Almost every day in the news we find examples of nanny statism that almost seems like something from the Onion humor site. Common sense seems to have fled those precincts in which liberals and Democrats reside.
The latest example comes from California, in which a bill, pushed hard by Democrats, has already passed the Assembly and is moving through the Senate there. It would require fill-in babysitters to allow your actual babysitter to take a break every two hours. I kid you not:
Under AB 889, household “employers” (aka “parents”) who hire a babysitter on a Friday night will be legally obligated to pay at least minimum wage to any sitter over the age of 18 (unless it is a family member), provide a substitute caregiver every two hours to cover rest and meal breaks, in addition to workers’ compensation coverage, overtime pay, and a meticulously calculated timecard/paycheck.
The bill is sponsored by gay activist Democrat Assemblyman Tom Ammiano (above) from San Francisco. There’s usually a gay-versus-straight angle to nearly everything self-professed gay activists do (see his policy preferences on his Wikipedia page), but darned if I can see it here. This is just nanny-state boneheadedness.
