Missouri lawmakers are considering legislation that would require convicted drunken drivers to pay child support for children orphaned by their crimes. The idea is the brainchild of a Missouri grandmother who is raising two of her grandchildren after their parents — her son and his fiancee — were killed by an alleged drunken driver.

Cecilia Williams is on a crusade to get all 50 states to enact "Bentley's Law," named after one of her surviving grandkids. The Tennessee House passed it unanimously last week, which should stand as a challenge to Missouri legislators: Make Missouri the first state in the nation to get this eminently just and reasonable law onto the books.

It was a night last April when Cordell Williams and Lacey Newton of Bonne Terre, and their 4-month-old son, Cordell Shawn Michael Williams, all died after their car was rear-ended, hit a tree and caught fire in Jefferson County. The other driver, David Goss Thurby of Fenton, then 26, told police he had had "seven shots of Crown and water," according to court documents. His blood-alcohol level was more than twice the legal limit. Thurby is awaiting trial this fall on felony driving under the influence and other charges.

Williams is now raising the couple's two surviving children: Bentley, 5, and Mason, 3. The legislation she has championed in Missouri and around the country would make convicted drunken drivers financially responsible for providing support to children whose parents die as a result of the crime.

Under Missouri House Bill 1954, a court would decide the level of support based on circumstances, with payments lasting until the child is 18 — or until 21, if the child is enrolled in college. Should the perpetrator be incarcerated for the crime during some or all of the kids' childhoods, and so unable to pay, the full total payments would still have to be made upon the person's release from prison, including payments in arrears.

It's a tough sanction with a solid rationale. Drunken drivers who kill on the roads come from all walks of life, aren't generally destitute or unemployed and, as a matter of legal reality, tend to serve less prison time than those who take lives in other ways. But none of that diminishes the devastation they inflict upon families.

"The offenders who kill the parents have to have some kind of responsibility," Williams told lawmakers on Monday, as reported by the Post-Dispatch's Kurt Erickson. "When you take that money away from them, it's a constant reminder."

Making drunken drivers financially responsible for addressing some of the derailment they cause in young lives is an idea that should appeal across partisan lines. The logic behind the idea is why Tennessee, Illinois and numerous other states are pursuing similar statutes. Missouri, as the cradle of the proposal, should be far out in front on this one.

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