Evan Bayh on Families & Children Democratic Jr Senator (IN)

Government cannot substitute for families

Voted YES on killing restrictions on violent videos to minors.

Give parents tools to balance work and family.

Strengthen America’s Families
While the steady reduction in the number of two-parent families of the last 40 years has slowed, more than one-third of our children still live in one- or no-parent families. There is a high correlation between a childhood spent with inadequate parental support and an adulthood spent in poverty or in prison.

To strengthen families, we must redouble efforts to reduce out-of-wedlock pregnancies, make work pay, eliminate tax policies that inadvertently penalize marriage, and require absent fathers to pay child support while offering them new opportunities to find work. Because every child needs the attention of at least one caring and competent adult, we should create an “extended family” of adult volunteer mentors.

Family breakdown is not the only challenge we face. As two-worker families have become the norm, harried parents have less time to spend on their most important job: raising their children. Moreover, parents and schools often find themselves contending with sex- and violence-saturated messages coming from an all-pervasive mass entertainment media.

We should continue public efforts to give parents tools to balance work and family and shield their children from harmful outside influences. For example, we should encourage employers to adopt family-friendly policies and practices such as parental leave, flex-time, and telecommuting. Public officials should speak out about violence in our culture and should press the entertainment media to adopt self-policing codes aimed at protecting children.

Goals for 2010
• Cut the rate of out-of-wedlock births in half.
• Recruit a million mentors for disadvantaged children without two parents.
• Provide affordable after-school programs at every public school.
• Make every workplace “family-friendly.”
• Promote policies that help parents shield their children from violence and sex in entertainment products.

Small Business loans for child care businesses.

A bill to create a 3-year pilot program that makes small, non-profit child care businesses eligible for SBA 504 loans. Amends the Small Business Investment Act of 1958 to allow the proceeds of loans made through the Small Business Administration (SBA) to local development companies for plant acquisition, construction, or expansion to be used to assist small, nonprofit child care businesses, provided that: (1) the loan will be used for a sound business purpose approved by the SBA; and (2) each business receiving the assistance meets eligibility requirements applicable to for-profit businesses.

Rated 33% by the Christian Coalition: an anti-family voting record.

The Christian Coalition was founded in 1989 by Dr. Pat Robertson to give Christians a voice in government. We represent millions of people of faith and enable them to have a strong, unified voice in the conversation we call democracy.

Our Five-Fold Mission:
1. Represent the pro-family point of view before local councils, school boards, state legislatures, and Congress
2. Speak out in the public arena and in the media
3. Train leaders for effective social and political action
4. Inform pro-family voters about timely issues and legislation
5. Protest anti-Christian bigotry and defend the rights of people of faith.

Disallow renting violent-rated video games to children.

OFFICIAL CONGRESSIONAL SUMMARY:

• Prohibits a business from selling or renting any video game with a "Mature", "Adults-Only", or "Ratings Pending" rating to any individual who has not attained the age of 17 years.
• Authorizes the FTC to conduct an annual secret audit of businesses to determine how frequently minors who attempt to purchase such video games are able to do so successfully.
• Whenever the FTC determines that the content of a video game is inconsistent with the rating given to such game, it shall take appropriate action under its authority to regulate unfair or deceptive acts or practices in or affecting commerce.

SPONSOR'S INTRODUCTORY REMARKS: Sen. CLINTON: I rise today to introduce a bill to help parents protect their children against violent and sexual media. I stand with the parents and children of the Nation, all of whom are being victimized by a culture of violence.

As parents, we monitor the kind of people who interact with our children. If somebody is exposing our children to material we find inappropriate, we remove our children from that person. Yet our children spend more time consuming media than doing anything else but sleeping and attending school. Media culture is like having a stranger in your house, and it exerts a major influence over your children.

This bill would take an important step towards helping parents protect their children against influences they often find to be inappropriate--violent and sexually explicit video games. Quite simply, the bill would put teeth into the video game industry's rating system, which specifies which video games are inappropriate for young people under 17. By fining retailers who do not abide by the ratings system, this bill sends a message that the ratings system is to be taken seriously.

LEGISLATIVE OUTCOME:Referred to Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation; never came to a vote.

Call for a White House Conference on Children and Youth.

The White House Conference on Children and Youth in 2010 Act - Directs the President to call a White House Conference on Children and Youth in 2010 to: (1) encourage improvements in each state and local child welfare system; and (2) develop recommendations for actions to implement express policy regarding federal, state, and local programs. The Congress finds the following:

1. In 2005 there were over 3,000,000 reports of child abuse and neglect, and only 60% of the children from the substantiated reports received follow-up services and 20% were placed in foster care as a result of an investigation.
2. Almost 500,000 children and youth were in foster care at the end of 2004 and nearly 800,000 spent at least some time in foster care throughout the year.
3. There is an over-representation of certain populations, including Native Americans and African-Americans, in the child welfare system.
4. The State courts make key decisions in the lives of children involved in the child welfare system, including decisions of whether children have been victims of child abuse, whether parental rights should be terminated, and whether children should be reunified with their families, adopted, or placed in other settings.