ARE DEMOCRATS REFUSING TO PASS RAPE KIT BILL JUST BECA– USE IT MAY BENEFIT AG LAXALT?

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Over the past 20 years, some 8,000 rape kits went untested in Nevada. Now there’s a bill in the State Legislature, sponsored by Attorney General Adam Laxalt to prevent this from ever happening again. The bill, AB 97, will require police to test rape kits within 120 days.

Assistant Attorney General Wes Duncan, a likely candidate for Nevada Attorney General next year, testified before the State legislature seeking support for Assembly Bill 97. Attorney General Laxalt is a likely Republican candidate for Governor and has made fixing the backlog of some 8,000 rape kits a major priority for his administration.

AG Laxalt has successfully obtain some $6 million in funding to test over 6,000 rape kits from federal grants and fines his office levied on criminals.

So let’s put this in perspective. A woman or child, who was raped in Las Vegas, called the police, went to the hospital and got a rape kit administered only to have the rape kit sit in storage for some 10 years without it tested. Imagine how they must feel. Most rapists don’t just do it once. They repeat the crime over and over and so the rape kit testing is critical to stopping violent rapists and saving other women and children from becoming rape victims or even being killed.

The bill recently passed the Nevada Assembly Judiciary Committee under immense public scrutiny, but now sits languishing in the Ways and Means Committee waiting for a hearing to fund testing the rape kits. As of today, there is no scheduled hearing for the bill. Next week is the deadline for the bill to get a hearing to move forward or it will die. The 2017 Nevada State Legislative Session ends in three weeks.

Rob Lauer

Political Reporter

360Daily.net