Rule Throws a Curve, Bill Falters

WASHINGTON —  The great irony of President Clinton’s defeat on the crime bill Thursday is that even his opponents agreed that the bill would have passed if it had actually come to a straight up-or-down vote. What happened, however, is that supporters of the bill got defeated on a procedural motion known as a rule.

Normally a technical vote that precedes consideration of every bill that comes to the House floor, the rule sets forth the procedures under which a given piece of legislation can be debated, amended and voted upon. Traditionally, its passage signifies that the bill that follows it will pass by a similar margin.

But in recent years, even Republicans who support a bill have tended to vote against its rule to protest their exclusion by the Democratic majority from the rule-making process. While that happened with the crime bill, opposition to the rule also came from lawmakers who wanted to use it as a political cover to kill the bill without being accused of voting against it. This group included conservative Democrats upset with its gun-control provisions and liberals angered by its expanded death penalties.