Unlike restricting illegal immigration, which had bipartisan support, the campaign to cut legal immigration faced stiff resistance from an unusual alliance of high-technology companies, grass-roots immigration groups and civil-liberties organizations.

But the bills in the House and Senate face resistance from an unlikely alliance of high-technology companies, grass-roots immigrant groups, civil-liberties organizations and conservative research groups.

Stevens's lawyers, joined by an unlikely alliance of gun advocates and civil-liberties organizations, argued that the law infringed upon "a broad swath of never-before-regulated speech."

But many civil-liberties organizations and lawyers groups said the legislation would trample on the constitutional rights of convicts by closing the door for Federal review of their cases and the groups said they plan to challenge the constitutionality of the new restrictions.

Indeed, civil-liberties organizations say that laws such as the Adult Protective Services Act should be cautiously applied.

"The record on civil liberties has been by and large very poor," said James X. Dempsey, deputy director of the Center for National Security Studies, a civil-liberties organization.

But such challenges to textbooks and other classroom materials crop up at least several times a year in New Jersey, according to a national civil-liberties organization that tracks textbook censorship.

In fact, religious groups who wanted prayer in the schools and civil-liberties organizations who opposed it both said they came away from the session feeling that Governor Clinton had responded appropriately to the Supreme Court ruling.

Last spring, an unusual alliance of high-technology companies, grass-roots immigrants' groups, civil-liberties organizations and conservative think tanks killed the effort to curb legal immigration, saying such moves would keep families apart and bar new entrepreneurial talent.

But for months afterward, the measure stalled in the House as it faced strong opposition from an unusual coalition of arms rights advocates and civil-liberties organizations, which had found many provisions objectionable.