[Vision2020] Idaho's State Senate: Why Doesn't It Care for Our Childen?

[Tom Hansen]

The Idaho Senate failed to address day care standards during the recent 
session because, as State Senator Dean Cameron, R-Rupert, explained "We 
simply do not have enough time to hear every bill and to vote on every 
single bill."
http://mailman.fsr.com/pipermail/vision2020/2008-March/052771.html

And now the state senate has blocked a bill that would require 
investigations into children's deaths that appear questionable, after the 
House passed that same bill by a vote of 63-5.

Apparently this bill was blocked because, as Senate Health and Welfare 
Chairwoman Patti Anne Lodge, R-Huston, suggests that "Idaho doesn't need 
to review child deaths if every other state is already doing it."

Idaho HB511, Relating to Child Mortality Prevention
http://www3.state.id.us/oasis/H0511.html

You know.  Family values and all.

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>From today's (March 27, 2008) Spokesman Review -

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Citing threat to parents' rights, senator blocks bill on child deaths

Betsy Z. Russell 
Staff writer
March 27, 2008

BOISE – A Senate committee chairwoman has blocked legislation that would 
have ended Idaho's distinction as the only state in the nation with no 
system for reviewing child deaths.

Senate Health and Welfare Chairwoman Patti Anne Lodge, R-Huston, said 
Idaho doesn't need to review child deaths if every other state is already 
doing it. 

"We can use the information that they've gathered," she said. "If they're 
already doing it, what could be different in a child death in Utah or 
Montana that we wouldn't have here? Why reinvent the wheel all the time?"

House Bill 511 passed the House on March 17 on a 63-5 vote, and it cleared 
Lodge's committee on a voice vote after a public hearing. But Lodge then 
asked the Senate to return the bill to her committee, where it's now dead.

"The concerns mostly were, what could this lead to?" she said. "Could this 
lead to maybe more usurping of freedoms? Could parents be charged?"

Lodge noted that her children rode horses without wearing helmets when 
they were growing up, and said she wouldn't want to see parents faulted 
for risky but normal childhood activities like that.

Rep. Margaret Henbest, D-Boise, the bill's co-sponsor and a pediatric 
nurse practitioner who works with abused children, was disappointed by 
Lodge's move. 

"It means that people don't have to stand up and be counted for taking a 
stand on how we treat child deaths in our state," she said. "So rather 
than openly debate and vote against it, pull it back to committee really 
quietly."

Henbest, a respected health care expert who is retiring from the House 
this year after 12 terms, said she's frustrated.

"We talk a lot about family values and children's lives in this place," 
she said. "I have trouble understanding how that can't be universally 
valued."

The child mortality review legislation, which Henbest sponsored with GOP 
Rep. Russ Mathews, Idaho Falls, would have created a team of doctors, law 
enforcement workers and others to review unexpected child deaths in the 
state that worked to to spot trends and prevent future deaths.

Idaho has periodically had such teams set up by executive order under past 
governors, but it has had no regular review of child deaths since 2003, in 
part because of concerns about federal health care privacy legislation.

Findings of Idaho's past child death review panels helped lead to:

• A sudden infant death syndrome, or SIDS, education program for Idaho 
parents.

• New seat belt laws.

• Programs on safe firearms storage in homes with children.

• A canal safety and fencing program.

• Education programs for parents on safety restraints in cars.

The new legislation would have set up the review team under state law, 
giving it full confidentiality, immunity from subpoena, and the ability to 
access all records about unexpected child deaths in Idaho. The annual cost 
to the state was estimated at $43,250.

Sen. Joyce Broadsword, R-Sagle, vice chairwoman of the Senate Health and 
Welfare Committee, said she was undecided on the bill. She said she was 
surprised when Lodge asked the Senate to return it to her committee. "But 
she's my chairman and I follow her lead," Broadsword said.

Broadsword said she thought Idaho probably could coordinate information 
about child deaths without a new law, possibly through another executive 
order.

"Any time a child dies we need to know why and what happened," she 
said. "I don't know that we need to spend a large amount of money to 
research that. I think that our agencies are tracking it, we're just not 
getting the coordination."

Sen. Elliot Werk, D-Boise, a committee member, said he's been frustrated 
by Lodge's approach to the child death review bill and a day care 
licensing bill that also died in her committee.

"For me, it's exceedingly frustrating that when we're dealing with the 
lives and safety of children, we can't make progress," Werk said.

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Seeya round town, Moscow.

Tom Hansen
Moscow, Idaho

"People who ridicule others while hiding behind anonymous monikers in chat-
room forums are neither brave nor clever." 

- Latah County Sheriff Wayne Rausch (August 21,
2007)

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