Jun. 20--TALLAHASSEE, Fla.-- Saying it would promote "a false sense of security," Gov. Jeb Bush on Tuesday vetoed a bill that would have required inspections of cribs in hotels to meet safety standards. 

The veto prompted a stinging rebuke from the bill's champion, who accused him of risking infants' lives. 

"For the governor to be an obstacle to protecting babies when they sleep in cribs is baffling," said Sen. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Weston. "There are parents who creep into their babies' rooms at night to make sure they are breathing. This bill would have made those parents rest a little easier." 

Bush said he rejected the bill because there is no evidence of a crib-related death or injury in a hotel crib. And he said requiring inspections of cribs at hotels and motels could lull parents into believing a crib is safe -- when it might have been improperly assembled. 

It's wrong, Bush said, to suggest an inspection is "somehow going to create safer cribs, when the evidence that has been accumulated shows it's the faulty assembly of these cribs that creates the problem." 

But Wasserman Schultz, who argued that children have been killed in hotel cribs, said it's the potential for suffocation and strangulation that should be addressed. 

"When you're talking about the potential death of an infant, I don't think you want to rack up a lot of statistics," she said. 

The senator, who has 2-year-old twins, noted the measure was popular with parents, who she says laughed when she asked them about the condition of cribs in hotels they visited. 

The governor, she said "must be staying in some pretty ritzy hotels." 

The bill, dubbed the Florida Infant Crib Safety Act, would have prevented the sale of used cribs that do not meet current national safety standards, either because the crib was manufactured before the regulations were implemented in 1973 or because through wear and tear the crib no longer complies with the standards. 

Garage sales and antique cribs wouldn't have been included in the law. 

Bush said he agrees the state "should prohibit the sale" of older cribs that don't meet safety regulations. 

But he rejected the provision that would require inspections of cribs being sold in the marketplace, along with those being used by child-care providers and in hotels, to ensure they meet the standards. 

Wasserman Schultz said she'll reintroduce the legislation today. 

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