Gov Rell vetos junk food limit in schools

Another win for the soda companies and junk food lobbyists, another loss for parents. I can't think of one parent that can be happy that the soda machines are going to stay in their childern's schools.

From the New York Times:

Gov. M. Jodi Rell exercised her veto powers on Tuesday for only the third time, rejecting a bill that would have restricted the sale of some snack foods and beverages in all public schools and required a minimum of 100 minutes a week of recess for younger students.

Mrs. Rell, a Republican, criticized the bill in a statement for "usurping the longstanding authority of our local school districts," and said the proposed legislation "undermines the control and responsibility of parents with school-aged children."

The bill had passed the General Assembly, which is controlled by Democrats, by wide margins, mostly on party lines. It would have put Connecticut at the forefront of efforts by several state governments to reduce the sale of high-calorie, low-nutrition soft drinks and snacks that are sold in public school cafeterias, in school stores and in vending machines located inside the schools.

[...]

Nutrition advocates were dismayed. Lucy Nolan, the director of End Hunger Connecticut, said the governor had not just let parents down, but "failed them miserably."

Soda companies, she said, "are using local control as the argument to keep the sodas in the schools," and she said the governor "bought their argument hook, line and sinker.

[...]

One Democratic supporter of the bill, the Senate president pro tem, Donald E. Williams Jr., went so far as to call the governor "out of touch" for rejecting a bill that had the support of "pediatricians and parents who want better health for their children."