Decker caves again on tougher OWI laws

Last week I wrote about State Sen. Russ Decker backtracking on tougher OWI laws here in Wisconsin, and I noted how Sen. Decker is now opposed to some proposals to crack down on impaired driving in Wisconsin, including instituting sobriety checkpoints and criminalizing first-offense drunken driving.

As Patrick Marley and Ben Poston of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported today, Sen. Decker is now backtracking on penalizing third and fourth offense drunken drivers the way five-time offenders are now punished:

But Senate Majority Leader Russ Decker (D-Weston) said such a change would cause a “significant financial impact” at a time when the state faces a record $5.4 billion shortfall through mid-2011.

According to the nonpartisan Legislative Fiscal Bureau, the new laws toughening penalties for third and fourth offense drunken drivers would boost the Department of Corrections’ costs by $99 million to 145 million dollars a year, with an additional 4.6 million dollars more needed each year to pay for additional judges, prosecutors and public defenders. There’s no denying that 100 million dollars or more is a steep price tag at a time when our state has a budget deficit somewhere above 5 billion dollars, but it seems to me that it’s a price worth paying, and toughening our state’s OWI laws is the right thing to do; it’s just too bad Sen. Russ Decker doesn’t agree.