Pubdate: Wed, 18 Aug 1999 Source: New York Times (NY) Copyright: 1999 The New York Times Company Contact: http://www.nytimes.com/ Forum: http://www10.nytimes.com/comment/ Author: Fox Butterfield BUSH'S LAW AND ORDER ADDS UP TO TOUGH AND POPULAR AUSTIN, Tex. -- Law and order has always been part of George W. Bush's politics. Just as his father, George Bush, benefited from televised images of the furloughed murderer-rapist Willie Horton to attack Michael S. Dukakis in the 1988 race for President, Bush ran for governor of Texas in 1994 with a series of grainy black-and-white commercials depicting a man abducting a woman at gun point in a parking garage and, a moment later, a police officer draping a blanket over the woman's body. Asserting that his Democratic opponent, Gov. Ann Richards, was soft on crime, Bush promised to get tougher with criminals. That stand helped him win, and an examination of his record over the five years he has been Governor shows he has been consistent in pressing a law-and-order agenda. Bush has presided over the nation's largest prison-building program and a record number of executions. At the same time, breaking ranks with many law-enforcement officials, Bush has signed laws expanding the right of Texans to carry guns and has opposed gun-control legislation. "For Governor Bush, gun control is not yet part of crime control," said Bruce Elfant, the Travis County constable, one of the officials who have come to see gun control as important as fighting drugs and gangs in the battle against crime. In a conservative state where being "Texas tough" is high praise, Bush's positions have been popular. "The reason Ann Richards was ousted was her opposition to the right to carry handguns and being soft on crime," said State Representative Suzanna Gratia Hupp, a Republican from Lampasas, expressing a view shared by Republicans and Democrats alike. "George W. Bush is a real Texan, someone who is very down to earth and tough on crime." How Governor Bush's record on criminal justice, particularly gun control, will appeal to voters in other regions remains to be tested as he campaigns for the Republican nomination for President. In Texas, experts on criminal justice are studying another question: whether his policies are responsible for the state's drop in crime. Bush declined several requests for an interview on criminal-justice issues. But his spokeswoman, Karen Hughes, said his initiatives, especially those toughening punishment for juvenile offenders and making convicts serve longer terms, had produced a 20 percent drop in the Texas crime rate. "Governor Bush believes in tough laws and long sentences to keep criminals off the streets," Ms. Hughes said. But according to the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, crime had already fallen 25 percent under Governor Richards, from 1991 to 1994, as she began the state's multibillion-dollar prison-building program. "I always thought it was utter nonsense for Bush to attack Richards for being soft on crime, when she presided over this huge prison buildup," said Steve Martin, a consultant on prisons for Federal courts and a former chief counsel for the Department of Criminal Justice. Since Bush took office in 1995, crime rates have also fallen as much, or more, in most other states as they have in Texas. This has led governors and mayors across the country to take credit, even as many experts point out that the widespread decline in crime rates makes it less likely that any one policy can be credited. Longer prison sentences are one factor in the overall decrease, experts say, but so are an improved economy, a decline in the use of crack, new police strategies and changing attitudes among young people. Even many of Bush's Democratic opponents acknowledge that Texas is a strong law-and-order state, where politicians must appeal to a conservative electorate. But they question the Governor's assertion that he is a "compassionate conservative" when it comes to criminal justice. "In order to hold statewide office here, you have to appeal to a very conservative electorate," said State Senator Rodney Ellis, Democrat of Houston. But Ellis went on to say, "There is no compassion on the Governor's part when it comes to law and order." On Guns Battling Crime, Not Firearms By nature, friends here say, Bush prefers to avoid taking stands on difficult issues. He is neither an ideologue nor confrontational, they say. But perhaps more than on any other issue, events in Texas have pushed him into defining his position on guns. The first step came in his race against Governor Richards, when he pledged to support the concealed-weapons bill. When, as Governor, he signed the bill into law in 1995, he declared, "This is a bill to make Texas a safer place." The bill had been championed by the National Rifle Association, but was opposed by the police chiefs of Texas's largest cities, who were concerned that the law would lead to more violent confrontations between individuals armed with guns and a greater risk to police officers. Texas is one of 31 states that allow people to carry concealed weapons, though lately public opinion in other states has been shifting against the policy. In Missouri last April, in the only referendum ever taken on the issue, voters rejected a proposal to allow concealed weapons. After the shooting rampage by two students at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colo., on April 20, lawmakers in both Colorado and Michigan abandoned bills to allow concealed weapons. Opponents of the Texas bill had predicted it would lead to a rash of shootings. Supporters said it would sharply cut crime. Neither seems to have happened. A study by the Violence Policy Center, a gun-control advocacy group, found that since the Texas law took effect, 15 people with concealed gun permits had been charged with murder or attempted murder and 103 with assault or aggravated assault with a deadly weapon. But that is a tiny proportion of homicides and other violent crimes in Texas. Similarly, there is little evidence that people with concealed guns have prevented many crimes. "In Texas, people have carried guns for a century," Tony Fabelo, the director of the Texas Criminal Justice Policy Council and Governor Bush's top criminal justice adviser, said in seeking to explain the law's limited impact. "Now they just carry guns with a license." This spring Bush was pushed into further defining his position on guns when the National Rifle Association, in response to the filing of lawsuits against the gun industry by a number cities and counties, began urging state legislatures to pass laws barring such suits. No Texas city suggested it was considering such a lawsuit, but the Legislature passed a law barring cities in the state from suing the gun industry and Bush signed it. Bush's spokeswoman, Ms. Hughes, said the Governor signed the bill because "he does not believe that manufacturers of a legal product should be held liable for criminal misuse of the product." Fourteen states, mostly in the South and West, have adopted such legislation. After the Littleton shootings, lawmakers in Colorado, Florida and Michigan withdrew similar bills, and Gov. Jane Dee Hull of Arizona, a Republican, vetoed one. Bush went against the police chiefs of the state's seven largest cities this spring by opposing a bill to require background checks on all prospective firearms buyers at gun shows. According to the Federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, gun shows are the leading source of guns for criminals and juveniles in Texas. The bill requiring background checks died in committee on April 20, a few hours after the killings in Littleton, which were carried out with guns bought at gun shows. Under Federal law, only licensed dealers at gun shows are required to conduct background checks on buyers. Other people can sell guns at the shows without even asking for identification. Bush's spokeswoman, Ms. Hughes, said the Governor thinks that there should be background checks on buyers at gun shows but that the loophole should be closed at the Federal level. Congress has debated the issue this year without result. Some states have acted to tighten gun-show sales: California has a system for checking the background of buyers at the shows, and last year Florida voters approved an initiative authorizing its cities to require background checks on buyers at the shows. Despite his policies on gun control, the amiable Bush has remained popular with the police. "I know the Governor," said Police Chief Ben Click of Dallas. "We run together. He is a very nice, sincere person and I like him a lot." But in states where voters favor gun control, Bush can expect challenges on the issue. Last month in New Jersey, a small group of gun-control advocates demonstrated outside a hotel where Bush was speaking at a fund-raising event. Afterward, Bush defended his record supporting gun owners' rights and predicted it would not hurt him. "That's what elections are for," he said. "But I'm proud of my record." On Prisons More Inmates for Longer Terms Under Bush, Texas has the largest criminal justice system in the country, with 545,000 people in prison or jail or on probation or parole, a point of pride to many Texans, said Fabelo, the Governor's top criminal justice adviser. The state's prisons hold 724 inmates for every 100,000 residents, second only to Louisiana's 736. By contrast, Minnesota, with the lowest incarceration rate, has 117 inmates per 100,000 people. The enormous buildup of the Texas prison system had actually begun by the time Governor Richards took office in 1991. In 1989, the state's prisons had 41,000 beds, and the buildup was far advanced when Bush became Governor. When the buildup is completed next year, the prison system will have 150,000 beds. The Bush Administration says the total cost will approach $3 billion while some of the state's leading Democrats put the figure at $10 billion. In any event, Bush has enthusiastically supported the growth of prisons, unlike California, where politicians have begun to question the state's prison-building program. Republicans there worry about higher taxes to pay for new prisons, and Democrats say the program has taken money away from the state college and university system. In Texas, the money spent to build prisons is cutting into spending for public education, one of Bush's priorities, said Eva DeLuna Castro, a budget analyst with the Center for Public Policy Priorities, a nonpartisan research organization in Austin. "There has been a definite trade-off," Ms. Castro said. State spending for public schools was 36.4 percent of the budget in 1999, compared with 41.3 percent in 1989, while spending for prisons was 7.8 percent, up from 5.2 percent, she said. Bush's spokeswoman, Ms. Hughes, said that to cope with the growing number of inmates who will be released from prison, the Governor is counting on programs like a voluntary Christian boot camp pioneered by Charles Colson, once the special counsel to President Richard M. Nixon, and who served a Federal prison term on Watergate-related charges. The program includes Bible study as well as courses on personal responsibility, parenting and financial management. "I'm absolutely convinced this program will work," Bush said after visiting a pilot project near Houston. "The best recidivism program is a changed heart." One of Bush's major planks in his race against Ms. Richards was a promise to tighten the juvenile justice system in the face of skyrocketing teen-age crime, and as Governor, Bush has transformed the juvenile justice code. One result: a tripling of the number of young inmates in the Texas Youth Commission's juvenile prisons, to 6,000. "If George W. Bush can do for the United States what he has done for Texas, no one can lick his boots," said Hal Gaither, a Bush adviser and a Dallas Juvenile Court judge, who describes himself as "the most conservative man in Texas." The major change under Bush, Judge Gaither said, was switching the main purpose of the juvenile system from protecting the best interests of the child, its historical role, to more of a prison system in which punishment is emphasized. Among the changes was lowering the age at which juveniles can be sent to adult court for serious crimes to 14, increasing the maximum sentence for a juvenile to 40 years and requiring a one-year minimum sentence for anyone sentenced to the juvenile prisons. The new code does provide flexibility, Judge Gaither said. Juveniles given long sentences can either be sent to an adult prison when they turn 16, or they can have their sentence reduced if their behavior has improved. Many of these changes have been enacted in other states. On Death Penalty Leaving Appeals to Higher Power Bush has also been a strong supporter of the death penalty. He has presided over a record 98 executions as Governor, according to the Texas Department of Criminal Justice. Among those executed was Karla Faye Tucker, a born-again Christian whose death-row conversion led to calls for clemency from the Rev. Pat Robertson and other religious leaders. The appeal from the Christian Right gave Bush "maneuverability" to commute Ms. Tucker's sentence without offending conservative supporters, said Jim Harrington, director of the Texas Civil Rights Project, which opposes the death penalty. But in one of his most publicized moments as Governor, Bush chose not to intervene, saying: "In every death penalty that comes to my desk, I ask this question: Innocent or guilty? And I will tell you of all the death penalties we have had in our state, I am confident that those that have been put to death have been guilty." Addressing appeals for clemency based on Ms. Tucker's religious conversion, Bush said, "I have concluded judgments about the heart and soul of an individual on death row are best left to a higher authority." This month the Tucker execution again became an issue because of a profile in Talk magazine that quoted him as mocking Ms. Tucker's plea for her life. Campaign officials have denied the profile's characterization of the Governor, saying his comments were misread. Bush did halt the execution of Henry Lee Lucas, who had received several life sentences in a series of killings, but who, evidence showed, had been nowhere near the scene of the crime for which Texas was about to execute him. Bush commuted the sentence to life in prison. Americans support the death penalty by a large majority, with 71 percent in favor and only 21 percent opposed, according to a Harris Poll released in July. Given the frequency of executions, some Texas legislators introduced a bill this spring to bar the execution of the mentally retarded. Five such inmates have been executed in Texas since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976, according to the Death Penalty Information Center. After the bill passed the State Senate, Bush announced his opposition, saying, "I like the law the way it is right now," with juries having the right to make the decision. The bill died in the House. In another measure to deal with the number of executions and the growing number of inmates, the Texas Senate and House unanimously passed a bill this spring to create a state public defender system, guaranteeing that indigent defendants be assigned a lawyer within 20 days of arrest. Defense lawyers are now appointed by elected local judges, often from among their campaign contributors, leading to charges of cronyism, delays and incompetence. Bush vetoed the bill. "While well-intentioned," he said in a statement, the bill proposed "drastic changes" that would have lowered the quality of representation and posed a public danger by requiring the release of defendants who were not assigned a lawyer within 20 days. The Houston Chronicle, in an editorial, said Bush should have signed the bill, since virtually alone among the states "Texas has no system at all" for public defenders. When lawyers appointed by judges are competent, the paper said, they have an ethical conflict, since the judges who pay them want a speedy trial, not an aggressive defense. Senator Ellis, who sponsored the bill, said Governor Bush had given in to lobbying by judges who did not want to lose their patronage system. "One can be a proponent of the death penalty, as I am," said Senator Ellis, "but also sane enough to realize we need a real public defender system." - --- MAP posted-by: Thunder