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#11
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"Bob Whiteside" wrote in message ink.net... "Werebat" wrote in message news:q1k%d.66018$7z6.21714@lakeread04... This is the first chapter of an interesting book: http://www.supportguidelines.com/book/chap1a.html And it mentions an interesting idea: "Some commentators believe that given the continually expansive role of the federal government into heretofore matters of family law that were the exclusive province of the states, it is surely only a matter of time until the federal government adopts a national child support guideline model." I wonder if it might not be a GOOD thing for NCPs if the federal government DID implement a national child support guideline model. Oh, I'm sure it would be as unfair, clunky, and cumbersome as anything the states have now, and you can be sure it would be based on recommendations from Policy Studies, Inc... But it would also provide the scattered men's rights groups with a unifying target to take aim against, instead of keeping them divided and conquered. Instead of trying to fight 50 different sets of state laws, they'd only be challenging one (albeit federal) set of laws. We already have a national CS guideline model. The program started in 1974 with passage of Title IV-D of the Social Security Act that tied together Aid to Dependent Children and CS. In 1984 Congress added services to non-ADC family CS laws. In 1988 Congress passed the Family Support Act adding paternity establishment, use of CS guidelines, mandatory income withholding, and periodic review of CS orders. In 1996 ADC was replaced with TANF, and changes were made to paternity establishment, use of locator services, added enforcement tools, and rules on how collects would be dispersed. 2/3 of the costs of implementing the CS guideline system are paid for by the federal government. Federal incentive payments to the states reward additional money to the states for compliance with federal CS programs. We have federal laws regarding felonies for crossing state lines to avoid paying CS, we have a federal $4 billion computer system to track everyone who works, we have federal systems to track interstate CS orders, and we have international treaties that facilitate enforcement of international CS orders. Anyone advocating for more federal involvement in CS, like a federal standardized CS amount, is asking for more problems than we have already. At least the current system allows for local state input into the guideline dollar amounts. There is already too much federal involvement in the CS guidelines. I totally agree with you, Bob. The fact that the terms "sensible" and "federal government" rarely belong in the same sentence. The main problem is that the further one gets from the source, the more difficult it becomes to see the problems. With solutions to problems depending on politics, which, like judicial rulings, have little in common with "justice", federal intervention into just about anything is always a disaster. Phil #3 |
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I think the fifty state models could actually help with 14th amendment
challenges to unfair CS awards. Georgia just declared their guidelines unconstitutional, maybe other states could follow? What about a challenge based on equal protection because state formulas differ so much? Just a thought.... |
#13
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"J" wrote in message oups.com... I think the fifty state models could actually help with 14th amendment challenges to unfair CS awards. Georgia just declared their guidelines unconstitutional, maybe other states could follow? What about a challenge based on equal protection because state formulas differ so much? Just a thought.... 14th amendment challenges to CS law have been tried repeatedly using different legal tactical approaches. While there has been some success in getting CS law ruled unconstitutional at the trial court level, the appellate process has consistently overturned the trial court judges. The legal logic used by appellate courts is the equal protection clause is not intended to provide equality among individuals. Instead, it is intended to provide equal application of the laws. Using this logic the courts rely on what they call a "rational basis." They conclude the state legislature had a rational basis for creating the law to support a legitimate state purpose and the law is being applied equitably. (In the case of CS law the legitimate state purpose is to provide for the care and maintenance of children of divorced or separated parents, or in the case of adult children attending school, to provide for an educated populace.) What fathers have been unable to accomplish is to come up with a legal argument that rises above the "rational basis" and get the courts to rule under "strict scrutiny" legal definitions. To get to the strict scrutiny level of decision making under the 14th amendment, fathers have to provide an argument that they are a "suspect classification" within society. The appellate courts have routinely denied all the arguments about fathers being a suspect class, and go back to the fact all divorced or separated fathers are treated the same way. I have always thought fathers rights advocates should switch their legal tactics away from how fathers are treated to attempts to show children and second families are really the suspect classifications. And the unequal treatment of subsequent children, step-children, second wives, etc. is where the real 14th amendment challenges could be successful. |
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J wrote: I think the fifty state models could actually help with 14th amendment challenges to unfair CS awards. Georgia just declared their guidelines unconstitutional, maybe other states could follow? What about a challenge based on equal protection because state formulas differ so much? Just a thought.... I'd heard the ruling in Georgia was overturned by their supremes... After reading more of the site mentioned in the OP, I can see at least that the site author has little intention of advocating anything sensible in the arena of 50/50 shared custody arrangements and CS. I am actually preparing a rebuttal to her essay that challenges a few points. Will post it here when it is ready. - Ron ^*^ |
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J -- I'd and I'm sure the rest of the group would be very interested in
seeing the link to where George just declared guidelines unconstitutional. "J" wrote in message oups.com... I think the fifty state models could actually help with 14th amendment challenges to unfair CS awards. Georgia just declared their guidelines unconstitutional, maybe other states could follow? What about a challenge based on equal protection because state formulas differ so much? Just a thought.... |
#16
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In article t, Bob Whiteside
says... "J" wrote in message roups.com... I think the fifty state models could actually help with 14th amendment challenges to unfair CS awards. Georgia just declared their guidelines unconstitutional, maybe other states could follow? What about a challenge based on equal protection because state formulas differ so much? Just a thought.... 14th amendment challenges to CS law have been tried repeatedly using different legal tactical approaches. While there has been some success in getting CS law ruled unconstitutional at the trial court level, the appellate process has consistently overturned the trial court judges. ==== In *state* appellate courts--And it does not necessarily follow that federal courts would rule similarly. ==== |
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I did not know it was struck down. I think the logic in the ruling that
it was unconstitutional stated that because the formula is fundamentally flawed and 85% of those affected are men, then it violates equal protection. If it was 50-50, who knows? |
#18
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The judge determined that the only credible evidence supporting the challenge was contained in: ...the study of custody awards in 14 south Georgia counties between 1995-97 conducted by Kent Earhardt, J.D., Ph.D., which found that, in 82.2% of contested cases, custody was awarded to the mother. It follows, therefore, that a support obligation under the Guidelines was imposed on the fathers in those cases. Ehlers v. Ehlers, 264 Ga. 668 (1994). There has been no credible challenge to the methodology or the result of the Ear[]hardt study. Therefore, this Court finds that men are adversely impacted by the Guidelines as applied to a grossly disproportionate degree, which constitutes an impermissibly discriminatory effect on a group based upon their gender. The points discovered in the FINDINGS OF FACT are as follows: 1. The Guidelines adopted by Georgia as originally designed by the underlying economic study were intended only for welfare situations - the current use for all situations was not the intended purpose. The underlying facts of the [original] presumptions ...no longer exist. The presumptive percentages were based only on data for low-income cases and were extended without the benefit of data for non-welfare cases. ..... 2. Georgia's presumptive awards rise as a share of obligor after-tax income. No child cost studies show child costs rising as a share of after-tax income. All child cost studies show child costs declining as a share of after-tax income. The state has presented no evidence that child costs rise as a perc[e]ntage of household net income. .... 3. There are no baseline components to the Guidelines. It is not clear what is being rebutted, therefore they are arbitrary and a due process violation. 4. The Guidelines do not take into account the large tax-related child cost offsets the custodial parent receives. .... 5. The presumptive award results in the custodial parent receiving a huge financial windfall - or profit - in excess of child costs. .... 6. The Georgia presumptive award does not allocate the child support burden according to the parents' relative ability to pay. ....The outcome is that the custodial parent does not contribute to child costs at the same rate as the non-custodial parent and, often, not at all. 7. Evidence presented ...show that the Guideline presumptive awards include such large amounts of hidden alimony (presumptive award less an economics based award) that a non-custodial parent is unable to provide for a child when in the non-custodial parent's care to the same extent as in the custodial parent's household. Presumptive awards have been shown to typically exceed total actual costs [of child raising] according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. ...Such excessive child support awards are not in the best interest of the child ...[and] leave[] the non-custodial parent in poverty while the custodial parent enjoys a notably higher standard of living. 8. The Guidelines are biased toward including hidden alimony for the custodial parent even when the custodial parent earns substantially higher gross income than the non-custodial parent. The Guidelines do not meet standards of fairness even for alimony. ... 9. The use of a range of percentages allows substantial opportunity for similarly situated individuals to receive dissimilar treatment. That is, different obligors with the same income can end up with presumptive obligations that differ by hundreds of dollars per month. ..... 10. The presumptive award for low-income obligors (for example, minimum wage workers) pushes low-income obligors below the poverty level. A presumptive award that leaves the obligor with less income than needed for basic living needs creates an extraordinary burden for the obligor and, potentially, an additional burden on taxpayers. This violates equal protection. This is contrary both to public policy and common sense. 11. The Guidelines do not take into account custodial parent income. The presumptive child support award does not vary with family income - only obligor income. This is not economically rational and violates equal protection. .... 12. Child costs of only the custodial parent are covered by the Guidelines. Similar costs incurred when the child is with the non-custodial parent do not receive similar consideration. ...Each parent has an equal duty to provide financially for the children when in the care of the other parent. ....in actual practice, typically the non-custodial parent is not absent and incurs substantial child costs that the guidelines do not require the custodial parent to contribute. This violates equal protection and does not meet the financial needs of the children when they are in the care of the non-custodial parent.... 13. Medical insurance costs are not treated the same for all obligors. The presumptive award includes typical medical expenses. The Guidelines allow the court to either treat an obligor's payment of the children's medical insurance as an add-on or as a credit toward the presumptive award. This dissimilar treatment violates equal protection. .....The difference between these alternatives is $140 per month for the obligor [Michelle Sweat]. 14. The Guideline criteria for deviation do not give any guidance on how to apply the deviations in a consistent manner. This is unconstitutionally vague and generally results in no deviations in most cases - even when the circumstances to deviate exist. 15. The Guidelines are arbitrary and bear no relationship to the intended federal purpose of determining an economically appropriate child support award. The Guidelines have no rational relationship to child cost data. ...The Guidelines do not take into account where the actual child costs are incurred - that is, which parent incurs what costs. The Guidelines do not take into account child costs net of tax benefit offsets. 16. The Guidelines bear no relationship to the constitutional standards for child support of requiring each parent to have an equal duty in supporting the child. 17. Which parent is the obligor and which is the obligee should be determined only after examination of the relevant factors - not before. The financial circumstances should determine which parent is obligor. The Guidelines arbitrarily presume that the obligor is always the non-custodial parent when the financial circumstances may indicate just the opposite. Importantly, mere classification before-hand of the obligor does not provide sufficient information to determine the economically appropriate award. The classifications of obligor and obligee are not rationally related to the intended purpose of the Guidelines of determining the economically appropriate award. 18. The Guidelines interfere with a non-custodial parent's constitutional right to raise one's children without "unnecessary" government interference. The Guidelines are so excessive as to force non-custodial parents to frequently work extra jobs for basic needs - detracting from parenting without state justification. Low-income obligors are frequently forced to work in a cash economy to survive as a result of child support obligations that if paid push the obligor below the poverty level. This is the result of automatic withholding of child support with payroll jobs and use of guidelines that presumptively push minimum wage obligors below the poverty level. As these workers are forced to "disappear" into unofficial society, these obligors are deprived of the constitutional right to raise their children without unnecessary government intrusion. In fact, any government mandate beyond basic child costs interferes with this right to privacy as occurs with the current guidelines. For the current case, the presumptive award pushes Ms. Sweat, the obligor, to just above the poverty level and below the poverty level if she pays court ordered bankruptcy payments. This is an extraordinary burden imposed on the obligor by the Guidelines. 19. In the present case, the earnings of the obligee, Samuel Sweat, significantly exceed those of the obligor. Nonetheless, the guidelines require the obligor, Michelle Sweat, to pay out a significant amount of her before tax income to the obligee, to whom this money will be tax free. The income of the obligee will be considerably increased, and he will have the tax advantages attendant to being a custodial parent. Additionally, the obligee will have the additional benefit of his new spouse's earnings. In the meantime, the obligor's net earnings will probably put her at or below the poverty line, and will in any event leave her with less than half of her earnings to live on. This scheme thus constitutes a windfall to the obligee and financial disaster to the obligor. Thus, any calculation of a support award under the Guidelines would be so far removed from any economically rational and apprpriate award that it constitutes a gross error well beyond any "mere imprecision." With respect to issues of equal protection, judge Perkins stated: ....The egregiously different burdens and benefits placed on persons similarly situated but for the award of custody, i.e., parents with the obligation to support their child(ren) and the same means for doing so as when they were married, has been explained at length above. This Court finds that such disparate treatment violates the guarantees of equal protection.... Relating to the right to privacy, he stated: ...it has been long recognized to apply to "family" concerns whether the family exists within the confines of marriage or not.... ....by requiring the non-custodial parent to pay an amount in excess of those required to meet the child's basic needs, as the economic analysis has shown, the Guidelines impermissibly interfere with parental decisions regarding financial expenditures on children. ..... In regard to unconstitutional taking of property, he stated that the state-induced poverty in which Michelle Sweat finds herself will prevent her from being able to afford to buy the court transcripts that she'll need, if required, to make an appeal, and therefore ordered the State of Georgia to pay for the required transcripts. Furthermore, he stated that, in "seeking to impose an award under the Guidelines against Ms. Sweat for the purpose of the state continuing to receive federal funds," Georgia's Department of Human Resources' action "constitutes a public taking for a public purpose." About recent supporting foreign opinion, the judge stated: One issue of equal protection is taking into account all of an obligor's dependents - not just those involved in the instant case. .....Any formula for deviation on this matter that Georgia DHR may have is not presumptive, is not statutory, and is not applied statewide in all cases in which an obligor has additional dependents other than those in the instant case. ...Guidelines without such presumptive formula likewise violate equal protection requirements as related to multiple family situations and are unconstitutional. With respect to the constitutionally acceptable child support standard, the good judge stated that, This Court finds, as a matter of law, that a constitutionally sound standard for the determination of child support guidelines can readily be determined. First, it must acknowledge the principle ...that both parents are obliged to support their children in accordance with their relative means to do so. The Supreme Court of the United States has provided ample reason to conclude that any guideline discriminating against either parent would be found constitutionally defective. ....The decisions of our sister States in holding unconstitutional statutory presumptions that custody of children of "tender years" should be awarded to the mother is also persuasive. ....Procreation is both a joint act and a joint responsibility. Secondly, it must conform to long-acknowledged limitations on government intrusion into the rights of families....That is, the government's interest in family expenditures on children, whether that family exists before or after the dissolution of marriage, or even in the absence of marriage, is limited to insuring that the children's basic needs are met. Not extravagances, not luxuries, but needs. Once that occurs, government intrusion must cease. ... The third and final criteria is that the means chosen for the purpose of determining need and allocating each parent's respective responsibility in meeting that need, whether in the form of a presumptive guideline or otherwise, must be based on a rational relationship between the predicate facts and the conclusion(s) directed. .... This standard is not dissimilar to the former needs vs. ability to pay standard, but with the additional criteria that the needs are not excessive, the ability to pay is that of both parents and that the method of calculation is economically rational. As explained above, the Guidelines fail miserably in meeting these standards. CONCLUSION In light of the Georgia child support guidelines being unconstitutional, Michelle Sweat shall not be required to pay Samuel E. Sweat any child support based upon her gross income of $1,862 per month, the father's gross income of $2,647.50 per month, and the mother having parenting time with the children at least 20 percent of the time. The mother shall, however, continue to provide health insurance for the children which currently costs approximately $70 per month for so long as it is available through her employer. The mother shall also pay 14.3 percent of any unreimbursed medical expenses of the children that exceed $250 per year. This percentage is based on her share of combined income above self-support needs. For the foregoing reasons, the Defendant's Motion to Declare Georgia's Child Support Guidelines Unconstitutional is hereby GRANTED. SO ORDERED this _25th___ day of __February_, 2002, _______________________________ HONORABLE C. DANE PERKINS Judge of Superior Court Alapaha Judicial Circuit State of Georgia Too bad it was struck down, seems reasonable. |
#19
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Article on subject
Georgia Supreme Court Abolished Human Rights May 6, 2003 by Roger F. Gay On April 29th, the Georgia state supreme court issued a decision that dramatically reformulates the relationship between individuals and the state. The state was granted unlimited power to act arbitrarily against individuals. The foremost line of defense, individual rights that are regarded as "unalienable" by the United States Constitution, has in effect been abolished. In Georgia Department of Human Resources v. Sweat et al., the high court overturned a lower court decision that found the state's child support laws unconstitutional. (related article) Current law prescribes the amount of child support to be awarded by a simple, arbitrary formula that state court judges must presume is correct. The lower court pointed out that the formula had been formulated and adopted without serious technical review, is not based on economic studies, is not rationally related to the purpose of determining child support amounts reasonably related to family circumstances, and has not been subjected to serious technical review since its adoption. It further identified the motive for the use of the formula, which arbitrarily increased the amount of child support awarded, as the pursuit by the state of increased federal funds. Based on case precedent, it also identified three basic principles upon which constitutionally acceptable court-ordered child support decisions must be based. The high court applied a theory of constitutional interpretation in which individual rights diminish across a spectrum of political issues. In relation to laws regarded as being part of a body of "social policy," individual rights are at their weakest; offering states the greatest authority to practice en masse "social engineering." It was this lowest standard that the high court applied; effectively eliminating individual protection against arbitrary state intrusion and manipulation. The improper application of the standard sets a precedent that leaves Georgians defenseless against arbitrary treatment, regardless of the policy issue involved, so long as the state government has the will to intrude. There are reasonable applications of the theory, such as in the administration of welfare benefits. States control the range and value of entitlements based on general considerations; including the total amount they are willing to spend. Constitutional rights do not extend to forcing states to fix their entitlements at levels that satisfy individual recipients. Recipients are only entitled to what states decide to provide, even if entitlements may be quite arbitrary or irrational when judged from an individual's perspective. Neither state constitutions nor the federal constitution guarantee individual financial support from the government. That is not to say that individual rights and limits to state powers have not shaped entitlement systems. The fact that we refer to welfare system benefits as "entitlements" is itself the result of guaranteed individual rights and a restriction on states against acting in an arbitrary manner. When a state offers a benefit based on circumstance, then all people similarly situated are "entitled" to the benefit. Constitutionally, states are not allowed to discriminate on the basis of sex, race, or other arbitrary factors that do not mitigate the factual circumstantial criteria that qualify individuals for entitlements. You also, apparently, have no individual constitutional right to force a change in the rate of taxation. Taxation is regarded as "economic policy" and is subject to the same diminished level of individual rights as "social policy." Although it is difficult to find a straight-forward logic to justify, people with higher income have been required to pay a higher percent of their income in taxes, rather than simply more in taxes in proportion to their income (so-called "flat tax"). The latter might more easily be explained by the logic suggested in entitlement theory. On the other hand, the government cannot properly impose tax rates on individuals that differ from those in the tax tables that everyone else is subjected to. In the 1980s and 1990s, radical reformists pushed to shift private domestic relations cases into the sphere of "social policy" with some arguments leaning into the realm of "economic policy." (Taxpayers support children on welfare.) Dramatic reforms such as the Child Support Enforcement Amendments of 1984 and the Family Support Act of 1988 offered billions of dollars to states to reformulate the content of their family laws and the legal process used in their application. New federal laws designed to reformulate the relationship between states and individuals have been passed in every election year since. (The practice of forcing men to support children after they have proven through DNA tests that they are not their fathers is the result of reforms.) Reformists claimed a nexus between private child support orders and welfare. If a relatively poor mother does not receive child support, she might qualify for welfare benefits, which in some cases would leave the state to support children that could be supported by their fathers. This was an important argument for the sake of justifying federal involvement in domestic relations law ? an area in which generally the federal government is not constitutionally allowed to regulate. The solution to the synthetic conundrum is blazingly obvious. Those who do receive welfare benefits are subject to welfare system rules. There is a connection between poor mothers receiving welfare and poor fathers who are able to provide some portion or perhaps all of the child support need. There is however, no nexus that justifies the treatment of all domestic relations cases under the sometimes arbitrary rules of the welfare system. Whether or not a father who has an income of $100,000 per year is paying sufficient child support to a mother who makes $75,000 and has remarried to a man who makes $250,000 has no impact whatsoever on the welfare system. States have no legal basis for the reclassification of such cases from the realm of private issues, handled by private agreements or civil court actions, to that of a state-sponsored "social policy" issue that state governments may manipulate relative to political mood. States have no legal interest with which to constitutionally justify forced, arbitrary, en masse, formulaic treatment of individuals involved in non-welfare family law cases. What we have here is a situation that started with the federal government passing laws on a specific subject that lies beyond its constitutional authority. Billions of federal dollars were used in effect to bribe states into accepting a new federal-state relationship that required states to abandon laws that developed through 200 years of history within the context of state and federal constitutions. In order to keep the funding, the Georgia supreme court has now arbitrarily reclassified a private issue as a social policy issue that is not subject to constitutional restraint; i.e. neither individual rights nor restrictions on arbitrary treatment by the state apply. By doing so, the Georgia court redefined the basic relationship between individuals and the state. The decision has sweeping consequences. It sets a precedent that constitutional rights can be eliminated merely as the result of political will. You have no right to claim that your house (specifically) belongs to you if the government considers housing (generally) to be within the scope of social or economic policy. Your property may be redistributed as the government sees fit. Your children are not in a legal sense yours, so long as the government considers food, housing, education, safety, or the health of children within its scope. As a practical matter, individual rights no longer exist. Individuals are only entitled to what legislators and bureaucrats allow. Another article may delve more deeply into the specific details of the new decision. To understand the unconstitutionality of the child support laws in Georgia, the first source is the lower court's decision. But there is a detail in the high court decision that should be dealt with along with the improper application of the diminished rights standard. The high court claimed that the child support formula's "means of determining the amount of support to be paid are not arbitrary in any sense of the word." Not only did the supreme court judges tell a bold-faced lie in making that statement, their bizarre logical construction in support of the lie yet again reformulates basic constitutional relationships. Numerous articles have been written about the arbitrary nature of the guidelines. I will not provide a complete analysis in this article. (See the lower court's decision for a summary.) One way to point out the absurdity of the child support formula is through example; the amounts ordered to be paid by parents who are "similarly situated." The difference in treatment simply because one parent is designated as the child support payer and the other a recipient is astonishing. Parents can have nearly equal income and differ in the amount of time they spend caring for their children by only one day a week; but the child support payment dictated by the formula can force a difference in financial obligation that can amount to hundreds of dollars per meal for the extra night children spend with one of the parents. In denying the arbitrary construction of the formula, the high court cited precedent; "The trial court is obligated to consider whether such support is sufficient based on the children?s needs and the parent?s ability to pay.? In fact, under current law, the trial court is required to presume that the results given by the formula are correct. There are numerous examples in case law delivering us from the grip of statutory presumptions that are inappropriate in even a single case ? regardless of the discretionary powers that trial judges generally have. For example, neither statute nor government employment practices may presume that work late in pregnancy threatens the health of a mother or unborn child or diminishes the capacity of a woman to work, regardless of the fact that it may in some cases, or even if the presumption is most often true. The presumption was declared unconstitutional based on a single case in which the law was applied to a woman whose doctor had declared her fit to work. The argument by the high court was a sly but obvious avoidance of established constitutional protection. Providing more evidence in support of incredulity, the question before the court was not whether amounts dictated by the formula are "sufficient." Just the opposite; are amounts dictated arbitrarily high? Of course arbitrarily high amounts will pass a sufficiency test; but not one designed to test the rational relationship between actual circumstances and the amount ordered. In addition, the parents had a written agreement that specified child support. The agreement had been overturned by an administrative agency involved in child support collections. (Administrative agencies exercising such powers, and in contradiction to a private contract, raises yet another set of constitutional issues.) The high court not only eliminated due process, but the essence of common law practice upon which our sense of due process is based. The law is unconstitutional, but the high court claims that it is not because individual judges may, at their discretion (and with a lot of extra work to reformulate child support rules and justify contradictions to the statute in writing), do the right thing instead of accepting the dictates of the law. Under the constitution, a statute that "manifestly infringes upon a constitutional right or violates the rights of the people" is unconstitutional once and for all. If it violates the constitution in a single case, it is unconstitutional. A law that imposes an arbitrary child support formula that must be presumed correct, violates the federal constitution's guarantee of due process (I believe first and foremost) by creating an intolerable barrier to consideration and proper treatment of actual family circumstances and their rational relationship to child support decisions. The high court reformulated common law to a state in which millions of future litigants will be at the mercy of individual judges, begging for decisions that contradict statute for the sake of individual justice. Few will succeed. Roger F. Gay |
#20
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"Gini" wrote in message ... In article t, Bob Whiteside says... "J" wrote in message roups.com... I think the fifty state models could actually help with 14th amendment challenges to unfair CS awards. Georgia just declared their guidelines unconstitutional, maybe other states could follow? What about a challenge based on equal protection because state formulas differ so much? Just a thought.... 14th amendment challenges to CS law have been tried repeatedly using different legal tactical approaches. While there has been some success in getting CS law ruled unconstitutional at the trial court level, the appellate process has consistently overturned the trial court judges. ==== In *state* appellate courts--And it does not necessarily follow that federal courts would rule similarly. ==== That is true. Read Mark Levin's book "Men in Black: How the Supreme Court is Destroying America" for a real eye opener on how the U.S. Supreme Court has overstepped its constitutional authority and imposed personal preference policies on our nation regarding issues like marriage/divorce that are not even mentioned in the U.S. Constitution. So the question I have is simple - Why should five supreme court justices be allowed to rule on a state rights issue like marriage/divorce involving only one state and have their decision become the law of the land for all states? |
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