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."