Forum Post: Letters to the Editor can have a great impact.

One time when I was running for the State Legislature in Indiana a few years ago, I was looking for issues to talk about. I was watching Oprah one day. She had some Police Officers on and they were talking about how the state police labs were so underfunded that rapekits were sitting on the shelves for as long as 2 years, while their accused rapist was out walking around.

The new Governor at the time, Mitch Daniels who previously worked in the Bush administration, couldn't find the money in the budget for something like this.At the same time, a long time state senator was running for re-election. He was touting the fact that he got $35 million dollars of state money to build a local 'Learning Center'.

It's a good idea, and everyone likes it, but I thought his priorities were out of order. I wrote a letter which was published in the Indianapolis Star laying out my concerns for this Senator's priorities, that the Learning Center is not as important as getting 3000 alleged rapists off the streets.

The next day I got an e-Mail from the Senator. "We could have just talked about this".

The next day, just before the end of that fall's legislative session the senator found $12 million to fund the labs and added it to the state budget.

They almost immediately started processing the rape kits and taking the criminals off the street.

I lost my election in a landslide, but I wasn't alone, so did every other Democrat. It's a very conservative are.

That's activism for ya. Well, I got a good story out of it.