Crime

Selweski: Why Would a GOP Lawmaker Team Up with the ACLU to Block Child Abuse Law?

May 23, 2016, 12:12 AM
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Erica Hammel with son, Wyatt, after his latest brain surgery in the fall.

Chad Selweski covered state and regional politics for The Macomb Daily for nearly 30 years. He's a Deadline Derroit contributor.

By Chad Sewleski

After the near-death of her 1-year-old son, Wyatt, at the hands of a child abuser, Erica Hammel set out to change Michigan law.

When she learned that Rachel Edwards, 33, Wyatt’s babysitter/attacker, harbored two previous child abuse convictions, Hammel thought it'd make sense to mandate that child abusers register with the State Police, much like the digital state registry that lets the public locate sex offenders and pedophiles.


Rep. Klint Kesto

The single mom from St. Clair Shores organized an online petition drive seeking support for her proposal, which she called “Wyatt’s Law.” She spent 18 months collecting 21,000 signatures.  Without any prior expertise, Hammel became a public relations force, enticing numerous media outlets to run stories on how the system failed her and her son.

In October 2015, she convinced three state representatives to answer the petition and introduce a package of bills that would create a child abuse registry. And, yes, the legislation was called Wyatt’s Law. It honors the boy, now 3 ½, who still suffers from numerous physical handicaps due to his extensive “shaken baby syndrome” injuries.  

Hammel accomplished all this by the age of 27.

But what Hammel didn’t anticipate was that her fight was far from finished, that partisan politics in the Republican-controlled House would block the legislation, leaving the three-bill package untouched on a shelf for the past seven months.

What she didn’t expect was that dozens – perhaps hundreds – of phone calls and emails by Hammel and her persistent little army of supporters to the representative overseeing the bills – House Judiciary Committee Chairman Klint Kesto – would go unanswered.

And what she never foresaw was that Kesto, a Republican from Walled Lake and a former Wayne County prosecutor, would partner with the ACLU to essentially derail and divert Wyatt’s Law, citing concerns about privacy for victims and families becoming stigmatized if someone in their household lands a spot on a child abuse registry.

How those concerns would be any different than the much-lauded sex offender registry is unclear.

After Hammel’s supporters “blew up” Kesto’s Twitter account and the lawmaker finally agreed to talk to Hammel – at an April meeting in his Lansing office – she was led to believe it would be a one-on-one conversation. Instead, she was blindsided: Kesto was accompanied by legislative staffers and ACLU lobbyist Shelli Weisburg opposed to Wyatt’s Law.

'A Shocker'

Hammel, who has no political experience, describes getting peppered with questions by this group as “like being in a shark tank.”

“It was a shocker. It wasn’t like I couldn’t fend for myself, but I had nobody on my side. They were teaming up against me. I know why the ACLU was there -- it was to break me down,” Hammel said.


Babysitter Rachel Edwards (Department of Corrections photo)

Lost in the discussion was that the young mom had a perfectly legitimate personal reason for the legislation. Wyatt’s babysitter back on that traumatic day in 2013, Rachel Edwards, the girlfriend of Hammel’s ex-husband,  had left Hammel with “a bad feeling.” But when Hammel  searched online for information, Edwards’ two prior child abuse convictions were not found.

In response, Wyatt’s Law is intended to supply a database lookup for parents in cases in which their child will be left to the care of an ex-spouse’s boyfriend/ girlfriend, a stepmother/stepfather, a babysitter, or adults overseeing a kids’ sleepover.

At the hands of Edwards, Wyatt was shaken so severely that he suffered a massive brain hemorrhage, a fractured skull, a detached eye retina and broken ribs. Despite several surgeries, he can barely speak or eat solid foods and he is nearly blind in one eye. He likely will never live a normal life. Edwards is serving 33 months in prison.

In Lansing, as the April 19 meeting ended, Kesto indicated that instead of holding a committee hearing to discuss Wyatt’s Law he would transfer the bills to a different panel -- the House Committee on Families, Children and Seniors, which handles issues such as foster care and child custody.

As a result, Hammel and her supporters are back to square one, lobbying a different committee chair, urging him to give the legislation a chance.

Politically Risky

Beyond the partisanship of Republicans largely ignoring legislation introduced by three House Democrats, Hammel learned the Lansing phenomenon that could be labeled as Hot Potato Politics. Committee chairs remain cautious when taking up legislation. In this case, a second state registry is not on the GOP agenda so those representatives worried about re-election in November -- or seeking to secure a new elective office due to term-limits -- take the safe road to avoid blame for inaction.

Wyatt’s Law logically should have landed in the House Criminal Justice Committee. Instead, it was kicked to the Judiciary Committee. From there, Kesto punted it to the Families, Children and Seniors Committee.


Legislators and supporters gather at the Macomb County Courthouse in October to announce the introduction of Wyatt's Law.

Beyond the privacy issues, Weisburg, the ACLU legislative director who sat in on the April meeting with Hammel at Kesto’s office, maintains that the sex offender registry has had no impact on deterring crime.

Of course, it’s almost impossible to say whether the registry had an impact on sex-related crimes that never happened. More likely, there are instances where parents have kept their children from helping out a neighbor with chores or going inside his home for a treat because he was on the sex offender registry.

In the case of Wyatt's Law, Weisburg said she was not “teaming up” against Hammel. She said she was simply fulfilling the role of a lobbyist helping a state representative understand an extensive issue. She discussed the legislation with Kesto last year in addition to making her case against Wyatt's Law at the meeting with Hammel.

Kesto, who is facing a potentially difficult re-election campaign in in his western Oakland County district, explained why he passed off the legislation, saying he was steering it toward a more logical path.

“Hundreds of bills are referred to the Committee on Judiciary, which only meets for about 50 minutes once a week,” the lawmaker told Deadline Detroit. “… Therefore, it was necessary to re-refer the bills to (a) committee that is more pertinent to the topic at hand.”

Hammel, who friends describe as a dynamo, has already arranged a May 24 meeting with Families, Children and Seniors Committee Chairman Thomas Hooker, a west Michigan Republican.

This time, she is hoping for good news. Meanwhile, Wyatt still suffers from recurring head trauma and might need a fifth brain surgery. The young mom holds out hope on two fronts – medical and political.

“I’ll tell you that I still have faith in some legislators who really do care about more than just politics,” she said. “I mean, this is about protecting children. So, at this point, I guess I have ‘partial faith’ in the system.”



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