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There oughta be a law …

By: Eric Heisig//August 4, 2014//

There oughta be a law …

By: Eric Heisig//August 4, 2014//

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crime-scene

Legislators try to use caution when riding wave of public outcry

State Rep. Robb Kahl, D-Monona, works in his office July 17. Kahl helped pass a bill to allow use of a cannabidiol oil extract to treat seizures.
State Rep. Robb Kahl, D-Monona, works in his office July 17. Kahl helped pass a bill to allow use of a cannabidiol oil extract to treat seizures.

While drafting and soliciting support for a state bill that would allow medication derived from cannabis, Robb Kahl said, he worried what would happen if word got out.

Kahl, a first-term Democratic state representative from Monona, said he was afraid the proposal, which called for the use of a cannabidiol oil extract to treat seizures, would be linked to a pending medical marijuana bill, a hot-button topic with a lot of support on the left but little on the right.

“To have a committee hearing,” he said, “you have to get the OK of the leadership and majority party.”

But when the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel in January published a column by Jim Stingl about Lydia Schaeffer, a 7-year-old girl whose parents said she could benefit from the medication, public support for Kahl’s bill began to grow.

It was formally introduced Feb. 4 and a public hearing was held Feb. 12. With overwhelming bipartisan support, the bill cleared the state Assembly in March and Senate in April. Gov. Scott Walker signed the bill into law May 21, 10 days after Schaeffer died.

“This bill was in the process and then that article came out,” Kahl said. “It was not coordinated or anything else. It was dumb luck.”

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Kahl’s bill was one of a handful to ride a wave of public interest to the Capitol. Legislation related to sensitive topics — a mass shooting, a sick child or domestic violence, for instance — often gets a boost from the increased awareness.

But once those topics catch the public’s eye, Kahl said, they can be harder to control.

“The media can be one of your greatest assets,” he said, “or can be a real detriment in getting things done.”

‘Catalysts for reviews’

State Rep. Robb Kahl stands in the halls of the state Capitol in Madison. Kahl feared his bill would be linked to a divisive medical marijuana bill.
State Rep. Robb Kahl stands in the halls of the state Capitol in Madison. Kahl feared his bill would be linked to a divisive medical marijuana bill.

Some bills, locally and nationally, seem to be introduced before the ink dries on the related crime report. For example, following Casey Anthony’s arrest and trial for allegedly killing a child in Florida, a crime for which she was acquitted, many states, including Wisconsin, passed laws making it a crime not to report a child’s disappearance.

“Major crimes are always catalysts for reviews around specifics of a particular crime,” Tim Storey, legislative analyst for the National Conference of State Legislatures, said. “Scandals and epic stories,” he said, also can lead to or influence legislation.

But legislators have to be cautious of moving too quickly, said state Rep. Andre Jacque, R-De Pere.

“You don’t want to be so reactionary to something in the news that you are legislating so narrowly for one particular circumstance,” he said. “It sets a bad precedent for the future.”

Still, Jacque, to an extent, was in that situation during the past session when he sponsored a group of bills to toughen certain domestic violence laws in Wisconsin.

The bills were filed in the wake of an Oct. 21, 2012, shooting in Brookfield, in which Radcliffe Haughton opened fire with a .40 caliber handgun inside the Azana Spa and Salon. Investigators said he was looking for his wife, Zina Haughton, who two days earlier had been granted a four-year restraining order against him. Radcliffe killed her and two of her co-workers, and injured four other women, before killing himself.

Following the incident, the Brown Deer Police Department was criticized for not arresting Radcliffe following reports of abuse he committed in 2011 and several weeks before the shootings.

Resulting domestic violence bills, which Walker signed into law in April, now mandate police track incidents in which no arrests are made during a domestic-disturbance call and that they inform abuse victims of their options. The laws also establish a clear, accountable process for seizing any guns an abuser might have.

Jacque said the Azana shooting was just an example of a problem the bills were designed to solve.

“Obviously, we’ve had a number of incidents where there’s clearly past commissions of domestic abuse in police records,” he said. “Even though victims would have recanted, it’s helpful for finders of fact to know what did bring this.”

Jacque said such tragedies can add momentum to bills in the Legislature by showing how a new law could be of use.

Several mental health bills also passed the Wisconsin Legislature following a spate of 2012 shootings locally and nationally. The Azana shooting, the Aug. 5, 2012, shooting at a Sikh Temple in Oak Creek that left seven dead, and mass shootings in Aurora, Colo. and Newtown, Conn., led to the approval of bills to create special crisis response teams and to provide grants to encourage psychiatrists and doctors to work in underserved areas.

Walker signed those bills in April.

The mass shootings did not translate into any meaningful change to Wisconsin’s gun laws, however, said Jeri Bonavia, executive director of the Wisconsin Anti-Violence Effort. She questioned what effect, if any, the mental health-related laws will have on preventing violence.

“If you’re going to tackle a problem as complex as gun violence mass shootings, suicides,” Bonavia said, “you’ll need a multifaceted approach to bring those numbers down significantly.”

Analysis of the law that mandates tracking domestic violence incidents, Jacque said, could show whether the change is making a difference. He said there is no plan in place for such analysis.

Many states have agencies, Storey said, that audit the performance of a new legislative program.

Wisconsin has the Legislative Audit Bureau, which audits programs that use state money. The state also has legislative council study committees, which can be formed to analyze certain topics. For example, committees are studying criminal penalties, personal property tax and structured settlement payments, among others.

A helpful boost

Wisconsin’s cannabidiol oil bill is based, at least in part, on “Charlotte’s Web” bills introduced and passed in other states. They are named after Charlotte Figi, a Colorado girl who was featured in an August 2013 CNN documentary about medical marijuana.

In Wisconsin, Kahl said his bill was in response to Nic Volker, a Monona child with a seizure disorder similar to Schaeffer’s. Volker, 9, has a history of medical problems. He has a rare immunodeficiency disease, and his life was saved in 2010 when he was the first patient to undergo a DNA resequencing treatment.

He also has epilepsy, and Nic’s mother, Amylynne Volker, learned about the oil from the CNN documentary. In an effort to get the treatment for her son, she first supported a medical marijuana bill sponsored by state Sen. Jon Erpenbach, D-Middleton, and introduced in October.

But with no bipartisan support, the bill never made it out of committee.

Amylynne Volker approached Kahl to write a bill specific to her concerns. He said he was “quietly working in the halls of the building to get this passed” when Schaeffer’s story hit the press.

“I don’t know that we needed all of the media attention,” Amylynne Volker said, “but it definitely helped.”

Still, it could be a little while before Nic Volker gets the medication. His mother said the drug could be available as early as fall, but there may be a wait due to supply. Other states passed similar bills in the past year, as well.

And even with the attention working in favor of his bill, Kahl said, passing legislation boils down to what is politically feasible at the time.

“In politics you do what you can get done,” he said. “Would I sponsor and vote for medical marijuana? Abso-freaking-lutely. But you do what you can do.”

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