Slander of a Woman -- Revisited

In an earlier post I commented upon Washington state senate bill SB 5148, which seeks to repeal the offense of "Slander of a Woman", on the books in its present form since 1927. I speculated if I might be able to get a response from Senator Jeanne Kohl-Welles, its sponsor, about why she wants to repeal it, and I was mildly surprised to actually hear from her on this. Not surprised in any negative sense, just that I'm not a voter in her district, and it's not her job to represent me. So, here's her response, for which I thank her:

Thanks for your inquiry, Mike. Below is a column by Susan Paynter which gives information about the bill. The statute is obviously unconstitutional and should be repealed. This isn't a high priority bill of mine, but I'd been asked by some people to reintroduce it.

Jeanne Kohl-Welles
State Senator
36th Legislative District

* Read the full article at:
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/paynter/103488_paynter10.shtml

As a fan of "statutory dust bunnies" (thanks for that neat phrase, Susan Paynter), I found the article to be quite amusing. Especially the part about the "Michigan law permitt[ing] a man whose wife had left him to follow her down the street, removing articles of her clothing, one-by-one, because they were his property." Weren't those legislators of bygone days a hoot?

Okay. I confess that I am convinced that this particular dust-bunny needs to be vacuumed up. I imagine that the normal slander statutes will suffice in future.

I'd urge my Senator, Karen Fraser, to support this bill, but I'm sure beyond a reasonable doubt that she'll vote for it.