This month's Kaiser Family Foundation poll had some discouraging results about the public's attitude toward the Supreme Court and the Affordable Care Act, but it had a glimmer of good news for Mitt Romney.

First, this, via Think Progress.

As the race for the Republican presidential nomination heats up, the latest tracking poll shows that attempts by rival GOP contenders to paint former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney as holding views on health policy similar to those of President Obama do not seem to be resonating with most Republicans. Despite repeated reminders that Romney signed a 2006 Massachusetts law that is similar in some respects to the national health reform law, nearly half of Republicans (49%) say the two men's views are different, three in ten say they are similar, and another 22 percent had no opinion

Apparently, they hate President Obama and, by extension, his health care law so much that they are willfully blind to the fact that it's essentially the same program. Except, of course, Romney's covers abortion. Go figure.

(Click here to see larger version)

On Jan. 18, President Obama publicly rejected the application by TransCanada to build the pipeline along a route from Alberta to the Texas Gulf Coast. The 1700-mile pipeline would have delivered oil derived from the environmentally destructive mining of Canadian tar-sand deposits across sensitive areas, most particularly the huge Ogallala Aquifer, underground water that feeds the U.S. farm-belt from South Dakota to central-west Texas. The president has told TransCanada that it can reapply with a new proposed route, and the company has said it will reapply but without changing the route.

Among Media Matters' findings:

?  79 percent of those quoted or interviewed on broadcast news favored the pipeline. NBC and ABC never quoted an opponent. On Fox News, 66 percent favored and 13 percent opposed; on CNN 54 percent favored and 14 percent opposed; on MSNBC 38 percent favored and 31 percent opposed.

 ? 45 percent of those quoted by major newspapers favored the pipeline and 31 percent opposed. The New York Times was the most balanced (35 percent favored, 27 percent opposed) and the Wall Street Journal was the least balanced (52 percent favored and 21 percent opposed).

? The Washington Post, USA Today and the Wall Street Journal editorial boards endorsed the pipeline. Collectively, they published 16 op-eds or editorials supporting the pipeline and only one opposed. In total, the major print outlets published 19 op-eds or editorials in favor of the project and 10 opposed.

? Notably, the media presented TransCanada's highly inflated, some would say, bullshit, job-creation claims very uncritically. According to Media Matters, "Fox News uncritically repeated these numbers more than all the other television networks combined."

Among other problems with the coverage was the downplaying of environmental concerns, the focus on unsubstantiated claims of increased energy security and the failure to look closely at allegations of bias by the State Department in its review of the project as well as conflicts of interest by the consultant contracted to carry out the environmental impact statement.

Visual source: Newseum

Have you seen this true story of heroism on 9/11 in lower Manhattan? The spontaneously organized boatlift evacuation rescued a half a million people in 9 hours - more than Dunkirk in WW II over 9 days. Ordinary people doing extraordinary things.

And then there are the clowns who purport to deserve our, and their, support:

The American Prospect:

Has Newt Gingrich floundered in Florida because he doesn?t understand his own appeal to GOP voters? In South Carolina, the former house speaker hit upon an anti-elite message that goes straight to the heart of the Tea Party?and the political moment. It was nothing new: the kind of silent-majority red meat that white conservatives have eagerly consumed since the days of Wallace and Nixon (not to mention Bush and Palin)... He stopped hitting Romney on his 1-percentism even as more damning evidence piled up. He failed to rouse the rabble in this week?s debates. And he may end up blowing it on Tuesday?and eventually losing the Republican nomination?because he didn?t grasp what gave him a chance to win it in the first place.

Gail Collins:

The far right seems to be particularly indifferent to bad-behavior issues. Maybe this is because their supporters know that sinning social conservatives operate at a disadvantage. It is way easier to avoid the hypocrisy label if you?re a straying civil libertarian whose family values speeches mainly involve encouraging kids to donate money to feed impoverished people in Africa. You?re not going to be charged with speaking out of both sides of your mouth when the first side is talking about supporting Doctors Without Borders.

Conservative voters also like expressions of remorse and promises to reform. When all else fails, they have even been known to argue that everybody does it. ?I?m just saying, they all have stinky feet,? former Congressman J. C. Watts, a Baptist preacher, said while he was campaigning for Newt in South Carolina.

Although actually, when you?re talking about 1) Committing adultery, 2) Divorcing your wife while she?s sick to marry your mistress, 3) Committing adultery, 4) Allegedly asking your wife to let you keep the mistress on the side and 5) Divorcing your wife while she?s sick to marry your mistress ... it?s pretty clear everybody doesn?t do it.

Eugene Robinson:

?The issue I think that?s going to play out this election is that question of Warren Buffett?s secretary,? House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va., said Wednesday on CNN. ?We want her to make more money, we want her to have more hope for the future. .?.?. [But] this notion that somehow the income that Warren Buffett makes is the same as a wage income for his secretary, we know that?s not the same.?

In other words, it?s not just that the rich are better than the rest of us but also that their money is better than our money.

Is this really an argument the Republican presidential nominee is going to make? Not in so many words, surely. Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum seem to understand that taking Cantor?s line would constitute political malpractice.

John Pitney Jr.:

It?s easy to dismiss Gingrich?s challenge as a gimmick, just some red meat to excite GOP primary voters, and not a challenge Obama would ever accept. But what if he did? What if the president and the former House speaker dueled in a series of open, nationally televised debates? An honest look at Gingrich?s record suggests that the results could differ markedly from the fantasies of Team Newt. Obama would not collapse in a heap, Gingrich would not emerge triumphant ? and the whole thing would go down as the biggest campaign blunder since Richard Nixon figured he could out-debate John F. Kennedy on television.

Adam Clymer:

Those raucous Republicans thrilled by hearing Newt Gingrich denounce the ?destructive, vicious, negative nature? of what he often calls the ?elite media? during debates might be shocked to watch him on other occasions. He enjoys consorting with the enemy.

The problem is that supporters of Keystone XL and other polluting resource extraction initiatives have effectively framed the debate for voters and politicians alike around jobs and short-term economic gains instead of long-term damage to the planet and profiting off of technological stagnation or rampant consumerism. When Americans see a blueprint for an oil pipeline, they see energy and infrastructure progress. And when they see the president denying a permit for such a plan, no matter what the context, they often fall for the right-wing squawking (this time from GOP presidential hopefuls) about liberals being destructive to the economy and catering to extremist environmental groups.

So what can we environmentalists do to change the way this debate is unfolding within the chaotic presidential race? I propose that we would do well to stick to our guns on the most potent weapon in our arsenal: scientific and demonstrable truth. Not only are the details surrounding Obama?s decision important?he was legally bound to ensure the appropriate impact assessments were undergone and was pressured by Canadian officials to ignore environmental impacts they de facto acknowledged?but the details about the pipeline itself must be cleared up.

In fact, Brad DeLong writes, the British economy is now doing worse than it did in the Great Depression:

Yep. This many months after the start of the Great Depression, the British economy was rapidly converging back to its pre-depression level of production under Chancellor of the Exchequer Neville Chamberlain's policy of using stimulative policies to restore the price level to its pre-Great Depression trajectory. [...]

In less than a year, if current forecasts come true, the Cameron-Osborne Depression will not be the worst depression in Britain since the Great Depression, but the worst depression in Britain ? probably ever.

That is quite an accomplishment. [...]

Here's a chart showing Britain's gross domestic product performance in the Great Depression and three recessions prior to the current one. In case you're afflicted by a bit of colorblindness, as I am, that line which flattens out at minus 4 percent on the far right of the chart is where the U.K. is now:

(National Institute of Economic and Social Research—U.K.)

What went wrong? DeLong cites Guardian economics correspondent Philip Inman, who wrote earlier this week:

Much of the UK's plan for recovery from the financial crisis was based on a full-throttle recovery in 2012. This was going to be the year that a return of consumer confidence, business investment and general spending would converge to send the economy on a trajectory of above-average growth. Maybe we would even get back some of the output we lost in the crash. [...]

Business investment has already slumped and confidence indexes show few consumers are ready to spend outside key periods such as Christmas. [...]

And the lack of investment will perplex ministers. They have done what the right-wing economists told them to do and moved out of the way ? the theory being that public sector spending and investment was "crowding out" the private sector.

That's the theory of right-wing economists and politicians in the United States, too. Kill as much government spending as possible and get out of the way so the private sector can "do its job." We'll be hearing a lot of that kind of talk in the coming months as the Republicans whittle down the bevy of candidates to the one who will meet Barack Obama come November.

Unfortunately, many Americans will buy their argument because of the economy's weak performance, only 1.6 percent growth in gross domestic product for all of 2011, and forecasts of even less than that for the first quarter of 2012. Their call for lower taxes on the wealthy and fewer regulations on the the financial sector is exactly the wrong approach. Don't believe it? Ask your working-class friends across the pond.

Blast from the Past. At Daily Kos on this date in 2006:

In a series of cases, many decided in the last few weeks, the federal courts have upheld the controversial "stop-loss" policy, which requires soldiers to remain in the military beyond their contracted term.

On Tuesday , a federal judge threw out a claim brought by two soldiers, David Qualls and Rafael Perez. Qualls' case was dismissed as moot because he voluntarily re-enlisted after filing suit in 2004. Qualls said he re-enlisted to get the $15,000 to avoid bankruptcy and provide for his family and children. As for Perez's claim, the judge ruled there was no evidence that his recruiter misled him, nor was their a contractual breach on the part of the government. There were initially eight soldiers in the lawsuit, but six dropped out after the judge refused to grant their request to stay anonymous.

Meanwhile, in Doe v. Rumsfeld (2006 WL 62337), the Ninth Circuit also upheld the military's stop-loss policy, ruling that the policy is a "valid exercise of presidential power authorized by 10 U.S.C. § 12305(a)."  

Tweet of the Day:

High Impact Posts are here. Top Comments are here.

Mitt Romney is resurgent!

(Unless he's not.)

Even if he's not, though, the schedule favors Mitt Romney. After all, he is coming up on a series of contests in places like Arizona and Michigan, where he should have a real advantage.

(Unless he doesn't.)

There are two very contradictory themes developing as we head into the weekend before the Florida primaries. On one hand, it is becoming more and more likely that Newt Gingrich will lose Florida, by what looks like it will be a margin in the high single digits. On the other hand, Gingrich's hand seems to still be strengthening elsewhere, especially in national polling.

The evidence lies, as it often does, in the numbers:

NATIONAL (Gallup Tracking): Gingrich 32, Romney 24, Paul 14, Santorum 13

ARIZONA (American Research Group): Gingrich 32, Romney 32, Paul 12, Santorum 10

FLORIDA (Dixie Strategies/First Coast News): Gingrich 35, Romney 35, Santorum 9, Paul 7

FLORIDA (Quinnipiac): Romney 38, Gingrich 29, Paul 14, Santorum 12

FLORIDA (VSS/Sunshine State News): Romney 42, Gingrich 32, Santorum 12, Paul 9

MICHIGAN (EPIC-MRA): Romney 31, Gingrich 26, Paul 14, Santorum 10

On the general election front, the president still has an edge, and perhaps more importantly, a new poll showed Obama reclaiming the lead from Mitt Romney in a blue-leaning state with special ties to the GOP challenger.

NATIONAL (Rasmussen Tracking): Obama d. Romney (45-42); Obama d. Gingrich (48-41)

MICHIGAN (EPIC-MRA): Obama d. Romney (48-40); Obama d. Gingrich (51-38)

How to explain Romney's Florida renaissance with his softening numbers elsewhere? Actually, I suspect that there is a very simple explanation, which I will explore after the jump.

Comments from Left Field: some tweets are more equal than others.

Michael in Norfolk: who could have predicted that conservative beliefs coupled with a low IQ leads to bigotry?

Mahablog: Newt a) has no shame; b) is a demagogue; c) often feigns outrage; performed poorly in Thursday's debate; e) all of the above.

Reality Based Community: Reagan-era criminal lies about sh*t Newt allegedly said about Reagan.

Taegan Goddard: Newt's brutal new ad [correctly] accuses Mittens of being a big fat liar.

blogenfreude blogs at Stinque - send your MBRU recommendations to mbru@crooksandliars.com

C&L staffer Karoli sends in this video and writes:

Sometimes my video recorder glitches. It's annoying... and sometimes funny. Here's what the opener of Morning Joe looked like. Megyn Kelly is pretty funny too when it happens.

PS. Don't forget that tomorrow at 2 Eastern / 11 Pacific Darcy Burner will be here at Crooks and Liars for a live Blue America chat. Please turn out to support this terrific progressive candidate for Congress. We need her!

Open Thread below....

If you're not familiar with San Francisco power popper Jason Falkner and his band Jellyfish, you're in for a big treat.

And our sister site Newstalgia has more ska revival for its Nights at the Roundtable feature -- Madness in session.

Happy Friday!

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The placenta is unique among organs--critical to human life yet fleeting. In its short time of duty, it serves as a vital protective barrier to the fetus. The organ’s blood vessels--which resemble tree roots in this image by Norman Barker, associate professor of pathology at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine--also deliver essential oxygen and nutrients from the mother to her developing baby. Still, the placenta has been vastly underappreciated. Scientists are taking a closer look and finding that it is much more than a simple conduit: it actively protects the fetus and shapes neurological development.

February's issue of Scientific American features a beautiful close-up image of a placenta taken by Norm Barker, associate professor of pathology and art as applied to medicine at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. Barker specializes in photo-microscopy and natural science photography, and his work appears in the permanent collections of more than 40 museums, including the Smithsonian, the American Museum of Natural History and the Science Museum in London.

Algae naturally produce oil. When it’s processed, that oil can be turned into biofuel, an alternative energy source. There’s just one snag--harvesting the oil from algae-filled water is prohibitively expensive. But researchers have come up with an effervescent solution: bubbles smaller than the width of a human hair can help reduce the costs of collecting algae oil.

You’re on the way to a meeting. Traffic seems to be slowing. A text comes in: “You’re going to be late. Take the next exit for alternate route.” It’s from Google.

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - California's powerful air-quality regulator on Friday approved sweeping new rules to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from vehicles by requiring automakers to put many more electric and hybrid vehicles on the state's roads.

The regulations, approved unanimously by the state's Air Resources Board at a meeting in Los Angeles, would also support development of an infrastructure for hydrogen fueling stations.

Join us for the first stop of a national tour to address the issue of prosecutorial oversight in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Connick v. Thompson, which granted prosecutors almost complete immunity for their intentional misconduct. Panelists from all aspects of the criminal justice system will discuss systemic and legal approaches for reducing prosecutorial error and misconduct.

Monday, February 6, 2012
6 to 8:30 PM
Jacob Burns Moot Court Room
Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law

Speakers include:
Maddy deLone, Executive Director of the Innocence Project, who will moderate the panel; 
John Thompson, whose $14 million civil award for the prosecutorial misconduct that caused him to spend 14 years on death row was overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court, Founder and Director of Resurrection After Exoneration and Voices of Innocence;  
Ellen Yaroshefsky, Clinical Professor of Law and Director, Jacob Burns Center for Ethics in the Practice of Law at Cardozo School of Law;
Hon. Richard Buchter, New York Supreme Court Judge and former Queens Assistant District Attorney;  
Hon. Elisa Koenderman, New York Supreme Court Judge and former Bronx Assistant District Attorney; 
Sarah Jo Hamilton, Principal at Scalise & Hamilton, LLP, and a former trial counsel and first deputy chief counsel to the Departmental Disciplinary Committee for New York’s First Judicial Department; and 
Ross E. Firsenbaum and Shauna Friedman,  Senior Associates at Wilmer Hale, who represented Arthur Ashe Courage Award Winner Dewey Bozella, who was wrongly convicted of murder due to police and prosecutorial misconduct and was exonerated after serving 26 years in New York prisons.

Light refreshments will be served following the panel discussion. More info here.

Seating is limited.  Pease RSVP by February 1 to info@prosecutorialoversight.org.

Florida Law Limits Donations by Minors to $100 but Adults And Corporations Can Donate up to $500 per Election

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: (212) 549-2666; media@aclu.org

MIAMI – The American Civil Liberties Union of Florida (ACLUFL) today filed a legal challenge on behalf of Julie Towbin, a 17-year-old resident of Boca Raton, challenging Florida’s law limiting political contributions by minors because the law limits the Constitutionally protected right to free speech.

Current Florida law (statute 106.08(1)(b)(2)) limits donations made by minors to state and local candidates to $100 per candidate per election while adults and corporations may contribute up to $500 per candidate per election.

“The law goes overboard by restricting my ability to access the political process, effectively support candidates for office and express my views as others do.” Towbin said. “The state is violating a right guaranteed to me by the First Amendment – the right to engage in political speech.”

Towbin is a high school senior who, in addition to earning money from a job as cashier in a restaurant, earned more than $7,000 as a Congressional House Page in 2011. She keeps her funds in a bank account in her name. She is registered to vote and plans to cast her first ballot in the November 2012 elections.

In September, 2011, Towbin was interested in attending a fundraising dinner for the Palm Beach County Democratic Executive Committee, of which she is a member. But she was told that purchasing a regular $150 ticket to the dinner may be a violation of the $100 limit on contributions by minors.

Because of her concerns about violating the law by purchasing a ticket to the fundraiser and making contributions to local candidates in 2012, Towbin wrote the Palm Beach County Supervisor of Elections, the Palm Beach County State Attorney, the State Attorney General and to the Florida Elections Commission which would be responsible for hearing potential violations and issuing penalties such as criminal referrals for prosecution and fines. Receiving no assurances that buying the ticket would not result in legal penalties, Towbin did not attend the fundraiser and has not made any campaign contributions over $100.

“It’s clear that this Florida law limits a citizen’s access to political discourse based solely on age,” said Howard Simon, Executive Director of the ACLU of Florida. “The right to speak politically as well as hear political debate is clearly protected and our laws should encourage everyone – especially young people – to engage with democracy instead of cutting people off from the process.”

The statutory age limit restriction applies only to Florida and local candidates. Under federal election rules, even though she is a minor, Towbin may contribute up to $2,500 – the same amount allowed for adults – to candidates for federal office such as President or Congress.

“The Constitution does not allow the state to treat speech differently based on who is doing the speaking,” said James K. Green, cooperating attorney in the case. “If the state has a need to limit contributions to a set amount – in this case $500 – the amount needs to be the same for everyone without exception.”

The suit was filed today in the Southern District of United States Court in West Palm Beach and asks the Court to declare Florida’s law unconstitutional as a violation of the First and Fourteenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution. The suit also seeks an order blocking the state from enforcing the age limit restriction on supporting candidates.

“Florida law gives more speech and political participation rights to corporations and political action committees than seventeen year olds who will vote this year,” Towbin said. “More than being unconstitutional, the law institutionalizes apathy among young people – it says your voice is worth one-fifth of someone else’s.”

A copy of the complaint filed today is available here: http://www.aclufl.org/pdfs/2012-01-26-TwobinComplaint.pdf
 

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: (212) 549-2666; media@aclu.org

A former student who endured severe and persistent harassment throughout junior high and high school has gained a major settlement from the Aberdeen School District, the ACLU of Washington announced today. The ACLU has represented Russell Dickerson III in a lawsuit saying that school district officials were aware of the harassment but failed to take steps reasonably calculated to end it. Under terms of the settlement, Dickerson will receive $100,000 from the district. Additionally, the ACLU will receive $35,000 in legal fees.

“Public school officials must be held accountable when they fail to meet their responsibility to act decisively when a student is subjected to harassment by his peers. This settlement sends a message to school districts statewide to take strong action as soon as they learn that a student is being bullied,” said Sarah Dunne, ACLU-WA legal director.

“I learned from my parents that you should never give up. You should fight for your rights – you don’t just walk away,” said Dickerson.

Russell Dickerson III, now 20, is an African-American resident of Aberdeen. For six years, from 2003 when he entered junior high until 2009 when he graduated high school, other students harassed Dickerson on the basis of his race, sex, and perceived sexual orientation.

At Miller Junior High, Dickerson was called names by other students and found notes in his backpack and taped to his back calling him “stupid nigger” and “dog.” Students tripped him in the hallways and threw food at him in the cafeteria. In one incident, three students pushed him to the floor in the hallway and smashed a raw egg on his head; only one of the students was disciplined.

At Aberdeen High School, the harassment escalated, with Dickerson subjected to a continuing barrage of viciously derogatory insults about his race, physical appearance, and suspected sexual orientation. Dickerson suffered physical harassment, with other students pinching and fondling his chest, spitting on his head, and throwing objects at him. Although an assistant principal discouraged Dickerson from reporting misconduct by the student’s peers, the student and his parents repeatedly reported incidents of harassment to district administrators, both verbally and in writing. Yet the district failed to take adequate steps to end the harassment.

In 2007 students in the district created a website mocking Dickerson and his perceived sexual orientation, and posted threatening racist comments on it. Students discussed the website at school. Grays Harbor Superior Court issued a no contact order between Dickerson and one of his harassers who had threatened on the website to lynch him, yet Dickerson became the target of retaliatory harassment after reporting the website to school authorities.

The school district’s failure to act created a hostile educational environment for the student. His academic progress was hindered, he was isolated at school, he felt discouraged from using his locker, and he avoided extra-curricular activities that put him in contact with his peers. Further, the student suffered extreme emotional distress, including an inability to concentrate on studies, serious depression, despair, and anxiety.

Filed in December 2010 in U.S. District Court in Tacoma, the lawsuit said that the deliberate indifference to ongoing harassment by the school district, which receives federal funds, violated federal law – Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972. The district’s negligent inaction also violated the Washington Law Against Discrimination.

ACLU-WA cooperating attorneys Michael Scott, Joseph Sakay, and Alexander Wu of Hillis Clark Martin & Peterson P.S. and ACLU-WA staff attorneys Sarah Dunne and Rose Spidell represented Dickerson.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: (212) 549-2666; media@aclu.org

AUGUSTA – The Legal and Veterans Affairs Committee today voted to table LD 199, which would require voters to present a photo ID before voting, and are considering action that would turn the bill into a study of Maine’s electoral system.

“Thousands of Mainers, and especially older Mainers, don’t have access to a photo ID,” said John Hennessy of the AARP of Maine. “These folks have been voting in their communities for decades, but could have been turned away from the voting booth for no good reason. The committee deserves tremendous credit for looking beyond politics to put aside voter ID.”

Secretary of State Charlie Summers also presented a report to the Legislature today that identified potential clerical and procedural errors in the state’s Central Voter Registration System.

“The Secretary of State is entrusted to protect the right of Mainers to vote and already has the authority and the obligation to ensure that elections are administered appropriately,” said Shenna Bellows. “If there are administrative problems, then the Secretary of State should fix them now without any further study.”

The Secretary of State also suggested that some undetermined number of votes may have been cast inappropriately during the last few years.

“Maine elections are well-run and secure, and they have helped our state to become a national leader in voter participation,” said Ann Luther of the League of Women Voters of Maine. “If the Secretary of State has identified isolated problems, then he should investigate them now and make sure that anyone who has violated the law is prosecuted. A study is unnecessary because he already has that responsibility and authority.”

 

Legislation Would Cause Backlog of DNA Tests and Violate Privacy

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: (212) 549-2666; media@aclu.org

COLUMBUS- The American Civil Liberties Union of Ohio will testify today before the Ohio Senate Judiciary Committee opposing Senate Bill 268. The legislation will expand the government’s ability to take DNA samples from felony arrestees by allowing the state retroactively to seize genetic information from past arrestees and those charged with a felony but not arrested. In 2009, the Ohio General Assembly passed S. B. 77, which allowed the state to obtain DNA samples from those arrested on felony charges.

“DNA is perhaps the most personal information our bodies contain, and the government must not simply take it without considering the privacy of Ohioans,” said ACLU of Ohio Associate Director Gary Daniels. “Those who have been arrested for a crime have not been found guilty in a court of law, nor have they had any opportunity to defend themselves. This system allows innocent people’s genetic information to become property of the state without any due process.”

“Neither this legislation nor current law provides meaningful opportunity for innocent Ohioans to remove their DNA from state databases if they were wrongfully accused of a crime,” added Daniels. “By expanding the power to collect DNA even further, state legislators will open a Pandora’s box where law enforcement may abuse their ability to arrest to perform an end-run around due process protections.”

S. B. 268 would direct the DNA information to the Bureau of Criminal Investigation to check against past records and keep on file. News reports have indicated that BCI and local law enforcement often have long backlogs on testing DNA evidence such as rape kits. On December 5, 2011, Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine recommended that local law enforcement send rape kits to BCI for testing, and pledged to add staff to accommodate the increase. Recently, the Department of Justice and state officials in Michigan and Illinois have warned legislators against adding additional DNA collection categories in order to avoid creating additional logjams.

“Unnecessarily collecting DNA will clog law enforcement systems, violate Ohioans’ privacy, and increase costs,” concluded Daniels. “State legislators should focus on testing rape kits and other evidence that has sat on shelves rather than adding more DNA to test that may lead to nothing.”

The Senate Judiciary Committee will be at 3:15 p.m. on Tuesday, January 24, 2011 in the North Hearing Room of the Statehouse.