House passes sex-offender measure, sends it on to Bush

Almost 25 years to the day after 6-year-old Adam Walsh was abducted and murdered, the House gave final passage Tuesday to a bill by Sen. Orrin Hatch to honor Adam and to crack down on sex offenders.

The House passed Hatch's "Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act" by voice vote and sent it to President Bush for his signature. That signing could happen Thursday, which is exactly the 25th anniversary of Walsh's abduction.

"This is good news to parents throughout the country," Hatch, R-Utah, said after the vote. "Sex offenders will no longer be treated like petty criminals. We're closing the gaps in the law and making sure that our children have the highest possible protection from sexual predators."

The bill would create a national database of convicted sex offenders and require them to register their whereabouts every month in person. Failure to register would be a felony. Currently, most offenders must register only once a year by mail, and failure to do so is only a misdemeanor.

During earlier Senate debate, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., said the whereabouts of about 100,000 of the 550,000 registered sex offenders nationally are currently unknown — leaving big holes in state Web sites that list offenders. (Utah's current Web site for listing sex offenders is: www.cr.ex.state.ut.us/community/sexoffenders/).

"Before this, we tracked library books in this country better than sex offenders," Hatch told the Senate last week.

During House debate Tuesday, House Judiciary Committee Chairman James Sensenbrenner, R-Wis., said, "This legislation would make it crystal clear to sex offenders: You better register, you better keep the information current, or you're going to jail."

Those who lobbied hard for the bill included Adam Walsh's father, John Walsh, who is the host of "America's Most Wanted" and a founder of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. John Walsh called the bill the toughest piece of child-protection legislation in 25 years.

Ed Smart and his abducted-but-rescued daughter Elizabeth also lobbied hard for the bill and appeared on several national TV news programs promoting it. They visited numerous members of Congress about the bill last week.