Two legislative committees are right to set aside all 11 bills submitted this session proposing changes in Maine’s foster care and child-protective services and instead to call for reviews of the entire system. The recent death of a 5-year-old girl in foster care and the horrific circumstances under which it occurred make it clear the time is past for tinkering.

Certainly it must be acknowledged that Department of Human Services staff who work in child-protective services have the toughest, most thankless job in government and that the overwhelming majority of foster parents are miracle workers. Helping abused, neglected and troubled children is an undertaking in which success goes unrecognized while failure is publicly reviled.

Still, it is disturbing that a system so long criticized, that for years has been such an unrelenting source of anger among biological parents and relatives, foster caregivers, educators, child-development experts and the general public needs the death of a 5-year-old to spur comprehensive reform. It is important that little Logan Marr did not die in vain, but it is equally important that her death not be used for short-term, cynical political gain and then forgotten. It would not be the first time.

The particulars of Logan Marr’s case are shocking: death by asphyxiation, alone in a high chair in a basement, a piece of duct tape over her mouth; a home video made just a month earlier recorded her complaint of abuse that was never investigated; the accused, Sally Schofield, was a foster caregiver with a fine record and a former DHS employee.

The aftermath has brought a torrent of proposed remedies from the public and even nationally known children’s advocates – Maine needs to do more to keep kids with their biological families, it needs to investigate abuse claims more quickly, it needs more caseworkers with smaller case loads.

Maine may need all those things. To do them, Maine would also need something it does not have – a Legislature that will focus upon truly important matters and remain committed to the solutions its works out.

Recent Maine legislatures, the current one included, have a dreadful record in this regard. It has been clear for years that Maine has a few overwhelming problems with which it must deal, like education, economic development and health care, yet the Legislature continues to bog itself down with thousands of irrelevant, even silly, bills. It has long-standing, unmet financial needs, like the need for more child-abuse investigators, yet lawmakers cannot resist handing out unproductive tax breaks, free licenses of every type and other assorted goodies to any constituent that asks.

It was less than a year ago that lawmakers appointed a commission of experts to develop an educational technology plan. The commission presented its final plan just two months ago to enthusiastic lawmakers. Some of those same lawmakers, in an appalling display of expediency, today have voted to gut that plan in favor of not raising the tax on cigarettes.

So now lawmakers from the Judiciary and Health and Human Services committees will form commissions that include those involved in the child-protection system. The commissions will take several months to conduct their work and, combined, are likely to propose sweeping changes. This is commendable only if the Legislature somewhere finds the leadership and the discipline to follow through. Perhaps, in Logan Marr’s memory, it will.