Democratic Congressman Ritchie Torres says several failures led to River's death last month.
They included a lack of adult supervision, inadequate safety inspections, no fencing around the pool, and no alarms on the doors or in the pool.
Torres said that "River's Law" would ban swimming pools at residential day care facilities.
"It would require residential day care centers to be equipped with alarms," Torres said. "There is no greater act of negligence than the neglect of an infant or toddler who is left within falling distance of a swimming pool."
So far, no charges have been filed against the day care owner in Rivers' death.
The 47-year-old day care operator told police she was cooking food when River got out of the house through the back screen door on August 1.
Torres said the family was catastrophically failed by the broken residential day care system.
He said he has such little faith in state inspections of day cares that there was no choice but to introduce this new law.
"We want River back. But I also want my sister back. And her husband. Once a family loses a child, their entire world is destroyed. We're hoping this law will prevent that from happening to any other family," the toddler's aunt, Inemesit O'Boyle, said.
"They were failed by safety inspectors who were too late and too slow in uncovering the conditions that led to River's death. And the price paid for failure of our broken system is the death of a toddler. We have tools at our disposal as civil litigators," Torres said.
The family's attorney is digging into the matter after state records show inspectors visited the home unannounced in May, two and a half months before the drowning.
They found no violations.
"And then when poor little River drowns, they come and do an investigation and find 9 different violations. Some of them could not have been created between May and now. One of the violations was the proximity of the pool to the building. So that was clearly there in May and was not picked up," family attorney James Williams said.
Torres says CDC data shows drowning is the leading cause of accidental death for toddlers, and most of them are in residential pools.
If River's Law passes, it would mean if you have a swimming pool, you would no longer be eligible for a day care license.
Torres is seeking the legislation at the federal level but is calling on his colleagues in the state to pass the law.
If a day care fails to install alarms or has a swimming pool, it would be considered illegal and would make the owner criminally and civilly liable.
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