The House passed a bill that could cost motorists caught using their cell phones while driving a lot of money.

Taking a call or text messaging behind the wheel soon could cost Bay State motorists several hundred dollars under a harsh new proposal overwhelmingly passed by the House yesterday.

The bill would ban cell phone use and text messaging for junior operators but would allow adult drivers to use hands-free devices.

Launched in the wake of the death of a 13-year-old Taunton boy killed in a crash involving a text-messaging SUV driver, the bill would make it a $100 fine for drivers nabbed gabbing on a cell phone or text messaging. The second offense would be a $250 fine, and the third offense would carry a $500 penalty.

But the fines are only the tip of the iceberg, as the House proposal calls for a onetime $600 insurance surcharge for a first offense. And junior operators would have their licenses suspended for up to a year if caught texting or yakking behind the wheel.

While I can agree with having harsh penalties for junior operators caught using cell phones in any capacity while driving, the only winners from this pending legislation are the insurance companies.

State Rep. Brian Wallace, who was one of 47 lawmakers who voted against the proposal, said he opposes the lofty insurance penalty.

“I thought the surchage was a bit much. It’s high,” said Wallace (D-South Boston).

Wallace said he hopes the Senate will “knock it down” to a more reasonable amount.

“I think they’ll change it. I don’t think it’ll stand up,” Wallace said.

Rep. James Fagan (D-Taunton) also opposed the measure, dismissing it as a “stupid” and “rotten” insurance company giveaway that would further hamstring cash-strapped motorists.

The question still stands in my mind about how drivers will be "caught" using their cell phones and with what proof. Being seen by an cop holding your hand up to your ear doesn't necessarily mean you were on your cell phone, which are a lot smaller these days than they used to be. Are we going to be required to surrender our cell phones to cops who pull us over to check our call logs?

Where does it end? Where does it begin? These are questions I'd like to know the answers to.

And so it begins...the Legislature is pushing a bill that will levy fines against people using their cell phones while driving.

Drivers who yak or text on their cell phones on the road could be hit with fines or have their licenses suspended under a bill making its way through the State House.

A key legislative committee approved the bill yesterday. The legislation goes to the full House of Representatives today.

The bill would allow cops to pull over drivers they see talking on their cells or thumbing text messages. Drivers who use hands-free headsets and voice-activated phones would be exempt.

Adult drivers would face $100 fines for the first offense, $250 for a second offense and $500 for a third offense.

New teen drivers with junior operator licenses would face fines and the suspension of their licenses if caught talking or texting on their phones.

How completely useless this would be. We all know how long it takes for a cop to pull you over and actually get out of the car. Is that not enough time to end your phone call, or send your text message and put the phone away? How can they prove you were actually sending a text message, or talking on the phone, without examining your phone as well? Since you started reading this, how many things have you thought of to tell the cop what you were doing instead that just looks like you were on the phone? You say hands-free headset users will be exempt? Just because you wear a hands-free headset, doesn't mean you are completely void of holding and browsing your phone.

You can't legislate intelligence. Until such time they can write laws making all citizens smart enough to be safe and use their brains, or they write a bill that actually makes sense, they can keep their stinking paws (and laws) off my cell phone.

There is renewed effort by the legislature to ban text messaging while driving.

The death of a 13-year-old Taunton boy last month has prompted new calls to ban text messaging while driving.

Craig Bigos of New Bedford told police he was sending a text message to a friend when he swerved and struck Earman Machado, who was riding his bicycle along the side of a road. Bigos drove off after the accident but later turned himself in.

At least two bills pending before the Legislature would ban the use of hand-held cell phones while driving. Several lawmakers say they would consider adding a provision specifically dealing with text messaging to those bills, or filing a standalone bill to ban text messaging while driving.

State Representative Stephen Canessa of New Bedford says the recent fatality is a tragic example of what can happen when drivers become distracted.

I can understand the merit behind such a bill, and I would certainly be guilty of sending text messages and sending emails while driving. However, this seems more like an excuse to aimlessly pull over drivers suspected of being "distracted" by any number of things, text messaging included.

I'm not convinced this kind of legislation will work--but I suppose we'll have to see what our leaders on Beacon Hill come up with.

The legislature is taking up a proposal to raise the minimum dropout age of students from 16 to 18.

Yeah, I liked the idea when Kerry Healey was talking about doing that last year.

...no, not out of the budget, but out of schools.

Junk food will head to the junk heap in Bay State schools if a bill to be pushed by top health experts on Beacon Hill today succeeds in banning fatty and sugary foods from school vending machines, bake sales and fund-raisers.

Backers of the junk food bill say it sets statewide standards, forces students to eat better and cuts down on ads kids see each day.

“These are habits that last a lifetime,” said Eric Weltman, spokesman for the Massachusetts Public Health Association, one of the backers of the bill, which would also ban corporate food and soda marketing inside school walls.

Is this for real? Are the junk food police going after bake sales and fund-raisers now?

...State Rep. Peter Koutoujian (D-Newton)...filed the bill that sets nutritional standards for foods in school vending machines, stores, bake sales and fund-raisers, including:

1.25 ounce limits on bags of chips, crackers and popcorn; 2 ounces for cookies and cereal items.

No sports drinks, such as Gatorade.

No snacks with more than 30 percent of calories from fat or 7 grams of fat maximum.

To totally limit the food that can be sold is a bit much. It's easy to take candy away from a baby, but it's tough to take candy from a teenager. Perhaps giving these kids a choice, rather than taking away all the tasty high calories snacks is the way to go. And perhaps, maybe focus more attention on physical education and nutritional health in school would be a start.

Let's not forget the role parents play in the health of their children. Shoving vegetables and salads down the throats of kids during school can only do so much if they sandwich those meals between fast food and junk food while at home.

The campaign to bring tougher sex-offender laws to the Commonwealth began yesterday, reports the Boston Herald.

A Bay State group that advocates for tougher sex-offender laws yesterday kicked off a campaign to push lawmakers to pass stringent anti-child-predator legislation fashioned after Florida’s landmark Jessica’s Law.

“We want mandatory minimums for these crimes,” said Laurie Myers, president of Community Voices. “I just think that the courts aren’t doing their jobs.”

The organization has formed Citizens for Jessica’s Law in Massachusetts in hopes of getting action on a recently filed bill that would create mandatory minimum sentences for crimes such as rape with force and posing a child in a state of nudity.

For more information, please visit Community Voices.

In an attempt to combat the "no snitching" mentality that is pervading, a new bill being proposed would make witness intimidation a crime.

Young teenagers who intimidate witnesses could be sentenced as adults and face up to 10 years in prison under a bill proposed by Norfolk County District Attorney William R. Keating and supported by other prosecutors as they struggle to overcome an anti-snitching culture that they say has made it difficult to hold criminals accountable.

According to Keating and his colleagues, younger and younger teenagers are threatening witnesses but face no serious consequences because juvenile laws carry relatively lenient penalties.

The bill, which is supported by several key lawmakers on Beacon Hill and Attorney General Martha Coakley, would add witness intimidation to the list of crimes that would subject 14- to 16-year-olds to prosecution as a "youthful offender," which strips them of most protections of juvenile court and subjects them to adult penalties. Currently, there are a handful of offenses in this category, including serious crimes committed with a gun, while murder automatically leads to prosecution as an adult.

This sounds like something that make sense, but how will this be enforced? Can it be enforced? How do you prove someone is guilty of witness intimidation without avoiding the same problem that exists today? Someone has to point their finger at someone else, don't they?

Could there be a better way?

With all due respect, City Councilor Yancey, the last thing we need right now is another paid holiday for state employees.

City Councilor Charles Yancey wants a new state holiday marking Juneteenth Independence Day, marking the end of the last vestiges of slavery in the United States 141 years ago.

Yesterday the City Council passed Yancey’s nonbonding resolution urging state lawmakers to adopt the June 19 legal holiday statewide, joining 19 other states and the District of Columbia.

“We thought it was something the African-American community deserves,” Yancey’s spokesman Kenneth Yarbrough said.

Juneteenth commemorates June 19, 1865, when in Galveston, Texas, Union Gen. Gordon Granger announced the freedom of all slaves in the Southwest region of the country, according to the National Juneteenth Observance Foundation’s Web site. The move came two years after the Emancipation Proclamation issued by President Abraham Lincoln.

Yancey also blasted President Bush for declining to participate in the annual national Juneteenth observance in Washington.

“Every U.S. president, who has had the privilege to serve the people of the United States should recognize that forced, unpaid labor was used to build the White House and the Capitol,” Yancey said in a written statement.

Yarbrough said Yancey will send the resolution to members of the Black Legislative Caucus and other lawmakers on Beacon Hill to start the process of seeking a permanent recognition.

Thousands of petitions have been sent to the president seeking to make the occasion a national holiday. The date is also often used by activists seeking federal reparations for slavery to hold rallies and other events.

Isn’t it all too convenient that June 19th occurs on a Monday this year... on a Tuesday in 2007, a Thursday in 2008, and Friday in 2009. I can see three- and four-day weekends in the future for all the state employee hacks. In 2010, “Juneteenth” occurs on a Saturday, which means the state could choose to "observe" it on the following Monday. Is it me, or does City Councilor Yancey just want another three-day weekend between Memorial Day and the Fourth of July? Sorry, but state employees have enough paid holidays at the taxpayers expense, and from what I know of the habits of many of these state employees, they are not working too hard on most other days either. Trying calling up a random department on a Friday afternoon or a Monday morning and you'll know what I'm talking about.

You want Juneteenth as a day off, then nix one of the other bogus days off all you non-working state employees take; or make it an elective holiday. I don't want anyone using an additional state holiday (using my tax dollars to pay for, by the way) to demand bogus, undeserved and ridiculous reparations.

No more state holidays. You state employees get enough as it is. Get back to work, lazy bums.

Our Senate President Robert Travaglini unveiled his plan to provide workers up to 12 weeks of paid time off to care for newborns or adopted children.

The family leave portion of the plan, touted as one of the most generous such policies in the nation, would be paid for using a fund that employees, not employers, contribute to.

It would allow employees to get their full salary, up to $750 a week, during the leave and also cover time off to care for sick family members.

Travaglini also proposed increased tax deductions for people with dependents under the age of 12, people over 65 and the disabled.

He wants to increase the $3,600 deduction for each dependent to $5,000 annually and to increase the yearly deductions for child care expenses from $4,800 for one child to $10,000, and from $9,600 to $15,000 for two.

Travaglini estimated the cost would be $67 million to $70 million.

So instead of businesses paying people to not work, employees will be hit with a new "child care tax." Is this Travaglini's way of appearing to pro-business at the expense of being against the taxpayers? When did it become my responsibility to pay for someone else's kid? As a taxpayer, I do that plenty already. This proposal is a joke, and will hurt the largest employers in the Commonwealth, small businesses. The National Federation of Independent Business agrees.

“For a small business one person is a very substantial part of the work force,” [Bill Vernon, state director for the National Federation of Independent Business] said. “The idea that one person can be paid fully for 12 weeks leave and then be guaranteed the job back, that’s a very substantial impact on a company with three of four employees.”

He also worried the fee on employees could shift to employer.

“The Massachusetts economy has a lot of issues with growing jobs. This would just be one more,” Vernon said.

According to Travaglini's plan, employees would pay a $1.50 to $2.50 per week premium that would go into a fund that would pay for the time off. So let's a small business of 6 employees puts in the maximum of $2.50 per week into this new "child care slush fund." That's $130 per employee per year, which is $780 going to the slush fund for a typical year. Let's say one of those employees has a child. 12 weeks off, paid the maximum of $750 per week, is $9,000. Not to mention the lost productivity of 12 weeks less an employee, you're talking about a serious blow to a small business that would inevitably be required to pay the difference, $8,220 in the first year. In this same example, those 6 employees will have pay into this "child care slush fund" for nearly 12 years so that one employee can take 12 paid weeks off. And who's going to pay for the employee's share of health care insurance costs? Will this paycheck be taxable? God help us if the plan would create this as a state tax that goes into one large state “child care” fund…the last thing we need is another social security type boondoggle.

When people make the decision to have children, it's their decision, and their burden--not mine. Employers and employees already bear enough burden when someone goes on maternity or paternity leave; asking them to help pay their salary during the time their co-workers are changing diapers and feeding their new children is too much to ask.

This plan sucks.

Illegal immigration being a hot topic of the day, Lt. Governor Kerry Healey, the Republican Gubernatorial hopeful, says she'd like the American borders to be sealed.

American borders should be sealed so the country can take stock of its illegal immigration problem and begin deporting criminals, Lt. Gov. Kerry Healey said yesterday.

“What I’d like to see happen is for the federal government to seal our borders, figure out who’s here illegally - we think it’s 11 million people but it could be many more - and then find a process by which we can sort through who could be an appropriate American citizen,” she told the Herald.

The Republican candidate for governor didn’t endorse one of the various immigration crackdowns being hotly debated in the nation’s capital, but said she was pleased the federal government was stepping up. States have so far borne “the costs and dangers of illegal immigration,” she said, naming education and health care as two costs. Gang members should be deported, she added.

A Healey aide later clarified that Healey doesn't want to literally seal the borders to all immigration, rather, she'd like to see border security beefed up. That did not stop Democratic candidate for governor Deval Patrick to attack her.

“Sealing the borders? Let’s be more serious about problem solving and honest with voters about what we can do,” Patrick said in a statement.

Patrick said he supported legislation sponsored by U.S. Sens. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) and John McCain (R-Ariz.) that would help legalize many illegal immigrants.

A spokesman for Democratic candidate Tom Reilly declined to comment.

Smart move for Reilly--though we already know he sympathizes with illegal immigrants. Back in the fall, Reilly said he would rally legislators to support a bill that would allow children of illegal immigrants to pay in-state tuition. The House voted it down 96-57.

Healey's position is as expected for someone with a law enforcement background, and I frankly agree with it. However, looking at the situation from a realistic point of view, the likelihood of any hardline position on illegal immigration passing on Capitol Hill is slim to none. That said, I would say that more people would steer towards Healey's position than Deval Patrick's position, which is essentially amnesty.

Polls indicate that most Americans see illegal immigration as a huge problem and most do not favor amnesty, and now both Tom Reilly and Deval Patrick have gone on the record either sympathizing with illegal immigrants, or supporting amnesty for illegal immigrants. Could this have an effect on the election? Generally, Democrats cater to polling data, but now it appears they are appealing to their lunatic fringe base. Kerry Healey is certainly on the better side of this issue.

Following a series of fatal crashings that involved teenage drivers, some in Massachsetts believe it's time to raise the driving age.

NewsCenter 5's Kelley Tuthill reported Tuesday that a Statehouse committee is working on a bill that would raise the age at which teens can get their licenses to 17½.

"We need to figure out how we can reach out to our young people," Lt. Gov. Kerry Healey said. "I am very open to looking at proposals to change the driving age. I am also probably even more interested in looking at opportunities to make driving safer for teens. I think that teens often get distracted. I am very interested in the proposals about limiting cell phone use."

But age isn't the only problem. Experience is important too. If the driving age is going to be raised, then teenagers should be able to have their learner's permit starting at 16 or 16½.

I think the less teenagers out driving the better, but an inexperienced driver at 17 can't be much worse than an inexperienced driver at 16.

Following a series of fatal crashings that involved teenage drivers, some in Massachsetts believe it's time to raise the driving age.

NewsCenter 5's Kelley Tuthill reported Tuesday that a Statehouse committee is working on a bill that would raise the age at which teens can get their licenses to 17½.

"We need to figure out how we can reach out to our young people," Lt. Gov. Kerry Healey said. "I am very open to looking at proposals to change the driving age. I am also probably even more interested in looking at opportunities to make driving safer for teens. I think that teens often get distracted. I am very interested in the proposals about limiting cell phone use."

But age isn't the only problem. Experience is important too. If the driving age is going to be raised, then teenagers should be able to have their learner's permit starting at 16 or 16½.

I think the less teenagers out driving the better, but an inexperienced driver at 17 can't be much worse than an inexperienced driver at 16.

With many tragedies, solace can be found in knowing that through one tragedy, another can be prevented. The murder of Imette St. Guillen has that opportunity.

Following last week's indictment of Darryl Littlejohn, many people continue to struggle with the fact that this sad story could have been prevented. Attorney Michael M. Shapiro of New Providence, New Jersey, has published an article advocating our elected leaders to pass legislation requiring all bar owners to conduct a background check before hiring any bouncer, a simple task that had been required, Imette St. Guillen would still be attending classes today, and not be front page news.

Anyone who has been to a bar or club has likely seen a bouncer, that usually hulking tough guy who stands at the door checking identification and dealing with rowdy patrons. The bouncer is responsible for the safety of many individuals: from preventing underage people from entering the bar, to protecting bar patrons from unruly fellow customers, and protecting the bar, its people and its property from being victimized by rowdy guests. To at least some extent, the bouncer is empowered to regulate behavior both verbally and physically. While bar owners would be foolish to hire a bouncer without conducting a criminal background check, most do not do so. There are few laws regulating the hiring or conduct of bouncers. In the memory of Ms. St. Guillen, our elected leaders should pass legislation requiring all bar owners to conduct a background check before hiring any bouncer.

Of course, there will be opponents to such a law. Bar owners will object. First, they will argue that the cost is prohibitive. However, a basic background check that will provide a bouncer’s criminal history may be obtained from numerous investigative companies for approximately $100.00 -- a small price to pay to make sure convicted criminals are not “bouncing” at your bar. Furthermore, insurance costs for bar owners will likely decrease and bar owners will be more likely to be protected from civil litigation if they have taken precautions to screen their bouncers. Second, bar owners will argue that if they screen bouncers, soon they will be forced to screen bartenders and others. However, bouncers are the individuals with verbal and physical “power” at the bar; these employees are being empowered by the bar owners to regulate behavior of customers. The bartender plays no such role. Any law that regulates the hiring of bouncers would be limited to only bouncers. Advocates for reformed criminals will also object to the law because it will basically prohibit former criminals from serving as bouncers, eliminating a potential source of employment. While reformed criminals have paid their dues, employing a former criminal in a position that involves potential violence and judgment is not justifiable.

While Imette will never graduate from John Jay and pursue a career in criminal justice, we can honor her memory by enacting legislation that will ensure bouncers are adequately screened before being employed. Had Imette’s alleged killer been screened, she may be alive today. Our elected officials should enact Imette’s Law without delay.

Scholarships, foundations and memorial funds can only do so much--effective legislation--properly enforced--can make a difference.