
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: FRIDAY, June 8, 1990                   TAG: 9006080305
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: The Washington Post
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                LENGTH: Medium

SENATE FIGHTS TO SAVE EMBATTLED CRIME BILL

The Senate scrambled frantically early Thursday night to salvage major crime legislation after failing for a second time to end delaying tactics that threatened to kill the measure.

After hours of squabbling over who was to blame for imperiling the legislation, which would authorize the death penalty for 30 federal crimes and impose a partial ban on assault weapons, Democrats and Republicans began trading proposals for resolving remaining disputes and speeding passage of the measure.

The failure to halt the delaying tactics followed an intense lobbying effort against the assault-weapons curbs in the bill by the National Rifle Association, which sent out blistering letters to its members attacking senators who broke ranks with the gun lobby to help the provision carry by a one-vote margin last month.

Despite Democratic leaders' predictions that they would succeed in their second try at curtailing the delaying tactics, the Senate fell three votes short of the 60 needed to impose cloture, which would have limited debate and weeded out many of the 330 proposed amendments that have bogged down the bill.

The vote was 57 to 37, with 46 of 53 Democrats supporting cloture and 30 of 41 Republicans opposing it.

Both Virginia senators, Democrat Charles Robb and Republican John Warner, voted to curtail debate. Robb and Warner were attacked by the NRA in letters to Virginia members.

Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell, D-Maine, had warned that the bill would be shelved if the second cloture attempt failed, and, shortly after the vote was announced, Judiciary Committee Chairman Joseph Biden, D-Del., announced grimly that the bill had "just died."

After a brief huddle off the floor, Biden and Sen. Strom Thurmond, R-S.C., ranking Republican on the Judiciary Committee, returned to suggest a compromise that would confine votes to key issues in the bill that have not yet been addressed. Mitchell went along with the proposal, and Republicans scheduled an evening caucus on the issue.

At the caucus, Republicans agreed to a proposal to slash the list of amendments to 12 by each side.

by CNB