The Utah Legislation is winding down with only two weeks left in the session. Castle Country Radio was able to speak over the telephone with Representative Christine Watkins to talk about House Bill 271, which increases the number of children that a child care provider can care for without obtaining a residential child care certificate.

“Right now, our law says that regardless of how many kids you have of your own at home, you can only have four kids in your home and still not be licensed, not have to go through all that work of getting licensed. Well, this bill if won’t go into effect until next January, so it gives everybody some time to make adjustments but you can have up to six kids,” stated Representative Watkins. Individuals providing child care will only be allowed to have two children under the age of two years old and four older than two years of age at a time in the home without needing a license.

“It’s up to six over and above your own kids. So, if you’ve got two kids at home, you can bring in six extras if you’d like to babysit them. Most moms know what they can handle and they try to get to know that kids so they know whether they can really only handle two of their own and four of someone else’s. There are a lot of people that this was one way to make some extra income if they got laid off or their husband got laid off was to be able to bring children into their home and take care of them while their parents are working,” stated Representative Watkins. This bill is currently on its way to a committee in the Senate.

Now for House Bill 227, Self Defense Amendments address the justifiable use or threatened use of force. “What we’re doing is we are flipping what we do right now. If someone breaks into your home, threatens to harm you, and you use a lethal weapon like gun to protect yourself, you shot them, maybe you kill them, then right now you’re the one that has to prove that you did it in self-defense. We’re flipping that so that the prosecution has to with clear and convincing evidence that you didn’t do it without evidence. So we’re adding one more step, we’re adding kind of a pre-trial,” stated Representative Watkins. This is a big change that comes from a Florida law and the bill is currently on its way to the Judicial Senate Committee.