A-G releases priorities for Legislative session

Iowa’s attorney general has a wish list for legislation he’d like to see pass in the upcoming session of the legislature. Attorney General Tom Miller says it’s time for Iowa to join other states that have lowered blood-alcohol rules for drunk driving to point-oh-eight percent. The attorney general also says he supports a proposal to create a new facility in Knoxville that would offer drug treatment for offenders with substance-abuse problems. Miller says he’d like to see an end to routine yearly reviews of the sentences of sexually violent offenders.The law doesn’t provide a transition program for those offenders before they’re freed. Miller says such sexually violent offenders need closer monitoring and treatment before they’re freed. Miller would like to see domestic-abuse penalties extended to cases where the attacker and victim aren’t married.The “Intimate partner” should have the same protection as married couples or those living together. To those who say it’d throw open prosecution to too many cases, Miller says it’s working so far in 28 states that have expanded the domestic-abuse laws. Miller says he’d like to see Iowa’s victim-restitution program expanded. If people without insurance suffer injuries when they’re victims of crime, he wants the state to increase what it’ll pay for their medical care, to 25-thousand dollars. Miller says he’d also like to see the reimbursement raised to three thousand dollars for counseling needed by crime victims.