AG's fight with lawmaker over bill on sexual assault kits escalates as session nears end

MADISON - Attorney General Josh Kaul laid into a New Berlin lawmaker Thursday for blocking legislation to prevent backlogs of sexual assault kits, accusing Rep. Joe Sanfelippo of issuing a string of falsehoods about the issue. 

"It’s an outrage that this hasn’t passed," Kaul told reporters. "He needs to take action."

The Republican lawmaker said he planned to hold a hearing on the issue in the coming weeks but said it might be on a bill other than the one Kaul wants. He said Kaul was "bullying" him on an issue that isn't urgent.  

Sanfelippo said he's not sure he wants lawmakers to get involved in the issue because a past backlog was resolved without them.

"He's got this big hair-on-fire thing like it has to be resolved right away," Sanfelippo said of Kaul. "And my point being: Do we want to make sure we never get a backlog again? Absolutely. Is there a big rush to pass this bill right now? I don't think so, and I point to the fact that there is no backlog anymore."

The legislation, Senate Bill 200, passed the Senate in October on a voice vote but has stalled in the Assembly despite having broad, bipartisan support. It has 56 cosponsors in the Assembly, showing it has the support of the majority. 

Sanfelippo, the chairman of the Assembly Health Committee, has declined to hold a hearing on the bill. He told the Associated Press in December he would hold a hearing on the bill, but he said Thursday the hearing may be on a different bill that has yet to be introduced. He said he didn't know the details of what might be in that bill. 

Time to pass a bill is running out. Assembly leaders want to finish their session by the end of February.

"If this doesn’t pass soon, we’re going to have to take this up again in the next legislative session (in 2021) and it’s too important to survivors of sexual assault to let that happen," Kaul said.

"This is a good test of whether the Legislature’s really functioning," Kaul said. "This is an issue where we have bipartisan authorship, broad bipartisan support, support from law enforcement and a majority of the Assembly supports this and it’s going to help make our communities safer and it’s going to bring justice for victims. This should have passed last year.

But Sanfelippo downplayed the importance of acting quickly. 

"I'm reluctant to pass a bill that I don't really think does anything," he said. 

"Does it warrant all the bullying he's doing to get me to put it on the calendar? I don't think so because the backlog is fixed without legislation taking place."

Kaul criticized Sanfelippo at a luncheon hosted by Wispolitics.com, in comments to reporters afterward and in a news release.

The news release included a point-by-point rebuttal to a Jan. 16 email Sanfelippo sent to someone who asked him about the legislation. Kaul said the detailed response was warranted because he considered so much of Sanfelippo’s email to be false.

"It does go to show you how strong a bill this is that to criticize it he had to point to things that are not true," Kaul told reporters. "He’s misrepresenting what the bill does."

Sanfelippo disputed that, saying Kaul was cherry-picking parts of his email. 

The legislation Kaul wants passed would put in place rules for who is responsible for submitting sexual assault kits, who is responsible for processing them and the timelines they must follow. Under it, law enforcement agencies would have to submit the kits to the State Crime Laboratory within 14 days for victims who want their assaults prosecuted.

Sanfelippo contended in his email that Kaul already has the power to put those processes in place and that his predecessor, Republican Attorney General Brad Schimel, had done so.

Kaul responded that Schimel put in place a protocol for a subset of kits — those from victims who do not want to report their assault to law enforcement — and the protocol is not legally binding on the hospitals that submit the kits to the state.

Sanfelippo maintained in his email he had met with Kaul and told him he was reluctant to codify the policy on kits in state law, rather than leaving it up to Kaul’s office to set. Kaul countered that he had asked Sanfelippo to schedule a hearing on the bill and contact him if he had any questions on the bill. Sanfelippo didn’t get in touch with him after that, according to both men.

Sanfelippo contended the state could more quickly adjust its policies for the kits in the future if they were left with Kaul’s Department of Justice rather than set by the Legislature. Kaul disagreed because the internal policies he sets don’t have the force of state law.

Sanfelippo wrote in his email that Schimel wouldn’t have been able to put his policies in place for the kits as quickly as he did if the bill Kaul wants had been in effect at the time. Kaul called that claim false, saying the legislation would not have inhibited the Department of Justice. The backlog Schimel dealt with never would have existed had the legislation been in place, he argued.

Contact Patrick Marley at patrick.marley@jrn.com. Follow him on Twitter at @patrickdmarley.