Jonathan Paton for Congress

Jonathan Paton's Child Protective Services reforms can be directly linked to saving the lives of at least 33 local children, according to Tucson police.

In a report last night by KVOA Channel 4, Tucson police said the series of laws that Paton passed following the deaths of Tucson children Ariana and Tyler Payne and Brandon Williams have allowed them in better track children and intervene in situations where children otherwise would have died or remained at risk.

"Something that was a real tragedy became a cause. That cause became legislation and that legislation, and that law, is now saving childrens' lives," Paton told KVOA.

One of the children profiled by KVOA is 11-month-old Ava Milone, who was found along with her two siblings. "Detective Greg Wright says all three could have been killed by the dozens of heroin needles they were exposed to," KVOA reported.

Background: After the 2007 deaths of Brandon Williams and Ariana and Tyler Payne, Sen. Paton asked to review records from the cases and was troubled by what he found. He called for bipartisan hearings to investigate the cases and craft changes to law to prevent the mistakes in these cases from happening again.

In one case, according to records, caseworkers were concerned about the child's safety before he died, but policies prevented them from taking precautions like filing a missing-persons report after the child and his mother disappeared. In another case, CPS handed two children over to their father even though a court order prevented him from having custody. Their father was later convicted and sentenced to death.

In the end, Sen. Paton's reforms opened disciplinary records of state employees, changed how CPS deals with prosecutors and required missing persons reports be filed when children can't be found.

Sen. Paton's reforms earned him a "Freedom of Information Award" from the Arizona Newspaper Association for making government more transparent, an honored bestowed on him three years in a row.