In March 2024, Kelli and Austin Emry welcomed their son Logan, a little brother for their toddler Mila and the final piece of the family they had always wanted. Born with a full head of black hair, Logan was a healthy, happy baby who thrived in his first weeks of life.

When Kelli returned to her job as a physical therapist assistant, she arranged for her son to attend an in-home day care — the same place she sent Mila. The owner had been in business in Idaho for decades and came highly recommended by several families.

On June 10, 2024, when Logan was just 11 weeks old, Kelli received a panicked call at work. Racing to the day care, she arrived to find emergency vehicles lining the street. Inside, she learned the unthinkable: Logan was dead.

The next day, the coroner’s report confirmed that the baby had died of asphyxiation. Logan had been left unattended for more than three hours in a separate room, with his face positioned too close to a firm pillow that obstructed his breathing.

A state investigation revealed that the provider had been caring for 11 children alone — far exceeding Idaho’s legal requirement of one staff member per six children, especially with infants present. (The National Association for the Education of Young Children recommends a maximum of four infants per staff member in day care settings, while some states like Maryland and Hawaii limit it to three.)

Idaho already has the second least restrictive child care regulations in America, according to a study released last year by West Virginia University. In February, Republican lawmakers introduced a bill that would loosen regulations even further, making Idaho the first in the nation to abolish maximum staff-to-child ratios in day cares — precisely the safety standards Logan’s provider had fatally violated eight months earlier.

The ensuing fight exposed a widening partisan gulf in American child care policy. Idaho’s bill represents the outer reaches of a growing national movement to deregulate the child care sector — a campaign that maintains that fewer rules might make child care more affordable, more accessible, and even boost birth rates. Wisconsin, Utah, and South Dakota have recently increased the maximum number of children each provider can legally supervise. And states including South Carolina, Iowa, and Kansas have relaxed their qualification requirements for child care workers.

​​This deregulatory approach is gaining momentum on the federal level, too. The Trump administration recently tapped Alex Adams, Idaho’s director of health and welfare — the agency overseeing child care rules and licensing — to join the Department of Health and Human Services. If confirmed to his new post at the Administration for Children and Families, Adams will oversee billions in federal funds for early learning and child care.

At its core, the debate is about whether expanded government support or deregulation is the best way to solve America’s child care crisis. Yet this isn’t just about cutting red tape. Behind the regulatory battles lies a conservative vision reshaping the future of child care — one that restructures the market to prioritize less expensive home-based programs, de-emphasizes professional credentials and academic curricula, and backs more mothers staying home to raise their children.

Idaho has a severe labor shortage, with just 53 available workers for every 100 open jobs. Business leaders say a lack of child care is hampering the economy by preventing them from hiring parents into vacant roles. More than a quarter of Idaho parents say child care has affected their employment, according to one US Chamber of Commerce Foundation report, which also found that the resulting absences and business turnover cost the state $65 million in tax revenue every year.

Roughly half of Idaho women of childbearing age remain outside the workforce, according to Alex LaBeau, the longtime president of the Idaho Association of Commerce and Industry. “The number one issue [in our survey] was lack of available child care,” he told me. “Not quality, not any of those questions — child care just didn’t exist.”

Such issues aren’t unique to Idaho. Across the country, businesses lose anywhere from $400 million to $3 billion annually due........

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