In a flag-waving White House ceremony attended by hundreds of police officers, President Clinton Wednesday combined policy with politics in an effort to buoy embattled Democrats.
With just 27 days to go before the midterm elections, Clinton summoned mayors, law enforcement officers and members of Congress to announce $200 million in grants for 400 communities to hire more than 2,700 new police.
The grants are the first installment of $8.8 billion authorized by the crime bill over the next six years to hire more police. An additional $1.1 billion will be distributed over the next 12 months, based on applications now being designed.
"Today we have rejected decades of excuses that crime is a local problem that Washington can do nothing about," Clinton said. "Washington can do a lot to help you fight crime."
Although applications for the grants were reviewed over a year ago, the timing of their announcement plays to public concern about crime. It also gives troubled incumbents the opportunity to brag about their effectiveness as legislators.
-- House Speaker Thomas Foley, D-Wash., in the toughest re-election race of his 30-year congressional career, immediately held a press conference to announce Washington state will benefit from 87 new police hires. Foley's hometown of Spokane will receive $1.9 million to hire 26 new officers.
-- In Massachusetts, where 32-year Democratic incumbent Sen. Edward Kennedy is fighting to save his job, police in 12 towns will be able to hire 96 more officers.
-- And in Pennsylvania, where Sen. Harris Wofford is trying to fend off a challenge from Rep. Rick Santorum, 47 new police officers will be hired, including $2 million for 27 hires in Pittsburgh.
"Every administration tries to help its friends," says Joseph diGenova, U.S. attorney in Washington, D.C., during the Reagan administration.
An analysis of the grants found 1,377 new police hires going to departments in Democratic districts, 782 going to Republican Districts and 618 going to departments that have bipartisan representation.
Little Rock, where Clinton served as governor, received funding for 40 new officers - tops among U.S. cities along with Omaha.
But partisanship may have played a smaller role than usual in the allocation.
The selection process - conducted by 80 civil servants - was based on a community's need for more police, the level of violent crime, and the community policing strategy proposed, officials said.
The 392 communities that will share in the new money were chosen from 2,506 that had applied for but failed to receive shares of $150 million in police grants last year.
"When you take credit for things like that, it implies you only did it for political gain and that was hardly the case," says Rep. James Moran, D-Va. His district will receive $425,000 for six new cops. "It would be nice if the American people saw once in the while that we did something that was difficult, important, and not done for political gain."
Republicans scoff at the notion that Democrats aren't politicizing their greatest legislative victory this year: passage of a $30 billion crime bill.
The White House is billing the new police hires as the first of 100,000 promised in the measure.
The people "see this for what it is," says Foley's GOP challenger George Nethercutt, "pure politics to get re-elected."
Adds Rep. Bill Paxon, R-N.Y., chairman of the Republican party's election wing: "It's more pork than police. Twenty more police for a state is meaningless. Folks know that isn't going to have any kind of an impact."
Republicans also point out, as they did throughout the bitter congressional crime debate, that there will never be enough money to finance 100,000 more cops.
The grants announced Wednesday, for example, only last three years. Communities will have to pick up the entire tab at that point, or pray for additional federal funding from another source.
Communities also will have to pay 25% of the cost of the current grants.
"Most sheriffs understand the cops on the streets program is largely a sham," says Rep. Bill McCollum, R-Fla. "Many communities can't afford it."
But the recipients are happy.
"We feel they can make a significant difference," says Paul Helmke, the Republican mayor of Fort Wayne, Ind., where a record number of murders have occurred, along with increases in drive-by shootings.
Fort Wayne will receive $2 million for 30 officers.
"We've been treated well."
Who's getting most officers The 20 police departments that are to get the most officers through the first grants under the recently passed crime bill: Department Officers
