Lauzen defends himself on the breastfeeding bill for which he was the sole dissenter. Other than the persecution complex at the end, not a bad defense of his choice. It isn’t like his voted mattered that much anyway.
I promise I will not defend Lauzen twice in a row again. Actually Lauzen pretty much takes care of that most days.
Lauzen says:
1. The question was asked about local public schools. Under this law, would teenage moms be allowed to nurse their babies in class? Maybe things have gotten a whole lot better in classrooms since I was a teenage boy, but we had enough of a challenge not being distracted by nearly anything teenage girls were doing.
Would teachers who are new mothers be nursing their children during classes? If you think that it?s a preposterous suggestion, that?s exactly what occurred in one of my children?s kindergarten classrooms. Maybe this is what our public policy should be, but with 5 minutes or less for Senator Roskam to ask his questions and 10 seconds to decide, my ?common sense? said don?t pass this into law so quickly.
I say: Huh? I went to school many moons ago, but none of the teachers I had EVER had a baby with them in the classroom. And, while I never had a fellow student with a baby, methinks that they are not permitted in class either. I don’t think that you can bootstrap this language to mean that babies were permitted where they weren’t otherwise permitted simly because of the breastfeeding. And if so, just change the lanuage to say that its permitted everywhere babies are permitted, not everywhere MOM’s are permitted.
A pretty weak defense, if you ask me.
Bizarrely the teacher issue isn’t completely out of line as a question–and that was what it was. But I think the point that the bill was being passed too quickly is a very good one. Often times legislation in Springfield is passed with little concern for the practical effects. Taking a bit more time would get it right in some cases and it isn’t unreasonable to say slow down as Lauzen seems to be. Now, usually Lauzen is great for comic relief, but I think he has a point about passing legislation that might have unintended results. I’ll give him credit for wanting to think it through a bit.