WASHINGTON - The legislation doesn't list Rep. Dan Lungren as the author, and its title provisions are not the Gold River Republican's work.
But a courthouse security bill approved this week contains the first legislation by the former California attorney general to clear the House since he returned to public office in January.

Lungren's provisions, making tough mandatory prison sentences and the death penalty available in federal court for assaulting or killing state or local police officers, were the most controversial.

Lungren introduced his Law Enforcement Protection Act in May, just five months after taking office as a Sacramento-area congressman.

Before his eight-year term as attorney general, Lungren had represented the Long Beach area in the House for a decade.

Lungren's bill was folded into a courthouse security bill sponsored by freshman Rep. Louie Gohmert, R-Texas, of the House Judiciary Committee on which Lungren sits. Its ultimate passage can be considered an accomplishment for two congressmen in office for less than a year.

The Gohmert bill adds courthouse protections for judges and government personnel, a goal that Democrats applauded. But Democrats echoed concerns of the U.S. Judicial Conference about the mandatory minimum sentences that were the substance of Lungren's bill.

"Louie Gohmert has his name on it, but what we did was fold my bill into his," Lungren said. "I am happy about this. We've been working on this since I first came here."

Lungren said his focus was the growing number of assaults on police officers.

"We've got a situation where something on the order of 50 or more law enforcement officers are killed per year in the United States," he said. "Some 57,000 officers are assaulted - on the order of one in 10 officers in the United States.

"This sets appropriate penalties with respect to these crimes, but it gives you a uniformity of sentencing across the country in federal courts."

But Democrats, in a House Judiciary Committee dissent, said the Lungren provision unwisely expands death penalty eligibility for anyone convicted of killing a state or local public safety officer receiving federal money. Most police departments accept federal grants.

That provision would apply to the murder of police officers in states where there is no death penalty, Lungren said. It also would apply to the murder of firefighters, National Guard troops and state court employees.

The House rejected on a voice vote a Democratic amendment to soften the bill's mandatory minimum sentences, but the chamber on Wednesday went on to approve the bill on a 375-45 vote.

A Senate bill containing provisions similar to Lungren's was introduced in the Senate by Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., but has yet to be taken up by the Senate Judiciary Committee.