Gottwalt P3wns Nannystaters...

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Score one for common sense:

ST. PAUL — Parental control and child safety concerns clashed Monday in the House of Representatives in a debate about infant child care.

A requirement for child care providers to lay infants on their backs unless parents get a written note from a doctor fell by the wayside. Rep. Steve Gottwalt, R-St. Cloud, successfully argued it represented too much government intrusion.

The requirement was aimed at reducing the incidence of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome in child care facilities.

Gottwalt got an amendment passed to HF 3376, a bill dealing with welfare and chilcare assistance, taking out the proposed requirement on a 88-42 vote.

“Instead of a parent having to go get a doctor’s permission and the extra cost involved with that, a parent can write a letter to the day care provider themselves that they don’t want their child placed on its back,” he said. “The requirement adds complexity and cost and does not, in itself, protect infants.”

Gottwalt’s amendment won unanimous support from St. Cloud-area lawmakers on both sides of the aisle, but was decried by Twin Cities DFLers who argued that the state licenses child care providers and therefore must ensure it sets the best safety standards for them.

Thank God for Steve Gottwalt for blocking what could have been yet another liberal "good intentioned" paving stone on society's road to hell. Whether it's global cooling, global warming, bio-fuels, government-run health care, or any other trendy cause du jour in which the cure is inevitably exponentially worse than that the ill, one can be certain to find a "good-intentioned" liberal chicken-little nannystater at the bottom of it all.

We need more Gottwalts in St. Paul and elsewhere.