April 29, 2009

IA- Your Capitol Voice: Nothing good happened after midnight in Iowa House

Another Laurel & Hardy "Now look what you got me into" mess by the Iowa legislature with the revised sex offender law bill. As with its forerunners it does nothing to protect children nor does it make anywhere more safer for children.

4-29-2009 Iowa:

Last week was simply exhausting. We adjourned at 5:30 a.m. on Sunday following a 4 a.m. adjournment the evening before.
This was the culmination of a seven-day run to end the 2009 legislative session.

The week began with two important bipartisan bills. I was appointed to a ten-person conference committee to finalize the 2009 health care bill. My thanks to Des Moines Democrat Rick Olson for fully including Republicans in the negotiations. In the end we continued to advance the goal that every Iowa child should have health insurance coverage as well as mandating a comprehensive commission to offer recommendations for the next step. We still have a problem with access to affordable health care for the working poor and middle class families.

The House also passed a tougher, more sensible sex offender law on a 95-3 vote. It didn’t look like there would be a bill this session, but a 10-person bipartisan committee offered their recommendations late in the session. These recommendations were endorsed by law enforcement, the Attorney General, and victim’s rights groups across the state. (The only group to complain about the tougher law was the ACLU.) Both political parties agreed to leave politics out of the process, which was key to successful passage.

Right, no political reasons, I don't believe that for one second. However, they should have left out "It sounds good," and their failure to do so is why this will again become a problem for the state. The entire concept of "loitering within 300 feet" fails to recognize how crimes are committed. Crimes are not committed by RSOs loitering within 300 feet of places where children gather. The failure of the legislature to review how crimes are committed before enacting this "sounds good" logic will be the downfall of this law as the 2,000 foot law failed as well. Both fail to look at how crimes are committed.

The last phone call I made before voting was to a local law enforcement officer. I asked him one question: “Will this make our children safer?” His answer was “yes.” I also sent out a review of the bill to all of my law enforcement officers, mayors, supervisors, and city council members before I voted. Those that wrote back were unanimous in their desire to reform the current laws.

Right, desire to reform the current law, not that this new version does that in any way.


The new law retains the 2,000-foot rule for only the worst predators and replaces it with much more effective exclusionary zones. These zones can be schools, parks, libraries, or any place where children gather a 300-foot barrier where sex offenders are not allowed without permission.
Therein is the first problem (300 feet), law enforcement can arrest any RSO anywhere in the entire state simply claiming it is a place where children gather. The entire world is not owned by children or for their own personal enjoyment. Like the Rockerfeller laws of the 50's this law will incarcerate many when they should not be incarcerated and destroy families of thos so shammed into alleged violations.

The old law permitted sex offenders to loiter around a park or school. It was also much more difficult to track them. Also troubling was the side-effect of driving offenders from the urban areas to the rural areas where there is a chance for even less monitoring. The Department of Corrections is now empowered to make decisions as to which offenders will be forced to wear a GPS tracking system.

Finally the new law categorizes sex offenders into three tiers in order to differentiate between people who truly pose the greatest risk to our children. Categorizing the offenders will help our police officers to better protect our children. I would have liked changes in the bill regarding local control and the inclusion of more offenders on the old 2,000-foot rule list, but the amendment failed. No law is perfect, but the law that passed will help keep our children safer. In the end, regardless of political and philosophical differences, the safety of those that are most vulnerable is a core function of government.

If safety of children was their goal then this classification system would not have passed. This system fails to classify registrants as to what risk they may be today, and only looks at registrants at the point of the initial crime. Such is a misclassification and fails to protect anyone, but places more registrants in higher risk groups than they should be. The result of which is again a waste of law enforcement resources looking at registrants who pose little to no risk and failing to focus on those who TODAY pose a risk.

One thing that is interesting and may give registrants grounds for a lawsuit is, given this new system misclassifies registrants, it places registrants in a false light before the public eye, in so doing may -hand registrants on a silver platter- grounds for a lawsuit. Where is the sharp lawyer willing to take such a case?

The last two days of the session were as disappointing as the beginning was successful. Filled with closed meetings and straight party line votes, we ended up spending more money than ever before in Iowa history. Be skeptical of the reports that budgets were cut and balanced. Those reports intentionally leave out the hundreds of millions of stimulus dollars used in our state budget and ignore future implications.

To set a new record for spending at a time like this does not make good economic sense. In 2011 when the federal dollars run out, we will have a $900 million spending gap. Even using well spun Des Moines math, this is a fiscal train wreck. It is hard to comprehend how we can do this in good faith with the people of Iowa.

The Governor’s bonding plan also passed on a party-line vote. In addition to the billions in state and federal dollars, we will now borrow over 600 million more. The Legislature knew that 71 percent of Iowans opposed this, but at 4 a.m. last week, the will of the people was ignored. One legislator quipped that nothing good happens after midnight. In this case, he sure was correct.

Such was my last week at the Capitol. Some great bipartisan initiatives and some very troubling fiscal decisions. ..News Source.. by Jeff Kaufmann, State Representative

1 comment:

Book38 said...

...and our society will NEVER be safe again until we start moving back in the other direction. You have it right when you re-integrate back into society. This helps ensure the prior offender leaves his old way of life behind.

Too many statistics tell you this is the way our society makes itself safe. Instead we want to PUNISH and HATE.

When will we ever learn??