AP 08/12
   WASHINGTON (AP) -- Democratic lawmakers resolved Friday to
resuscitate the $33 billion crime bill, discussing whether to change
the ban on assault-style weapons and scrap some crime-prevention
projects that had been ridiculed by Republicans as "pork" spending.
   Hopping mad, his anger directed at Republican leaders and the
pro-gun lobby, President Clinton junked his Washington schedule and
went out on the war path. Traveling with a group of Republican and
Democratic mayors, he addressed a meeting of police officials in
Minneapolis where he demanded the House reconsider Thursday night's
dismissal of the crime bill.
   Majority Leader Richard Gephardt said the House would take up the
crime bill again late next week. Gephardt said the assault-style
weapons ban might have to be reworked to pass the bill, but Clinton
seemed determined to keep it intact.
   Republicans worried aloud that they would be blamed for killing
the legislation. Separately, they asked Clinton to meet with them to
craft a compromise. However, Democratic leaders worked furiously to
line up enough votes from among 58 Democrats who deserted on Thursday.
   "The Republicans are ready to cooperate," said Senate GOP Leader
Bob Dole. House Whip Newt Gingrich said Clinton "ought to get off
the attack policy."
   White House Chief of Staff Leon Panetta responded to the GOP
request to meet with Clinton to work out a strong bipartisan bill by
saying, "Such a bipartisan plan is before you."
   "The very spirit of bipartisanship you wrote about today was torn
asunder" in Thursday's vote, Panetta said, adding that Clinton urged
them to work with Democratic congressional leaders "to determine how
you can enact the crime bill as soon as possible."
   The six-year crime bill would fulfill Clinton's campaign pledge
to help put 100,000 more police officers on the street and also
would provide billions for prisons and crime prevention. It would
make more than 50 additional crimes subject to the death penalty and
allow life sentences for some third-time felons.
   Clinton sought bipartisan support and proved it by including New
York GOP Mayor Rudolph Giuliani among his delegation to the National
Association of Police Organizations where he ridiculed lawmakers who
voted against taking up the crime bill. "Their political security
was more important than the personal security of the American
people," he scoffed earlier in remarks at the White House.
   "It's the same old Washington game -- just stick it to ordinary
Americans because special interests can keep you in Congress
forever," Clinton said, an apparent reference to the pro-gun lobby.
"The time has come ... to say that the only way for Congress to make
their seats safe is to make the rest of America safer."
   House Speaker Thomas Foley said he believed the Democratic
majority would "put this bill over the top," even though Congress
has not passed an election-year crime bill since 1988, failing in
several previous attempts.
   Democratic House leaders were pushing privately to hold a
separate vote on the assault weapons ban, letting the full House
decide whether to keep it in the crime bill, said a congressional
source who spoke on condition of anonymity.
   The House passed it as a separate bill in May, but the vote was
narrow, 216-214, and opponents have said the measure would lose in a
new vote. Supporters, however, say they have picked up some new
backers.
   Another option, said the source, was to send the House-passed
firearms ban to the Senate as a separate bill and let the Senate act
on it similarly. Senate Democrats oppose that because Senate rules
would allow all kinds of amendments to be attached. The Senate voted
56-43 to include the ban in its crime bill last November. It was not
clear if it could survive a filibuster that requires 60 votes to stop.
   Thursday's 225-210 vote saw 167 Republicans and 58 Democrats vote
against the rule to bring the bill to the House floor, while 198
Democrats, 11 Republicans and one independent voted for it.
   Panetta said supporters wanted to entice the 65 Republicans who
voted for the House crime bill in April and the 38 Republicans who
voted for the assault-style weapons ban in May to support the
package devised by the House and Senate conferees.
   "What we've really got to do is try to bring home those who have
basically flip-flopped on this issue and try to get their vote back
so that we can get the bill done," Panetta told The Associated Press
in an interview.
   Meanwhile, the Democratic National Committee began a
district-by-district attack on the House Republicans who supported
the crime bill in April but opposed the rule Thursday.
   Rep. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., the chief House advocate of the ban
on assault weapons, and Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Joseph
Biden, D-Del., agreed with Clinton that the ban must be retained in
any new bill.
   "I'm not thinking about compromise because I don't think a
compromise is necessary," Schumer declared.
   One of the items criticized by Republicans and some Democrats who
joined them Thursday was a $10 million provision to establish a
criminal justice research and education center at Lamar University
in Beaumont, Texas -- in the district of House Judiciary Committee
Chairman Jack Brooks. Key Democrats involved in crafting the crime
bill said they had been unaware the provision was included.
   Brooks defended it Friday and said he wouldn't take it out: "Hell
no. You out of your mind? Just because it's in Beaumont doesn't mean
it's a bad idea."
   Biden took the Senate floor to criticize the National Rifle
Association and the Republican National Committee, blaming them --
as Clinton had -- for stopping the bill.
   Sen. John Warner, R-Va., shot back: "That vote was victory for
the American people." He blasted the bill that came out of a
conference committee for being $8 billion more costly than the
Senate's original bill.


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