A dirty shame in the Legislature

The Daily Inter Lake

The Montana Legislature is grappling with some big issues this session.

There's the perennial challenge of school funding facing legislators. And an unusual issue this year is dealing with a massive budget surplus.

Beyond those, our legislators are considering a variety of options for tax changes, ranging from local-option sales taxes to tax rebates to property-tax reductions.

And of course they're pondering weighty legislation on paper towels.

Yes, paper towels.

Every year there are many less-than-pressing issues that surface on the Legislature's busy agenda. A leading candidate for honors in the category of "Why is the Legislature wasting its time on this?" would be the paper-towel mandate.

Senate Bill 2 would require the Department of Public Health and Human Services "to adopt rules requiring the use of paper towels in public restrooms."

This noble legislation contains clauses such as: "Whereas, the presence of paper towels in public restrooms could result in improved hygiene and a reduction in the transfer of bacteria and infectious agents."

Requiring paper towels would, therefore, "reduce the spread of illness and result in improved employee productivity and fewer school days lost to illness."

We don't mean to belittle the value of public hygiene, but we have to question if there aren't more important things to occupy the time of our representatives. And one also has to wonder how many extra state health workers would be needed to enforce this law in the myriad restrooms across Montana.

Pushing paper towels is just one example of the many well-intended yet inconsequential proposals that surface every session.

Sometimes those good intentions, however, result in legislation that is not just a bother but a problem.

That's the case with House Bill 217, which would require that children be raised with their parents' values when the youths are in foster care. The bill would make the state prepare and implement a "parental values plan" whenever a child is placed in temporary care.

Foster parents would be required to use parents' "values, wishes and desires" in decisions about children's education and religious upbringing.

Apart from the obvious difficulty of enforcing such intrusive legislation, this bill seems to overlook a major concern: Children are removed from their parents for a reason - and that reason often involves parenting problems.

In following this legislation, does that mean that the "parental values" of a meth dealer or a sex offender or domestic abuser should be taught to the children? What values would those be?

The unintended consequences of this bill could be horrific, so we hope it doesn't advance far.

In the meantime, let's take this opportunity to remember that the Legislature does not convene for the purpose of trying to impose rules on every aspect of our lives. Some things can be resolved with common sense and common decency much better than with uncommon laws.