Constitutional amendment for crime victims put off, likely for a year

MADISON - Lawmakers are putting off a referendum — likely for a year — aimed at strengthening crime victims' rights.

GOP Assembly Majority Leader Jim Steineke of Kaukauna told members Thursday that  the Assembly was not putting a constitutional amendment known as Marsy's Law on its schedule for next week. 

If the Senate and Assembly approved the measure by Tuesday, lawmakers could send it to voters for final approval in an April referendum. If lawmakers vote for it after Tuesday, it would go to voters in 2020. 

Steineke said Assembly members needed more time to study the issue. 

"We have a brand new session with new caucus members and this is a pretty significant bill that we just haven’t had a lot of time in caucus to spend on it, so we’re going to make sure everyone’s questions are answered before moving it forward," he said by text message.

GOP Sen. Van Wanggaard of Racine said he hoped the Assembly would reconsider and take up the measure Tuesday.

"There is no reason why victims should have to wait a year to be treated as priorities and not as second-class citizens," he said in a statement.

Advocates for the measure said they would push to get lawmakers to take up the issue on Tuesday so that it can be on the ballot this spring. They expressed optimism that if that effort failed, they could win legislative approval later this year so voters could consider it in 2020. 

"We are working hard with our bipartisan and growing coalition to address any concerns, in the hopes that legislators will take this up next week," said a statement from Luke Martz, director of  Marsy's Law for Wisconsin.

Thursday's developments came as Democratic Attorney General Josh Kaul said he favored the measure. "We must do all we can to protect victims of crime," he said. 

The measure is similar to ones that have been adopted in Illinois, California, Montana, North Dakota and South Dakota at the urging of a group set up by the brother of a woman who was killed by her former boyfriend.

Constitutional amendments in Wisconsin must be passed by the Legislature in two consecutive legislative sessions and then by voters in a statewide referendum. Lawmakers passed it once in 2017 and must do so again by next year to get the referendum to voters for final approval. 

The Wisconsin proposal has broad support among Democratic and Republican lawmakers and more than 250 county sheriffs and police chiefs. Some statewide victim advocacy groups have supported the measure as well.

In 1980, Wisconsin became the first state in the country to adopt a "crime victim bill of rights" and in 1993 adopted a constitutional amendment to afford victims privacy and ensure they are kept abreast of their cases.

The Marsy's Law proposal would strengthen some of the rights guaranteed in state law by writing them into the state constitution.

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The proposal is named after Marsy Nicholas of California, who was murdered by her former boyfriend in 1983. The ex-boyfriend confronted Nicholas' family in a grocery store a week after her death, at a time when the family did not know he had been released on bail.

Nicholas' billionaire brother, Henry T. Nicholas III, has led a national effort to give crime victims and their families more rights.

Henry Nicholas was arrested in August on suspicion of drug trafficking in Las Vegas.