page_title: Kathleen Rice
section_title: Tenure and issues
hierarchical_section_title: Kathleen Rice / Nassau County District Attorney / Tenure and issues
caption_attribution_description: English: This is a headshot for Kathleen Rice.
context_page_description: Kathleen Maura Rice is an American attorney, prosecutor, and the United States Representative for New York's 4th congressional district. She is a Democrat. Prior to serving in Congress, she served as the Nassau County District Attorney, and, prior to that, she served as a federal prosecutor in the U.S. Attorney's Office in Philadelphia and as an assistant district attorney in the Kings County District Attorney's Office in New York City.
  Rice announced on January 29, 2014 that she would run for Congress in 2014 in New York's 4th congressional district to replace retiring Democratic incumbent Carolyn McCarthy. Rice won the election over Republican Bruce Blakeman on November 4, 2014 and took office in January 2015.
context_section_description: Drunken and drugged driving
  In 2006, Rice, the "state's toughest DWI prosecutor," declared her first major policy initiative to be an "assault on the drunk driving epidemic." She lowered the blood-alcohol level at which you could take a plea bargain, supported Leandra's Law, and charged with murder some drunk drivers who killed their victims.
  Reform efforts
  In September 2011, Rice's office arrested seven students after uncovering an SAT cheating ring on Long Island. When this case led to the discovery of a wider-spread cheating scandal, Rice worked with the College Board, who administers the test, to update security standards to halt cheating in the future. This effort sparked other test administrators, like that which gives the ACT, to update their standards as well.
  Rice has also received credit for teen education programs geared towards cyber bullying, drug use, texting and dangerous driving.
  In 2007, Rice's office, Nassau County and Hempstead police led a counter-assault on Terrace Avenue, a major drug haven and crime-ridden street in Long Island's Hempstead Village. Through a combination of zero-tolerance enforcement for repeat and violent offenders, and social-service based jail diversion for nonviolent and first time offenders, crime has been reduced in the area.
  In 2008, following the trampling death of a Walmart employee at one of the retailer's Black Friday sales events, Rice encouraged Walmart to upgrade its security protocols at its nearly 100 New York stores.
  In 2012, Rice came out in favor of decriminalizing small amounts of "plain view" marijuana. Rice has also supported efforts to allow some citizens to seal prior low-level, non-violent convictions in the hopes of improving their chances of obtaining employment.
  Rice was chosen by Governor Andrew Cuomo to be a member of the Moreland Commission on Utility Storm Preparation and Response, a panel tasked with investigating the failures of the Long Island Power Authority (LIPA) following Hurricane Sandy of October 2012. The panel recommended that LIPA be replaced by a private, investor-owned company and that the Public Service Commission, which has regulation authority, be given more power to penalize and fine poor-performing utility companies.
  Rice supports the "Raise the Age NY" initiative to treat non-violent teen offenders as juveniles in the criminal justice system.
  Guns, gangs, and violent crime
  Rice implemented gun buy-back programs in some of the county's most crime-plagued areas, which removed more than 2,000 guns from the streets. She also spoke out in favor of Governor Andrew Cuomo's gun control legislation, and she created the office's first ever gun prosecution unit.
  Rice announced in early 2011 a major prosecution of 9 gun dealers and gun store employees arrested by police in an undercover operation investigating alleged illegal assault weapons. This was the second arrest for Martin Tretola, one of the gunshop owners. He was previously arrested on firearms related violations in 2007. Subsequently, in 2012, a federal jury delivered a verdict rejecting the charges of Nassau County and District Attorney Rice for the 2007 arrest and awarded Tretola 3 million dollars in compensatory damages and 2 million dollars in punitive damages. This judgment was later reduced to 1.3 million dollars in total upon appeal.
  Questions on Rice's early prosecution cases
  The Kings County district attorney's prosecution of Antowine Butts for double homicide imploded and ended in an acquittal in 2000, but not before Butts spent two years in a Rikers Island jail cell. After the case unraveled, Butts alleged that he was a victim of prosecutorial misconduct in a civil rights lawsuit that was settled with New York City.
  Among those named in that suit: Kathleen Rice, the architect of the case against Butts.
  Despite that high profile, Rice has largely escaped attention — including during the current campaign — for starting her career in an office in which prosecutors are alleged to have put some innocent people behind bars with coerced confessions, bogus witness statements, coac
caption: Rice in 2013
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