The recycling craze in California has made its way into legislation that, again, seeks to dictate to and punish parents who choose to discipline their children by spanking them.
The pro-family lobby Capitol Resource Family Impact says the new version of a recycled bill promoting a "spanking ban" from last year's session of the California legislature would place any parent who spanks his or her child on four-years minimum probation and force the parent to attend a "non-violent parental education class." AB 2943, introduced by Assemblywoman Sally Lieber, would also give the child a criminal court protective order "protecting the victim from further acts of violence or threats." Capitol Resource Family Impact (CRFI) says it is essentially identical to last year's AB 755, the highly-publicized measure that drew enough national attention for it to be defeated because of the outrage of parents. The group claims terms used in the bill to denote "physical pain or mental suffering" are ambiguous and include references to a stick, rod, switch, belt and other items (an electrical cord, extension cord, broom, and shoe) that they do not think most parents would use. A news release from CRFI says parents were angered enough last year that a lawmaker without any children thinks she knows better than parents how to raise their children, and the lobby group suspects that a similar effect can take place this session if voters are informed. AB 2943 should be appearing on the Assembly Public Safety Committee agenda in the next few weeks.
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