GOOD AND BAD BIPARTISANSHIP

WHEN IT COMES to bipartisanship in Congress, I am reminded of the old bogus
magician's line from my youth: "Pick a card, any card -- not that card!"

The trouble with Congress, we have been told, is too much partisanship. In
the good old days, wise legislators from both sides of the aisle crafted
legislation in a cooperative spirit. Oh, they had their differences, to be
sure; but when the sun went down, having resolved their arguments, they
would produce perfect bills and retire from the Capitol for a friendly
cocktail. Of course, this is nonsense, largely invented by wishful
journalists. What is really being said is that there are two kinds of
bipartisanship: There is Good Bipartisanship, in which Republicans concur
with Democratic wishes; and there is Bad Bipartisanship, in which Democrats
concur with Republican wishes. In the days when Democrats controlled
Congress, there was lots of Good Bipartisanship. Now, as you might guess,
it's mostly Bad.

Last week saw a prime example of Bad Bipartisanship. When Rep. John
Dingell, D-Mich., offered a sensible alternative to the Senate gun-control
measure, he was joined by 52 of his fellow Democrats and the vast majority
of House Republicans. Because Dingell was seen as siding with the
Republicans -- something no principled Democrat could do -- he was accused
of all manner of political malfeasance, including truckling to the dreaded
National Rifle Association. Of course, had the party positions been
reversed, that would have been Good Bipartisanship: benighted Republicans
coming to their senses.

If this sounds too cynical, I offer my apologies -- not least because
sometimes, and not terribly often, there are genuine examples of (lower
case) good bipartisanship. In fact, there was one this past week. By an
overwhelming majority, the House, prodded by Judiciary Committee Chairman
Henry Hyde, R-Ill., voted 375-48 to limit federal power to seize the
property of people who have never been charged, or convicted, of a crime.

Civil forfeiture is one of those bright ideas from the war against drugs
which has been transformed into a wholesale assault on civil liberties.
Under current law, the federal government has the power to seize any
property -- cash, houses, boats, cars, furniture -- suspected of being used
in certain, almost exclusively drug-related, crimes. This power obtains
whether the person whose assets have been seized is charged with a crime,
is suspected of taking part in a crime, or is even aware that a crime has
taken place.

In fact, some 80 percent of the people whose assets are seized never face
criminal charges: They are usually people whose houses or vehicles or
businesses were used, without their knowledge, for criminal purposes. But
that has not stopped the federal government from seizing property, nor does
it prompt the government to return that property if people are cleared of
suspicion by police and prosecutors. Indeed, contrary to the principles of
criminal law, the burden of proof in these instances falls exclusively on
the accused. While the government need only demonstrate "probable cause"
that the property might be subject to forfeiture (an easy standard to
establish) victims must prove their innocence, no simple task.

As with any open-ended federal extension of the police power, this has been
dangerously abused. There is the Nashville landscaper, Willie Jones, who
went to the airport with $9,000 in cash to travel to Texas to buy
materials. He was detained after buying his ticket, and his cash
confiscated, because the police believed anyone traveling with such sums of
money must be involved in drugs. Then there is the owner of a Red Carpet
Motel in Houston. Nobody had ever accused him of doing anything illegal,
but because he had failed to implement security measures dictated by police
- -- such as raising room rates to discourage drug dealers from checking in
- -- his motel was seized by federal officials. There are hundreds of such
horror stories.

While it is pleasant to report that this bill brought such erstwhile
Semengate antagonists as Chairman Hyde, Reps. Barney Frank, D-Mass., Robert
Barr, R-Ga. and John Conyers, D-Mich., together, it must be noted that
Janet Reno's Justice Department, which likes the money gained in civil
forfeiture, violently opposed it, and President Clinton threatens a veto if
the Senate should sign on.

One of the great unreported stories from Washington has been the Clinton
administration's wholesale assault on civil liberties since 1993. In his
zeal to demonstrate that Democrats can be tough on crime, Bill Clinton has
vastly expanded state and federal police powers, often at the expense of
basic constitutional rights. Indeed, it would be nice if some of his fellow
Democrats on Capitol Hill joined such longtime congressional civil
libertarians as Bob Barr and Henry Hyde to make this point. But that would
be Bad Bipartisanship.