If you really want to talk record on Womens’ Issues, VP vs. VP, let’s talk rape kits.

In 1997, Palin hired a new police chief for Wasilla named Charlie Fannon. As a cost cutting measure, he took rape kits out of the police budgets, and it became practice for the local hospital to charge victims for the cost instead. As reported by Wasilla’s local paper at the time, Fannon complained that the state was requiring the town to spend $5,000 to $14,000 a year to cover the costs. “I just don’t want to see any more burden put on the taxpayer,” the chief explained.

The practice of charging victims of rape for the collection of the evidence left on their bodies continued through 2000, at which time a bill was passed by the Alaska State Legislature to prohibit the practice. Part of the reason is that the author of 1994 Violence Against Women Act, Senator Joe Biden, included provisions to make states ineligible for federal grant money if they charged rape victims for exams and the kits containing the medical supplies needed to conduct them. (Senator John McCain, Ms. Palin’s running mate, voted against Mr. Biden’s initiative, and his name has not been among the long list of co-sponsors each time the act has been renewed.) News stories are mixed as to whether the bill came up specifically because of the situation in Wasilla. Then Governor Tony Knowles is quoted as saying: “We would never bill the victim of a burglary for finger-printing and photographing the crime scene, or for the cost of gathering other evidence.”

Palin practiced line item veto throughout her tenure in office as mayor of Wasilla. While she did not speak for continuation of the police practice at the time (about a $1200 cost per kit), she did not speak out against it. With everything that has been put forth about Palin’s hands on governing style, it is highly improbable that she was unaware of the practice and did not at least give tacit approval of it. The charging of the victims was a clear budgetary change championed by Fannon upon appointment, and a story in both local and statewide press.

To charge victims of a crime for the prosecution of that crime and the pursuit of the criminal, beyond reasonable taxation, is unjust. To single out victims of sex crimes, in a state which has the highest rates of incest and rapes in the country, implies a culture in which such crimes are blamed on the victim. The cost of such an examination could also serve as a deterrent from reporting these crimes that are already incredibly under reported by all statistical accounts.

The McCain campaign has released a statement to USA Today, which reads that Gov. Palin “does not believe, nor has she ever believed, that rape victims should have to pay for an evidence-gathering test.” For myself, I would like to hear her speak directly about why she did not go on the record against it when it would have made a difference to the women of her home town.