Do we need another bill to make a teacher-student relationship a felony?

A California lawmaker announced legislation Tuesday to make it a felony for a K-12 teacher to date a student regardless of age, as reported by the Sacramento Bee. Find the entire story here.

Assemblywoman Kristin Olsen, R-Modesto, introduced Assembly Bill 1861 after news broke that Enochs High School teacher James Hooker, 41, had started a relationship with 18-year-old student Jordan Powers. Hooker left his wife, resigned his job and moved in with Powers.

According to the report, Hooker and Powers deny having started a relationship before she was 18. The bill would not affect their case, which is still under investigation.

This is one of those proposed laws that make you scratch your head. There's already many ways you can prosecute an adult that's having an unlawful relationship with a minor -- regardless of how they met, via school, church, etc. They're called statutory rape laws. Do we really need more, repetitive laws in the books? When we have our jails busting at the seams? When we are spending so much more money in the prison system than in schools?

You probably remember the case of Raul Ramirez, the former assistant principal who held an inappropriate relationship with a student in Salinas. He's looking at 19 years in prison having pleaded no contest to 18 felony counts. Eighteen. No need for another felony law. There's already enough ways to punish these people.

We don't need