$22-Billion Anti-Crime Measure OKd by Senate : Legislation: Package gets unexpected backing. Rising public anxiety over violence has impact on Congress.

WASHINGTON —  In an unexpected bipartisan breakthrough, the Senate voted 94 to 4 Thursday night for a massive five-year, $22.2-billion crime-fighting package that would put 100,000 more police on the streets, build regional prisons for violent offenders and launch a national attack on domestic violence.

Responding to rising public anxiety, senators united behind a proposal that combined President Clinton’s program with major measures supported primarily by Republicans that avoided the usual partisan warfare on crime bills.

The Senate approved the plan as the centerpiece of a crime measure that has taken on added importance in the waning days of the first session of the 103rd Congress. The House also will have to approve the legislation.

“I can say this is by far and away the most significant federal effort to deal with violent crime in America that has ever been undertaken in the U.S. Senate,” said Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D-Del.), chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

The action in the Senate came as legislation that would impose a five-day waiting period on handgun purchases cleared a major hurdle when the House Judiciary Committee voted, 23 to 12, for approval over objections of its chairman.

The long-pending bill, commonly called the Brady bill, still faces determined opposition in Congress. But Clinton has backed it strongly and said that he hopes to sign it before Thanksgiving, when Congress is expected to adjourn until January.

Under the bipartisan compromise in the Senate, funds allocated to states and cities would be almost twice as large as the $12.27 billion in the measure approved earlier by the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Funding for the legislation would be provided by savings resulting from a reduction of 252,000 in the federal work force over the next five years, as the President proposed in the “National Performance Review” of government efficiency directed by Vice President Al Gore.

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The savings would be placed in a “Violent Crime Reduction Trust Fund” that could be tapped only to pay for the anti-crime programs in the pending bill, according to authors of the compromise, although separate appropriations legislation still would be required.

“In effect, it will decrease the number of federal employees and increase the number of police on our streets,” said Senate Majority Leader George J. Mitchell (D-Me.).

The complex deal was worked out by Sen. Robert C. Byrd (D-W.Va.), chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, in negotiations with GOP Sens. Orrin G. Hatch of Utah and Phil Gramm of Texas, as well as Mitchell and Biden.

The four votes against the plan were cast by Sens. Mark O. Hatfield (R-Ore.), Harlan Mathews (D-Tenn.), Claiborne Pell (D-R.I.) and Paul Simon (D-Ill.). Not voting were Sens. Dave Durenberger (R-Minn.) and Jesse Helms (R-N.C.).

Byrd said that the package would pay for 100,000 more state and local police, instead of the 60,000 provided in the Judiciary Committee bill or 50,000 voted by the House.

Another $3 billion would be earmarked for construction and operation of regional prisons for the most violent offenders, as proposed by Hatch, with $1 billion more for construction of jails, boot camps and other state and local confinement facilities.

A total of $500 million would be allocated to build and run facilities to confine violent juvenile offenders, with another $1.8 billion to deal with domestic violence against women.

The agreement overshadowed other action on the crime bill, including 95-4 approval of an amendment offered by Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) to impose significantly heavier penalties on persons convicted of “hate crimes.”

Responding to a request from Gov. Pete Wilson of California, Senate Minority Leader Bob Dole (R-Kan.) offered an amendment to double the federal penalties for arson that affects property, raising them to 20 years in prison with fines up to $100,000. For arson that results in injury to a person, the maximum penalties would be 40 years in prison and fines up to $200,000.

Feinstein and Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) immediately endorsed the Dole proposal and it was approved on voice vote.

The votes do not complete work on the crime bill, but senators on both sides of the aisle said they represented a major step forward. Other controversies to be settled include proposals to expand the death penalty for certain federal crimes.

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In the House, the Judiciary Committee’s passage of the Brady bill came even though its influential chairman, Rep. Jack Brooks (D-Tex.) argued that its impact on crime is highly doubtful.

“The main market for the purchase and sale of handguns is the illicit market,” Brooks said. “We may be simply deluding ourselves and the country if we attempt to paint this bill as the answer to violent crime or even the proliferation of handguns.”

Supporters of the bill, however, contended that a waiting period had been effective in California by denying more than 15,000 ex-convicts the chance to buy handguns. The waiting period would give authorities time to check the backgrounds of would-be gun purchasers.

James S. Brady, the former White House press secretary who was severely wounded by a handgun-wielding assailant during an attack on President Ronald Reagan in 1981, watched happily as the committee approved the legislation named for him.