I look forward to reviewing the Clinton administration's anti-crime legislation, assuming Congress receives one, and I plan to work with the new administration in a bipartisan effort to pass tough, true anti-crime legislation."
Hatch said an expanded federal death penalty is needed because "drug kingpins, terrorists and other violent killers must be appropriately punished, and the federal government is in the best position to capture and prosecute these heinous offenders."
He said reforms that would cut down on appeals by convicts would "return credibility to the federal criminal justice system and enable the states to do so as well."
Hatch said the bill would also take "the common-sense step of allowing the admission of evidence obtained in warrantless searches where law enforcement officers act in an objectively reasonable belief that their search was lawful."
Hatch's bill would also authorize $1 billion in aid to state and local law enforcement to hire more police and would create a $150 million grant program to encourage law-enforcement initiatives.
He said the bill's provisions would also "ensure that states like Utah are provided their fair share of federal law enforcement aid and assistance."