E-Newsletter/Week in Review (12/31/08): Fathers & Families Files Federal Suit to Block New Mass. CS Guidelines
Fathers & Families Files Lawsuit to Stop New Massachusetts Child Support Guidelines
Several years ago Fathers & Families scored a major victory in Massachusetts, getting child support obligations reduced by an average of 15%. This victory has saved Massachusetts noncustodial parents over $1 billion since 2001.
Unfortunately, now noncustodial parents are under attack, as child support guidelines are being greatly increased.
Fathers and Families has filed suit in Federal District Court in Boston to stop the scheduled January 1 implementation of new Child Support Guidelines. The suit seeks a temporary injunction halting the use of the new guidelines until a full hearing can be held. It will be heard before Judge D.P. Woodlock on Monday, January 5 at 10 AM in courtroom 1.
Fathers and Families needs a big war chest to pursue its legal offensive. Please support this effort with your tax-deductible gift to Fathers & Families, by clicking here. If you make your gift today, it is still eligible for a 2008 tax deduction. For those of you outside of Massachusetts, remember that a victory here could establish precedents that will help you in your state.
If you are in the Boston area, you must make it a point to attend the hearing on Monday. Judge Woodlock needs to see that our position has broad support. If you “leave it to the other guy,” it won’t happen. The hearing is expected to last between thirty and sixty minutes. Directions can be found here.
Fathers & Families’ attorney Gregory Hession of Springfield argues that the new guidelines were not formulated using the actual costs of raising a child, as required by federal law, and are thus “arbitrary and capricious.” The pleadings before the court assert that the process used to put together the new guidelines violated the due process and equal protection rights of the payers of child support, as protected under the United States Constitution. Additionally, the state bypassed the normal legislative process by having a secret committee prepare them and a single judge declare them to be law, in violation of the Massachusetts Declaration of Rights.
The new guidelines will cause almost all child support orders to increase substantially -- when all factors are considered, middle-class recipients will enjoy a standard of living almost double that of payers who earn about the same amount. In some cases, child support orders will triple, even in cases in which the payer is poor and the child is economically comfortable because the custodial parent earns over $100,000. And in high-income cases, the child support order for one child could be nearly $50,000.
You can read the legal Complaint by clicking here, and the Memorandum of Law by clicking here.
Fathers & Families Executive Director Ned Holstein, MD, served on the commonwealth’s Task Force that recommended the new guidelines, but authored a minority report dissenting from the main recommendations. Dr. Holstein said, “The new guidelines will harm children. Kids want to live with both parents after divorce, and we want them to be well cared for in both homes. But these new guidelines will create a ‘castle versus a hovel’ situation for kids. These increases are radical and unexplained. They come at the worst possible moment, just as a bad recession is causing people to lose their jobs or suffer declining incomes. Our lawsuit is a way of saying, ‘Let’s pause and reconsider the wisdom of these controversial changes at this moment.’”
Help support this important legal fight with your tax-deductible gift to Fathers & Families by clicking here.
To comment on this issue, click here.
CA. Assembly Speaker Karen Bass Writes on GlennSacks.com about Her Father
In my March post Anti-Father Bias at the Los Angeles Times I wrote:
The Los Angeles Times article "Next speaker enjoys broad support" (3/2/08) details the rise of Karen Bass (pictured with California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger), the incoming leader of the California assembly and the first African American woman to be elected to lead a legislative house in the U.S. The piece was a nice example of the subtle and not-so-subtle societal bias against fathers and fatherhood. The article begins:
"Anyone who knew Wilhelmina Bass might understand why her daughter Karen Bass, the Los Angeles Democrat elected Thursday as the next leader of the California Assembly, has devoted her Capitol career to making the state a better parent to its 80,000 foster children.
"A former beauty salon owner who raised Karen and three boys in a well-appointed house in the Venice-Fairfax area, Wilhelmina Bass was a kind, poised, contemplative mother, and 'the notion that people would come into this world and not have loving parents has always caused Karen pain,' said Sylvia Castillo, Bass' district director and a friend for three decades."
We all know the script: heroic, overwhelmed black mother raises her kids herself, and now one of them has done mama proud by making good in the world. Yet, believe it or not, Bass actually had a father, too.
It is only much further down in the story, after we are already assuming that Bass was raised by a single mom, that we are told, "She credits her father, DeWitt, a mail carrier, for making her a 'news junkie' -- Bass said she used to wake at 4:30 a.m. to listen to the radio with him before he began his route."
In fact, in the autobiographical information that Bass herself provided the Democratic Party, she wrote, "Karen has dedicated her life to improving our neighborhoods. Her father, DeWitt Bass--a letter carrier for 40 years--and mother, Wilhelmina, raised Karen and her three brothers in the Venice/Fairfax neighborhood."
In other words, Bass saw herself as being raised by both parents, and it even seems like she was at least a bit of a daddy's girl. Why did the Los Angeles Times choose to place far more importance on her mother than on her father?
I was publicly criticized for this post, but according to Bass herself, I had it right. Recently Bass posted the following on my blog in response:
Glenn you wrote this several months ago after I was elected to be the 67th Speaker of the Assembly. I just read it for the first time today.
It was very interesting to me because I felt the same way when I read the article---it was a very nice piece but leaving out the role my father played in my life could not accurately represent my life.
You were right---I have always been proud that I had a wonderful father who was absolutely the reason I got involved in politics in the first place.
As an African-American it was also very important to accurately portray my family----a stable working class family with two loving parents.
Thank you,
Karen Bass
NOW Action Alert Calls for 'Cabinet-Level Office on Women in the Obama-Biden Administration'
Great--just what we need, a federal, cabinet-level "Office on Women" to address the "many inequities that women face in our society."
This is the standard feminist line--puff up the disadvantages women face, while completely ignoring the disadvantages men (particularly fathers) face.
From the National Organization for Women's 12/22 Action Alert Urge Obama to Establish Women's Office at Cabinet-Level:
Imagine an Office on Women in the Obama-Biden administration -- not just any old office, but one at the Cabinet level, putting women "at the table" in a very tangible way. We can make it happen!
Recently NOW helped organize a coalition of nearly 50 national groups which sent a letter to President-elect Barack Obama and Vice President-elect Joe Biden urging gender balance in executive appointments and advocating the creation of this new Office on Women. This office would address not only the status of women, but also the many inequities that women face in our society, our nation, and our world. The director would hold cabinet rank and report directly to the president. Establishing this office would be another historic first for Obama and a giant leap toward equality...
Because women, especially women of color, are differently affected by so many laws and policies -- from health care to the economy -- it is critical that women be taken into account as the new administration makes key decisions. Women need an advocate at the policy-making table whose specific responsibility is considering and weighing in on the possible impact of these decisions on women's opportunities for advancement. A Cabinet-level office is the most effective way to accomplish this goal.
The Office on Women would seek new ways to foster the full potential of tens of millions of women and girls of all races and from all walks of life -- through policies, budgeting, inter-agency coordination and special initiatives. Let's face it, many of our federal programs were designed at a time when women's roles in our society were very different, and these programs need to be reviewed and reassessed.
To learn more, click here.
Dr. Helen Interviews Tenn. State Rep. on Paternity Fraud Bill (Video)
Dr. Helen (pictured) writes:
I interviewed State Rep. Stacey Campfield for PJTV on his bill which seeks to petition to the court to disestablish paternity after DNA evidence reveals a baby was not sired by the man on the birth certificate. His bill is going back before a Republican Congress in Tenn. next year and he thinks it may pass this time.
I think if changes to laws like this can be made at the state level, it will be a great triumph for men's reproductive rights.
The video from PJTV is here or get it via Dr. Helen's site here.
I appeared on Dr. Helen's PJTV show a couple weeks ago--to watch, click here.
A Small Step
The State of Georgia has decided to put up the above billboards to promote marriage and active parenting by both parents. It probably won't change the world, but it's worth doing and should be done more.
The anti-dad crowd won't like it of course. They'll tell us that no one should be forced to stay married to an alcoholic, drug-using, abusive spouse, etc. as if that's the only reason people get divorced.
The truth is that the culture has, for over three decades promoted the false idea that divorce is consequence free. It may be for adults, but it's not for kids.
The billboard above is the truth: Children do better with parents together.
Here's an article on the billboards (ABAJournal, 11/24/08).--Robert Franklin
Some of the other issues I'm covering this week include:
'Nobody except Dad was willing to help him, and he would remember that as long as he lived'
Curt Schilling: 'My Father Was the Glue That Held My Family Together'
'A Christmas Carol's' Bob Cratchit--A Kind, Loving Father & Husband (Video)
Bernie Madoff - Doing his part to keep the innocent in prison
'It was your dad that answered all those letters that the kids wrote to Santa every year'
XMas 1943: 'I just had to have a bike. I can remember pleading with my dad for one'
Jesuit Priest: St. Joseph's Important Role as Jesus' Father Has Traditionally Been Minimized
Julie Baumgardner: 'Women don't spend much time thinking about how they treat their husbands'
A Christmas Recommendation for Parents of Small Children
'What’s the point of working if you can’t spend it? So I let him work for it and I spend it'
To comment on what I've written or to join the lively discussion on my website, simply click on the "comments" link below each blog post on my website.
Best Wishes,
Glenn Sacks
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