Issue Position: Public Safety

Issue Position

As a former law enforcement officer and the Chairman of the Assembly Committee on Criminal Justice and Public Safety, I have continued to focus on public safety in Wisconsin. The committee deliberated on bills dealing with criminal penalties, the judicial process, and fighting the opioid and drunk driving problems in Wisconsin. We passed initiatives to keep our communities safer.

This session I personally authored a number of bills focused on increasing public safety. Assembly Bill 570, authored with Senator Jerry Petrowski, would protect the privileged mental health records of crime victims. Currently it is far too easy for criminal defendants to access these records and use them against their victims, and a bill I introduced would create a process to raise the burden of proof for access.

I also introduced a bill specifically targeted at increasing public safety in our community. Over the years we have seen far too many fatal accidents involving animal-drawn vehicles, with one such accident occurring in December in Juneau County. This session I introduced Assembly Bill 475 with Senator Petrowski to create additional lighting requirements for animal-drawn vehicles to ensure they are seen by other drivers on the road.

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