Then House Appropriations Chairman Bob Burns, R-Glendale, got hold of it. Burns doesn't like welfare, he doesn't like spending state money on social problems and he won't hear such proposals in his committee. Burns refused to give Day's bill a hearing and killed the program. Legislative leaders tried to save face by substituting a scaled-down plan in the last days of the session. Just say no.
Day is philosophical about the outcome.
Something is better than nothing and nothing was all the Legislature had ever done. For the last decade, any debate on any kind of family planning bogged down in the abortion debate. Until Senate Bill 1073 became law, the state had no teen pregnancy prevention program at all. Hearing different viewpoints took time, and crafting a program took compromises, but the task force finally wrote a plan. The state Department of Health Services would help schools and community groups set up one of two programs.