THE HOUSE : Gun Control

By a vote of 247 to 177, the House stripped anti-crime legislation (HR 3371) of a ban on owning and selling 13 domestically manufactured semiautomatic weapons and certain large-capacity ammunition magazines. Debate focused on the mass murder committed a day earlier by a gunman in Killeen, Tex. While the guns he used were not targeted by the bill, one of his ammunition clips was on the list to be banned.

Bill Brewster (D-Okla.) defended the constitutional right to arm oneself against “the actions of sick individuals, such as the one in Killeen, Tex.”

Chet Edwards (D-Tex.), the Killeen congressman, said Congress must confront “the real world of crazed individuals and criminals.”

A yes vote opposed the gun-control provisions.

How They Voted

Rep. Beilenson (D): Nay

Rep. Berman (D): Nay

Rep. Gallegly (R): Yea

Rep. Lewis (R): Yea

Rep. Moorhead (R): Yea

Rep. Thomas (R): Yea

Rep. Waxman (D): No vote

To Ease Evidence Rules

The House adopted, 247 to 165, an amendment relaxing the “exclusionary rule” against admitting illegally seized evidence at trials. Added to the crime bill (above), the measure gives standing to evidence that police have obtained without a warrant but in the “good faith” belief that their search or seizure was constitutional.

A yes vote was to admit certain evidence acquired by police without a warrant.

How They Voted

Rep. Beilenson (D): Nay

Rep. Berman (D): Nay

Rep. Gallegly (R): Yea

Rep. Lewis (R): Yea

Rep. Moorhead (R): Yea

Rep. Thomas (R): Yea

Rep. Waxman (D): No vote

Federal Arts Funding

By a vote of 286 to 135, the House instructed its conferees on a National Endowment for the Arts appropriations bill (HR 2686) to insist on language against taxpayer funding of art depicting “sexual or excretory activities or organs” in a “patently offensive way.” The vote proved to be only symbolic when the instructions were later ignored by the House-Senate conference committee.

A yes vote opposed federal funding of certain sexually explicit art.

How They Voted

Rep. Beilenson (D): Nay

Rep. Berman (D): Nay

Rep. Gallegly (R): Yea

Rep. Lewis (R): No vote

Rep. Moorhead (R): Yea

Rep. Thomas (R): Yea

Rep. Waxman (D): Nay

National Monument

By a vote of 284 to 121, the House sent the Senate a bill (HR 2369) establishing an 11,000-acre Flint Hills Prairie National Monument in Kansas as the state’s first national park. Supporter Bruce F. Vento (D-Minn.) said the Flint Hills area “is the most extensive remnant of tallgrass prairie remaining in North America.”

Opponent Dick Nichols (R-Kan.), the area’s congressman, said “there are no better stewards of the land than the farmers and ranchers of Kansas.”

A yes vote was to establish the national park.

How They Voted

Rep. Beilenson (D): Yea

Rep. Berman (D): No vote

Rep. Gallegly (R): Nay

Rep. Lewis (R): No vote

Rep. Moorhead (R): Nay

Rep. Thomas (R): Nay

Rep. Waxman (D): Yea

Source: Roll Call Report Syndicate