Umm, GOP: When Did You Become the Pro–Child Labor Party?

In mid-September, Rep. Dan Kildee, Democrat of Michigan, wrote then-House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and other congressional leaders urging them to pass Biden’s supplemental funding request adding $100 million to enforce child labor laws. The letter was co-signed by 36 members of a House Child Labor Prevention Task Force that Kildee created in July with Hilary Scholten, Democrat of Michigan. How many Republicans signed the letter? The same number as joined the Child Labor Prevention Task Force: zero. With the exceptions of South Carolina’s Rep. Nancy Mace and Indiana Sen. Todd Young, no Republican has agreed to co-sponsor any of the many bills Democrats introduced this year to crack down on child labor. And given Mace’s hard-right turn in recent weeks (with an eye, according to Jake Lahut and Sam Brodey of The Daily Beast, of becoming Trump’s vice presidential pick), it seems doubtful she would co-sponsor any such bill were it to cross her desk today.

Rather than move to crack down on child labor, Michael Sainato reported last week in The Guardian, the GOP is busy introducing bills to loosen child labor regulations. No fewer than 16 states have introduced such laws in the past two years at the instigation of the Foundation for Government Accountability, a right-wing, Koch-funded think tank based in Naples, Florida. Nine of these bills were signed into law in Michigan, Iowa, Tennessee, Arkansas, New Hampshire, and New Jersey. (Michigan passed three such laws and Iowa passed two.)

Now pro–child labor bills are getting introduced in Congress. Rep. Dusty Johnson of South Dakota, a Republican, introduced the “Teenagers Earning Everyday Necessary Skills Act,” co-sponsored by Republican Reps. Troy Nehls of Texas, Matt Rosendale of Montana, and Tracey Mann of Kansas. The bill would expand allowable working hours for teenagers aged 14 and 15 from 18 hours per week to 24 hours per week and would let them work until 9 p.m. during the school year. Currently, they may work only until 7 p.m. during the school year. Meanwhile, Senator James Risch of Idaho introduced the Future Logging Careers Act, co-sponsored by Republican Senators Mike Crapo of Idaho, Susan Collins of Maine, Tim Scott of South Carolina, and John Cornyn of Texas, and also by Maine independent Angus King. This bill would reduce protections for children in logging families to allow 16 and 17-year-olds to participate in logging work.