Women bypassed from rape bill panel

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. -- Although most rape victims are women, legislation allowing an unlimited time to prosecute rape cases was negotiated by an all-male panel of Missouri legislators.

Female senators expressed frustration Thursday that they had no say in drafting the final version of the legislation, which is expected to come to a vote next week.

"We needed to be in the discussion," said state Sen. Anita Yeckel, R-St. Louis, who took some of her male colleagues to task on the Senate floor. "I'm not a real radical, but if you look at the number of women who are raped and the number of men who are raped, obviously it's a crime against women."

Yeckel is one of six women in the 34-member Senate. In the House, women hold 39 of the 160 seats currently filled.

House and Senate leaders, who appoint conference committee members to work out differences in bills, said they did not intentionally exclude women. Most of the 10 negotiators were members of the two chambers' judiciary committees recommended by those panels' chairmen.

But if he had it to do over again, Senate President Pro Tem Peter Kinder said he perhaps would have included a woman.

"I don't count gender noses. Perhaps I should," said Kinder, R-Cape Girardeau, who added that no women asked to be on the panel.

House Judiciary Committee Chairman Ralph Monaco said he wanted negotiators who were lawyers and members of his committee. One woman fit that mold, but she disagreed with the House position.

"What this became was not an issue of excluding women. It was strictly a judiciary battle between lawyers on language," said Monaco, D-Raytown, who is a lawyer. "We were dealing about legal issues and nothing other than that."

Missouri is scrambling to rewrite its rape law because a December 2000 appeals court ruling interpreted it as placing a three-year statute of limitations on filing charges of rape and sodomy.

The House had passed a bill specifying an unlimited time to bring charges for rape, attempted rape, sodomy or attempted sodomy. The Senate's version would have required victims to make a report to authorities within three years in order for prosecutors to bring charges later.

Ultimately, negotiators went with the House version, which Monaco said was a victory for women.

But sometimes the end result isn't all that matters, said Yeckel, whose frustrations were echoed on the Senate floor by Sens. Betty Sims, R-Ladue, and Sarah Steelman, R-Rolla.

"We would've liked to have had a voice in this debate, and we did not," Yeckel said.

Rape legislation is SB650 (Singleton) and HB1037 (Hosmer).