I had the opportunity to speak with Idaho State Senator Melissa Wintrow and we talked about some of her passions and about her work in politics. She is serving her first term as the State Senator of District 19 in Boise after six years in the Idaho State House.

When asked what she loves about living in Boise, she enjoys having all the culture of a big city such as theater, art and museums but also having this well preserved nature and wilderness that you can retreat to. She loves how caring her community is as well as all the parks and open spaces.

She is passionate about finding issues that move her. Instances where a simple change of policy just makes sense, for the good of the public. Such as introducing legislation trying to prevent child marriages before the age of 16 that was voted down by the State House in 2019 or a bill that passed unanimously earlier this year that repealed a law that made rape by spouses lawful.

In addition to her service in government Senator Wintrow is also a Board Member of the Idaho Coalition Against Sexual & Domestic Violence where she helps victims of sexual and domestic violence and historically marginalized communities. She works directly with victims of violence through the system and she believes in giving a voice to marginalized communities including victims of gender bias, race bias, disability bias and members of the LGBTQIA community.

She is a champion for human rights and has fought for legislation to protect against discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity. While legislation has protected these groups as the result of court cases as far as housing and employment services, legislation still needs to be passed to provide equal rights in public services. She would also like to see sexual orientation and gender identity added to the malicious harassment statute which is about hate crimes.

Wintrow is concerned about the effects that an increase in cost of living may have on our community and how this and property taxes can effect accessibility to housing. Although she doesn’t foresee this legislature raising minimum wage she believes the government should be able to make sure that there is a fair and level playing field. She thinks that Idaho’s citizens would benefit from a blending of private and public health insurance policies in order to better serve a larger part of the population.

Her favorite thing about working in government is the challenge of problem solving. She thrives in an atmosphere where she can gather stakeholders together, investigate issues and facilitate to come up with the best solutions to help people.

She’s also a proponent that if you can solve a problem without legislation you should do so. For example, she had met with a grieving mother who had just had her baby die. The child had an illness that wasn’t in the standard screenings that they test newborns for. If they routinely tested for that disease the doctors might have been able to catch it earlier and could have potentially saved that child’s life.

Wintrow decided to meet with Health and Welfare, investigate policies for newborn testing in Idaho, she did a bit of research and figured out who to involve and brought them together in order to get this problem solved. Senator Wintrow started this process after speaking with this mother back in January and by this fall it will be added to the standard newborn screening tests.

The former Idaho House Representative’s skills in advocacy and collaboration have served her well, having passed eight bills between her time in the Senate and the House, with five of them pertaining to sexual assault.

Senator Wintrow is a former member of the Governor’s Criminal Justice Commission- a multi-agency taskforce consisting of the Idaho State Police forensics laboratory, victim’s advocacy groups, law enforcement, crime victim’s compensation, the prosecutors office and the public defenders office.

Of the eight bills that Senator Wintrow has passed during her time in office four of those bills have changed the way Idaho tracks, preserves and possesses sexual assault kits and by doing so revolutionized the way that sexual assault evidence is processed. Before these bills were passed there were no uniform policies or procedures in place for the processing of sexual assault forensic evidence kits.

It all started with H528, a bill on Idaho’s Sexual Assault Evidence Processing. Idaho’s sexual assault tracking system was developed in 2017 with legislation passing in 2016. The bill was passed with unanimous votes in both the Senate and the House. More than 25 states have reached out for information on how to replicate Idaho’s tracking system for rape kits with Idaho making this technology available to states that are interested. This tracking system allows victims to anonymously track their sexual assault kit. This system also makes the process more organized, accountable and efficient.

Wintrow also passed legislation in 2017, H146 Sexual Assault Evidence Preservation, that determined how long the kits should be preserved based on the severity of the crime. This law also prevents rape victims from being denied a medical examination whether or not they are able to pay for it. Victims must be notified of the destruction of their rape kit. This bill was also passed unanimously.

In 2018 H429a was passed regarding Sexual Assault Victims Compensation. This policy allocated sexual assault evidence kits to be paid for by Idaho’s Victim Compensation Plan. Prior to this, sexual assault was the only crime in Idaho where the victim’s insurance paid for forensic evidence collection.

Bill H116 on Testing All Sexual Assault Evidence Kits was passed in 2019, on another unanimous vote.  This legislation was implemented to ensure that all rape kits must be processed with only limited exceptions and requires that sexual assault kits be stored for 55 years. This legislation also requires a yearly audit on sexual assault evidence kits. Before this legislation was passed there were several legal exceptions to processing sexual assault evidence kits. By processing more sexual assault kits we are more likely to catch serial rapists.