Children shouldn’t be exploited as cheap labor

The history of this nation is regrettably rife with stories of children being exploited, exhausted, injured and robbed of their educational potential by employers who saw them as little more than commodities.

For all too brief a time, Florida leaders viewed that as a bad thing.

They voted, often overwhelmingly, for laws that were even stronger than federal protections.

Now, however, this state’s lawmakers appear eager to join other states that are abandoning those safeguards one by one.