At 3:55 in the afternoon of Tuesday, July 7, 1998, the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee sent Senate Joint Resolution 44, a proposed bill of Constitutional rights for crime victims, to the full Senate for its consideration.

The Committee vote was 11 to 6, with one member absent and not voting by proxy; Senator Arlen Specter (R-PA), recuperating from recent bypass surgery, was not prepared to cast a vote. [See how the Committee members voted.]

Said lead sponsor Jon Kyl (R-AZ), "This is a very gratifying day for crime victims in our country. We are one step closer to having victims' constitutional rights a birthright of every American."

His principal co-sponsor, Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), was also exuberant: "Over the two days we met to consider this resolution, the discussions among the committee members was of the highest calibre. I am confident that when we get a floor vote on our resolution, reason will again prevail, and we will obtain our needed two-thirds majority."

Another uncertainty is the votes. As the resolution goes to the floor, it has 42 co-sponsors (see list). Even adding the other Senator who has promised constituents to vote for the resolution – Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA) – the roster of known supporters are well short of the 67 votes needed to adopt the proposal.

And history is no friend of the proponents: only once in the past 30 years has the Senate mustered the super majority needed to pass an amendment resolution, and during that time, it has voted down quite a number of such proposals, including several adopted by the House of Representatives.

On the other hand, as the sponsors are quick to point out, outside of the "no" votes recently cast in the Judiciary Committee, the number of announced opponents is small, since most of the non-sponsors have not taken a public position on the initiative. There is even a possibility of one or more opponents on the Committee may change their vote on the Senate floor (though some "yea" votes could also switch).

Having failed in many previous negotiating sessions to forge consensus across the three leading parties – that is, Kyl/Feinstein, Justice, and Biden – the two Senators chose to seek an agreement with Senator Biden first. That resulted in the April 1 introduction of S.J.Res. 44 – and in his active, and effective, participation in the Committee debate on the proposal.

Winning Senator Biden's support had the expected effect of re-energizing the Justice Department's interest in the wording of the resolution. In the April 28 hearing, Associate Attorney General Raymond Fisher praised the progress that the new draft represented, but indicated that the department still had some concerns. In time, the department submitted over a dozen suggested language changes. The department and the sponsors came to terms on most of these issues so that, when the Committee began work on the resolution on June 25, it unanimously accepted a substitute draft, reflecting the Kyl-Feinstein-Justice agreements. [See the "before and after" comparison on Page 2.]

Virtually all the changes contained in the substitute were stylistic, except for one: the power to enforce the amendment is vested solely in Congress, not the States too, to insure greater uniformity. The sponsors were comfortable retreating on this, knowing that the states still have inherent power to write implementation laws that better match the needs of their justice systems.

The "markup" was not completed on June 25. When the Committee resumed its deliberations on July 7, Senator Richard Durbin (D-IL) offered two amendments that represented Justice Department proposals which the sponsors had not accepted.

The first of these concerned the circumstances under which Congress can write exceptions to victims' rights; the sponsors wanted these only for "compelling" reasons and the department wanted an easier test, namely, "significant" interests whereby, for example, Congress could lawfully deny notification of a mob-connected offender's release to a victim who is also known to be part of a criminal enterprise.

That amendment was defeated by a 10-to-5 vote.

His second proposal was to add the following clause: "Nothing in this article shall be construed to deny or diminish the rights of an accused as guaranteed by this Constitution." Opponents of the proposal stressed that, first, the rights they sought to create ran parallel to, not in conflict with, those of the accused, and second, were a judge to perceive some conflict in the future, that should be resolved by a traditional "balancing" test, weighing the interests of both claimants to rights, and not automatically decided in favor of one.

It was defeated 10-to-6.

But Senators Kyl and Feinstein are prepared to take it as far as they can in that period.

And the National Victims Constitutional Amendment Network, the lead coalition supporting the Kyl-Feinstein initiative, is preparing to poll all the major party candidates seeking Congressional office on their views on the amendment.