In another example of legislating by anecdote, House Democratic Leader Franklin Sands filed a bill to let nursing mothers off the hook for jury duty.

Sands filed the bill (HB 79) after hearing from a breast-feeding constituent who wasn’t allowed to bring her baby along to jury duty.

Emily Schmitt sent the Weston Democrat a lengthy e-mail describing her tale of woe after showing up for jury duty in Broward County and being “completely demeaned, disrespected and humiliated” by workers who told her to pump her breastmilk in the bathroom like other nursing mothers have done in the past.

“That’s just plain wrong,” said Sands.

Florida law now currently excuses from jury duty pregnant women and parents who don’t work full time and have custody of children younger than 6 years old.

Sands’ measure, which would add lactating mothers to that list, was approved by a committee yesterday.

The Senate companion bill has yet to be assigned for a committee hearing.

Tags: Florida House, Florida legislature, Franklin Sands

This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 4th, 2009 at 4:16 pm and is filed under legislature, State House, State Senate. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.