Washington – Two Colorado lawmakers want to withhold funds from foreign nations to pressure them to change their policies on criminal matters. But making those desires law will be difficult, a political expert predicted.
The U.S. House late Tuesday passed an amendment by Rep. Bob Beauprez, R-Colo., that would bar $66 million in aid to Mexico unless it agrees to extradite murder suspects who face life imprisonment or execution in the United States.
Mexico’s policy has meant that Raul Gomez-Garcia, the suspect in the killing of Denver police Detective Donald Young, won’t be extradited if he faces a charge of first-degree murder. Denver District Attorney Mitch Morrissey reduced the charge to second-degree murder in a bid to bring Gomez-Garcia to Denver for trial. Morrissey declined to comment Wednesday on the Beauprez proposal.
The amendment, which passed the House 327-98, would cut off aid to any country that refuses to extradite suspects in the killings of U.S. law officers.
“I think it’s extremely unlikely” the amendment will become law, said political analyst Norman Ornstein of the American Enterprise Institute. “The precedent you set when members of Congress set foreign policy is not a precedent any president wants to have happen.”
The amendment probably will not pass the Senate or will be cut in the spending bill when lawmakers merge the Senate and House versions, he said.
“I guess that’s a possibility,” Beauprez said Wednesday. “It’s also a possibility that Congress can do what it’s supposed to do, and that is write the law.”
Sen. Wayne Allard, R-Colo., meanwhile, said Wednesday that an amendment he wrote barring money for Indonesia unless it cooperates in the investigation of a Coloradan’s murder has been included in a Senate foreign-aid bill.
Rick Spier, 44, of Littleton, was killed in Indonesia in 2002 in an ambush.
Staff writer Anne C. Mulkern can be reached at 202-662-8907 or amulkern@denverpost.com.
