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Interesting book and interesting idea



 
 
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  #11  
Old March 21st 05, 03:09 PM
Phil #3
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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


  #12  
Old March 21st 05, 09:06 PM
J
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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  
Old March 21st 05, 09:50 PM
Bob Whiteside
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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.


  #14  
Old March 21st 05, 09:54 PM
Werebat
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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 ^*^

  #15  
Old March 21st 05, 10:43 PM
flinrius
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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  
Old March 22nd 05, 03:00 AM
Gini
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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.
====

  #17  
Old March 22nd 05, 03:16 AM
J
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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  
Old March 22nd 05, 03:19 AM
J
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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  
Old March 22nd 05, 03:21 AM
J
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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  
Old March 22nd 05, 05:20 AM
Bob Whiteside
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default


"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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