Ohio already tracks rape kits, but the House included a more robust system for keeping survivors informed. The Senate pulled it, arguing it should pass as a standalone bill.
The following article was originally published in the Ohio Capital Journal and published on News5Cleveland.com under a content-sharing agreement.
“Removing that provision, I think that’s really disheartening to a lot of survivors,” she said. “They need a sense of closure, they need to make sure that they have the right to know the status of their rape kits, and the status of where it is and making sure that it’s processed in a timely manner.” Thirty one states around the country have passed their own versions of right to know legislation, Ilse Knecht explained. The Joyful Heart Foundation policy and advocacy director heads up the organization’s effort to end the backlog of untested rape kits.
“Think about if you went in to get a test for cancer or something, right?” Knecht said. “And you left and you could never get a hold of anybody who will tell you what the result was. I mean, it’s a little different — that’s a life and death kind of your medical situation, but I think that survivors feel like that.”In an emailed statement, Senate spokesman John Fortney explained why lawmakers removed the language.
“And my answer to that, and I think when I was Speaker Pro Tem the answer in the House was, we’re not just going to put a bill in the budget, a piece of policy, because we don’t want to talk about it, or it’s easier than having lots of committee hearings and witnesses and things like that,” Huffman explained.
Carrying out the right to know changes would largely fall on the Attorney General’s office. The office didn’t request the changes in its budget request, and it already operates a kit tracking system.That tracking system comes from work that began under then-Attorney General Mike DeWine. As recently as 2018, Ohio had a backlog of untested rape kits that ran into the thousands. DeWine’s administration cleared that backlog, and Sen. Stephanie Kunze, R-Dublin, and Rep.
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