New Law Gets Tough On Rapists Two-Time Offenders Would Be Sent To Prison For Life

Gov. Mike Lowry on Saturday used his veto pen to reroute money needed to renovate juvenile jails and signed into law a measure to send two-time rapists to prison for life.

The governor also said he was vetoing a measure that would have banned Death Row inmates from receiving organ transplants, calling it “clearly unconstitutional.”

The Democrat signed a bill intended to force managed health care companies to give patients and doctors more control over their care.

Facing a midnight deadline to act on bills passed by the 1996 Legislature, the lame-duck governor approved a supplement budget that dumps about $212 million into the state’s two-year spending plan totaling $17.6 billion. Virtually all of the new spending is covered by savings lawmakers were able to squeeze from state government budgets.

But Lowry added about $12 million to the total, money he got by vetoing cuts approved by lawmakers. Almost $10 million of the money will be rerouted from the state’s “rainy day” fund, where it was headed, into a budget to renovate Green Hill and Maple Lane juvenile jails.

Lowry and legislative leaders were in accord on the maneuver because the Legislature, in the final hours of the March 7 adjournment, failed to pass a public works budget, which had contained money for badly needed juvenile jail improvements.

The governor said he was pleased with the spending plan he signed, noting that lawmakers left a rainy day fund of about $416 million. “This will be sorely needed in future years as the federal government cuts spending to the states to balance the federal budget,” he said.

Big winners in the new budget are public education, which got nearly $100 million for technology and equipment and a host of other purposes; flood victims who will see $23 million in aid; and poor and abused children, whose programs will get nearly $20 million.

The governor signed a measure, sponsored by Rep. Ida Ballasiotes, R-Mercer Island, that will require two-time sex offenders who prey on other adults to be sentenced to life in prison.

Under the measure, a person must be sentenced to life without parole after two separate convictions of first- or second-degree rape, indecent liberties by force, or other felonies found to be sexually motivated. Such crimes include murder, kidnap, assault and first-degree burglary.

Lowry also signed a bill requiring managed care plans and other health insurers to disclose information intended to help would-be enrollees better understand what they’re buying and to help enrollees better understand what services are covered.

Among other things, health plans must disclose whether they require providers to hold down treatment costs, or whether they use incentives or penalties to encourage providers to withhold treatment. The measure also bans insurers from penalizing doctors who criticize health insurance plans.

Lowry was putting the finishing touches on a veto of a bill spawned by public anger over unconfirmed reports that condemned killer Mitchell Rupe might be in line for liver transplant. Rupe, whose sentence has been struck down but under appeal by the state, was convicted in the 1981 slayings of two bank tellers in Olympia.

“Our attorneys tell us this bill is clearly unconstitutional,” Lowry said. For one thing, he said, some Death Row inmates manage to overturn their sentences, and the state cannot be in a position of hastening their deaths on the assumption they eventually will be executed.

In other action, Lowry:

Vetoed a provision of a bill that would have given police department employees the right to own machine guns. He signed the rest of the measure, which bans gun possession for certain lawbreakers.

Signed a measure requiring county assessors to lower the value of property to reflect declines in value due to government land use regulations.

Vetoed a proposal to allow the Department of Licensing to turn over to government and law enforcement agencies any records submitted by driver’s license applicants to prove their identity.

Signed a bill allowing the state to suspend professional licenses, such as for physicians, engineers, plumbers, or architects, for failure to pay state or federal higher education loans.