 |
Add to My Group
How the Failure of Welfare Reform Created Our Lawless Courts
By Terri Lynn Tersak (about the author) Page 1 of 5 page(s)
For OpEdNews: Terri Lynn Tersak - Writer
How and why does this keep happening with such great predictability? That is because our family law operation is that way by design.
Our states' family law statutes are not designed to dispense justice or operate in "the best interest of the child." Nor are they the true governance over the daily operations of our courts. Rather, the states family law statutes are designed to ensure the operations of their family courts leverage the maximum return from a vast array of federal grant sources. Most of the programs providing the grant money to family law were major parts of our failed welfare reform effort of the 1990's.
The legislatures of most of our states have abnegated their authority over the operational guidelines of their courts to committees under their Supreme Courts. These committees produce and manage the states' courts guidelines, rules and procedures that govern the day-to-day operation of the state's family courts and that of the court personnel and, in effect, attorneys practicing within them.
These guidelines, rules, and procedures your own attorney will claim they must work within have nothing to do with actual laws. Remember the separation of powers? That's right. It is against the law for our courts to legislate. So the guidelines, rules and procedures that govern our courts operation aren't laws. But don't fool yourself; they do have the full effect and force of law.
To be certain nothing can stop this feeding frenzy off the federal teat, the states have excluded the operation of the courts from their respective Sunshine laws. So you can't find out in advance what they are planning to do in the next revision. Therefore, you have no say in the matter except after the fact. This for all practical matters is no say at all.
This then raises the question: What was your attorney doing when he or she said you have a "winnable" case and why isn't he or she filing civil rights violations claims when you get slaughtered? Upon interviewing several dozen family law attorneys throughout the country, my group True Equality Network came to the astounding conclusion that they do not actually practice law at all. Family law attorneys are merely "processors" within a system of very constrictive procedural guidelines.
So your defeat will be due to the practice of law without governing laws.
Then what are these elusive guidelines, rules, and procedures constructed to do? That's simple. They are designed to make certain that rulings are made that generate the highest return from an assortment of federal "incentive programs."
It is important to note that the states actually have no legal requirement to do what is required of most, if not all, of the federal incentive programs. Those requirements are only applicable if the state wants to apply for the federal moneys a given program provides.
When the basic concept of "if you violate someone's civil rights so I make money, I'll give you some of the money" is applied in the private sector we call it, payola, bribery, or maybe even racketeering, depending on the specifics of what was done and how it was done of course. However, when government violates your civil rights under the color of law it is called an incentive program.
Once the states get the money they can apply it to a host of state level programs, such as retirement funds for court workers and judges and performance incentives for court workers such as child support case administrators.
This has proven to make seeking a fair ruling or other actions within the family courts, like reasonable child support orders, much like asking the county employees involved to take a voluntary pay cut. This also keeps the attorneys inline, since they too know they would be asking the judges to take a pay cut and that won't help them win their next case.
The failure of "welfare reform" is found in its core principle of basing the federal incentives primarily on the money the state's collect in child support, not primarily on the percentage of cases they collect successfully.
Since the adoption of the laws collectively known as welfare reform -- Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRAWORA) and its ugly step siblings, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) and the Child Support Performance and Incentive Act (CSPIA) -- the states have adopted a mindset of taking as much money as possible from their citizens who are almost always parents of minor children to get even more from Uncle Sam.
Take action -- click here to contact your local newspaper or congress people:
Stop the Feds from paying the States to Destroy Our Families
Click here to see the most recent messages sent to congressional reps and local newspapers
http://www.True-Equality.org
The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author
and do not necessarily reflect those of this website or its editors.
 Contact Author |
Contact Editor |
 View Authors' Articles |
by Reginald Wilson
$9.95
Number of pages: 113
Publisher: Walker
by Reginald Wilson
$5.95
Lowest New Price $14.75
Number of pages: 123
Publisher: Walker
by Alan Sussman
$2.50
Number of pages: 251
Publisher: Avon Books (Mm)
by William Curtis Lowe
$28.60
Lowest New Price $4.99
Number of pages: 104
Publisher: Rourke Pub Group
| 3 comments |
Want to post your own comment on this Article? 
|
||||
|
||||||||||||||
Must Read (0) 
Well Said (0) 
News (0) 
Touching (0) 
Funny (0) 
Supported (0) 
Interesting (0) 
Inspiring (0) 
Valuable (0) Tell a Friend:
|
Copyright © 2002-2009, OpEdNews |
