10 April 2019 — 1852 mdt
Why is the MT Senate protecting school lunch shamers and
the counter-productive suspension of driver’s licenses?
Two good bills that passed the MT House by wide margins are bottled-up in MT Senate committees — and calls to blast the bills to the floor reportedly are not being heeded.
HB-217, short titled “Remove suspension of driver’s license as punishment for certain crimes,” and carried by Republican Rep. Casey Knudsen (HD-33), was approved 65–29 on its third reading on 15 March. It has support from the right and left, from the American Legislative Exchange Council, from the American Civil Liberties Union. But on 5 April, it was tabled in the MT Senate’s judiciary committee, which also tried to kill Hanna’s Act.
HB-414, which would outlaw shaming school children because their parents were behind in payments for school lunches, and carried by Democratic Rep. Jessica Karjala (HD-48), passed the MT House 67–32 on 27 February. A month later, it was tabled by the MT Senate’s education and cultural resources committee. Karajala isn’t optimistic the bill will be removed from the table or blasted out of the committee:
I asked for it to be blasted, but heard the Senate isn't blasting anything.
— Jessica Karjala (@JessicaKarjala) April 10, 2019
Suspending driver’s licenses for non-driving offenses is stupid
Writing in the Billings Gazette, Ronald Lampard of ALEC noted:
In 2018, the state suspended the driver’s licenses of an estimated 14,000 people, including those who were too poor to pay their fines and fees. If someone owes a debt to a court and has not had any other infractions other than being unable to pay their fines and fees, then they should be able to discharge their obligation via other means, such as performing community service.
HB-414 allows people to drive to work to earn the money to pay their fines and fees. Why in hell does the judiciary committee think that’s a bad idea?
Lunch shaming is official thuggery
At the transmittal break, I noted that HB-414 was still alive and wrote the following:
What do loan sharks and some public school administrators have in common? A belief that an effective way to collect debts from deadbeat adults is by harming their children. On the street, the sharks’ collection thugs send the children home with a black eye and a warning that if pappy doesn’t pay his gambling debt, junior will suffer a broken arm. In the schoolhouse, an unpaid school lunch debt results in lunch shaming, the reprehensible and cruel practice of singling out children with lunch debts for public humiliation.
Billing Democrat Rep. Jessica Karjala is carrying a bill, HB-414, that would outlaw lunch shaming in Montana. Last week it passed the MT House 67–32 on the third reading. As introduced, it was opposed by the Montana School Boards Association. As amended (and weakened), it was grudgingly supported by the association. It also received support from the Montana Medical Association.
In my judgment, the bill has three significant defects. First, it retains for administrators the option of sending a scarlet letter home with students whose lunch accounts are in arrears:
Section 1 (2). A school district shall direct any communications regarding a student’s unpaid debt for previously served school meals to the student’s parent or guardian only. Nothing in this subsection prohibits a school district from sending a notice that is addressed to the student’s parent or guardian home with the student. [Highlighting added.]
Sending a letter home with the student is not a scheme for saving postage. It’s a scheme for singling out students:
Crystal Jarek, a retired teacher in Lee County, Fla., said she remembered the staff taking debt notices to class. “The cafeteria staff would come in at noon, wearing their hairnets, and hand out letters,” she said. “All the kids would turn around to see who was getting one.” [New York Times]
The sentence beginning “Nothing in this section prohibits…” should be removed from HB-414. Send the letter via the U.S. Postal Service. Do not conscript students for delivering “Pay up, you irresponsible deadbeat” bill collection letters.
The second defect is the absence of a section forbidding school districts from turning school lunch accounts that are in arrears over to collection agencies. The MT Senate should add such a provision.
The third defect is the absence of penalties for violations of the anti-shaming law. The MT Senate should add criminal penalties to the bill, including a mandatory day in the hoosegow for shamers.
The fundamental problem, of course, is the imbecilic way American schools provide meals for students. Hungry students have slow brains. That’s why enlightened school systems, such as in Sweden, provide students with breakfast and lunch, rolling the cost into the cost of education and not equipping a school’s cafeteria with a cashier. But in our balkanized school system, there are various sources of funding for school meals, including means tested subsidies for students from low income households (whose families must endure the indignity of confessing to being too poor to pay for their child’s school lunch). This results in gratuitous administrative complexity, inevitable mistakes and embarrassments, never ending problems with school lunch financing, and a surplus of sanctimonious proclamations about personal responsibility and having skin in the game. HB-414 forbids hurting students to collect money from their parents, but it does nothing to reform our bad system for financing school meals.
Both bills need to be blasted out of their committees and passed into law. Send that message to your legislators right now, loud and clear.