Senate Bill One still alive, well . . .
By BILL LUTZ
Of the Emerald
Despite widespread opposition
from labor unions, civil rights,
church and legal organizations,
politicians and vast sectors of the
American populace, Senate Bill
One is still very much alive in the
hands of the Senate Judiciary
committee.
Senate Bill One (Criminal Jus
tice Codification, Reform and Re
vision Act of 1975) is the complex
799-page reorganization of the
Federal Criminal Code, called by
its opponents the “Nixon Legacy”
and condemned as an attack on
civil rights and the constitution.
Lane County Board of Commis
sioners stated in a resolution
passed May 15, that BCSB-1:
"...threatens the Constitutional
rights of the people while giving
extensive power to the federal
government...constitutes a grave
danger to the First Amendment
nghts of free speech and freedom
of the press, and . these bills in
clude strong anti-labor sections
limiting the right to peaceful as
sembly."
The U S. Attorney General's of
fice claims SB-1 is a needed re
write of the outdated Federal
Criminal Code written in 1969
However, professors Vern
Countryman of Harvard Law
School and Thomas Emerson of
Yale Law School charge
"SB-1 was designed and
drafted upon the basis of
philosophical, ethical and political
goals that were repudiated by the
American people in the Watergate
scandals."
Countryman and Emerson
. . . and facing opposition, amendment legislation
point out that SB-1 was created by
the Nixon administration under
the direction of Attorneys General
Mitchell and Kleindeinst.
After months of negotiations in
the Senate Judiciary Committee,
conservative sponsors of the bill
James McClellan, D-Ark., and
Roman Hruska, R-Neb., in a sur
prise concession, have agreed to
13 of 23 key objections by liberal
members of the committee led by
Edward Kennedy, D-Mass.
But opponents feel that SB-1
cannot be amended. The Los
Angeles Times stated in an editor
ial:
“Legislation now pending in
Congress to revise the federal
criminal code should be junked.
Senate Bill One ... is so perva
sively and fatally flawed that it lies
beyond the scope of the rational
amending process.”
Opponents also feel that the
Kennedy-led compromises are a
dangerous step toward the pas
sing of SB-1 Frank Wilkinson, ex
ecutive director of the National
Committee Against Repressive
Legislation (NCARL), warned that
the Kennedy, Phillip Hart,
D-Mich., James Abourezk, D-S.D.
compromise is an attempt "to split
the opposition movement" by
placating the moderate opposi
tion.
"Without the aid of Sen Ted
Kennedy, this bill would have
been dead long ago,” Wilkinson
adds.
SB-1 deals with such constitu
tional questions as the Smith Act,
Nuclear battle set
in California senate
SACRAMENTO, Calif (AP) — Three nuclear power plant safety
bills, again surviving attempts to weaken them, are on the Senate floor
where backers expect another tomd battle Thursday.
The Senate Finance Committee gave them 7-4 tallies Monday,
with no votes to spare, after defeating vigorously argued efforts to
exempt planned plants from legislative review
Assemblyman Charles Warren, D-Los Angeles, chief spokesman
for the measures, said he expected a "close vote of the full Senate
If the bills pass the Senate without major changes, Warren said he
could guarantee that Gov. Edmund Brown Jr. would sign them Friday
after the Assembly, which earlier passed them in stronger form, ap
proves Senate changes
Brown has endorsed the bills, which Warren said would pose
unprecedented legislative restrictions on nuclear power.
But Warren called them "minimal ' lawmakers responses to safety
concerns and "moderate" alternatives to requirements of California's
nuclear power initiative, Prop 15 on the June 8 ballot.
"I’m about as optimistic as I was" in front of the Senate Finance
Committee, Warren said of Thursday’s full Senate action. He said the
opposition — nearly all power companies and the city of Los Angeles—
is "strong, vocal and well-financed."
Warren said authors of the bill "are not seeking to ban nuclear
development," but just want a pause to make sure it is safe.
However one senator, John Holmdahl, D-Castro Valley, charged
that "Prop. 15 is being used as the bogey man" for the bills, that is,
acting as a ramrod to get them through the legislature.
Warren said the defeated amendments to exempt planned reactor
sites at Wasco near Bakersfield and Sundesert near Blythe were "out
rageous" and would have nullified the bills.
He said Senate amendments had already reduced the bills to "a
minimal effort on the part of the legislature” to give Californians assur
ance of a safe nuclear future.
Under the bills, a rejection by either the Senate or Assembly of a
finding that the federal government has safe technology for recycling
fuel and storing wastes, would ban new nuclear plants.
The bills do not affect three plants already licensed and four reac
tors under construction in California because of the investments in
volved.
Prop. 15 would be retroactive to existing plants, and unless the
legislature deemed by a two-thirds majority that nuclear power is safe, it
would ban new plants and phase out old ones.
wiretapping, right to free assem
bly, the death penalty, sentencing,
secrecy in government, entrap
ment, sabotage, obscenity, insan
ity, marijuana and gun control.
Specifically SB-1 would provide
penalties for any person convicted
of using mail, telephone or inter
state travel in the course of “plan
ning, promotion, management,
execution or concealment of a
riot.”
Riot is defined by SB-1 as a
public disturbance involving an
assemblage of 10 or more per
sons that create a danger of immi
nently causing damage to prop
erty.’’
Under SB-1, wiretapping would
be authorized for 64 categories
including: obstructing military re
cruitment or induction, disclosing
national defense information, dis
closing classified information, and
unlawfully obtaining classified in
formation.
SB-1 would provide up to seven
years and/br a fine up to $100,000
for passing classified or national
defense information to a person
not authorized to receive it or for
failure to deliver it to a federal
agent. This would cover the publi
cation of the Pentagon Papers.
SB-1 would allow as defense for
a public servant, as in the case of
Watergate, that unlawful actions
were “required or authorized by
law.”
Summing up opposition to
SB-1, Eric Wright, representative
of the Eugene Committee to
Stamp Out Senate Bill One called
the bill “a conglomeration of the
most repressive legislation in the
history of the U.S.”
IKOOBDOOGA
book SALE
Father * Day, Graduation
Man> ThTsWee^Omy Monday-Saturday
A GOOD BOOK i oa |y
651 E. 13th
“The compromise presented by
the ‘liberal’ Senators Kennedy,
Hart, and Abourezk,” Wright said,
“will not effectively remove the
repressive nature of SB-1, and
clearly represents a strategy to
mislead the American people into
thinking SB-1 can be amended.
This strategy," he said, “is an at
tempt to keep intact many of the
most repressive sections of the bill
which jeopardize our basic civil
rights."
UNIVERSITY
JEWELERS
GOING OUT OF
BUSINESS
SALE
.Pf n .%• •
1/2 OFF
DIAMONDS
TURQUOISE
COLORED
STONE
RINGS
The
Sum Shop Year End
CUARANCE
Mystified? Turn to the classifieds.
Maybe you don’t like to spend your
noontimes indoors?
If not,
the EMU Food
Service Trailer
would like to eat
lunch with you.
——M—I
atsaissii
mite. ^lEjJigjJ!CgjJlEjJ!Ej]
CHinese mflM 25 29
CULTURE UJtf K
IrSiffa
gJjgJiEjJIBJIEiJI&JigJIEjJigJigJ
j(gjj[g!){eij|[fi]j(eyjicyji
UJcdncsdaq
Tfll CHI CHUfln
Dads Room (ftlU
pjiraipipifE
a;B:gJ!EjJ:E:EdJ;EJJlEjJlia;g
mm
Thursday
KUfXi f=U
d(TlU Underpass
llKyiejjtKJiiejjiejjiejjiejjimjiejjiejjiejJlcyimjiejjicL
Salurdaq
CHinese movie
138 Gilbert Hall 11