While You Were Sleeping-How Congress Got into the Family Law Business

Congressional Research Service

Report 97-590

CHILD SUPPORT ENFORCEMENT AND VISITATION:

SHOULD THERE BE A FEDERAL CONNECTION?

Carmen D. Solomon-Fears, Education and Public Welfare Division

Updated June 20, 2000
Abstract.

From time to time, the issue arises of whether the federal Child Support Enforcement (CSE)program should be actively involved in enforcing visitation rights. Both federal and state policymakers agree that denial of visitation rights should not be considered a reason for stopping child support payments.

AVAILABLE HERE — and I’m going to add it to my bloglinks. It’s ONLY 7 pages long, and provides a summary background of HOW the Federal Government got to be “in the family way.” The rationale was TANF/Welfare. That was the chink in the door.

The question arises, in my mind at least — what major institutions and practices in this nation are creating the welfare population to start with? The 2 largest areas of expenditure in the government are two agencies: 1. Health and Human Service, and 2. Education. The others, are smaller. Go to at least usaspending.gov and look at the pie chart, and take a look. Why are the courts and the child support agencies in the business of education, at which the educational system is already failing, clearly?


http://stuff.mit.edu/afs/sipb/contrib/wikileaks-crs/wikileaks-crs-reports/97-590.pdf

Recommended reading for the uninitiated, for example:

Is the Federal Government Becoming Too Intrusive in Family Law Policy?[[Ya-THINK? Just perhaps MAYBE? This shows the rationale...]]

Congress does not have general authority to pass laws dealing with family law issues,

unless there is a connection or “nexus” between such legislation and one of the areas in

which it is authorized to act. In the case of the CSE program, the federal nexus is the



H.R. 3073, the Fathers Count Act of 1999, would provide $140 million in grants over four years

to public and private entities to achieve three purposes: (1) promote marriage, (2) promote

successful parenting, and (3) help noncustodial parent improve their economic status. H.R. 3073

was passed by the House on November 10, 1999, but has not been acted on by the Senate. H.R.

4469, the Child Support Distribution Act of 2000, introduced on May 16, 2000 also includes many

of the provisions related to fatherhood that are contained in H.R. 3073. One of the goals of the

proposed fatherhood grant program is to increase the parental involvement (social, emotional,

psychological, and financial) of noncustodial parents in the lives of their children.

Here’s a little more history, from the same woman who did this report:

http://waysandmeans.house.gov/legacy.asp?file=legacy/humres/105cong/3-20-97/3-20fear.htm

Always watch the footnotes. Here are the footnotes from this featured report of June 2000. I am sorry, I do not have the time to reformat them to eliminate extra spaces. I am compromised in internet access these days, and working on a foreign (to me) system.

If you are good at browsing/skimming — you’ll see some of the “players” in this system, the logic behind it, and the linguistic slippage (frequent) between the words “noncustodial parents” and “fathers,” which is what is really meant by that. Noncustodial mothers are basically up ___ creek many times, when it comes to enforcing visitation, with help from these funds.

MY LAPTOP WAS STOLEN! In other words.. . . . . . . .

CRS Report 84-796 EPW, The Child Support Enforcement Amendments of 1984, Margaret

Malone. p. 10.

2 University of Wisconsin-Madison. Institute for Research on Poverty. Focus, Volume 21,

Number 1, Spring 2000. Child support and child access: Experiences of divorced and nonmarital

families by Judith Seltzer. p. 54-57. See also: Urban Institute. To What Extent Do Childrenby Elaine Sorensen and Chava Zibman. Discussion Papers, 99-11.

Benefit From Child Support?

January 2000.

3 Children benefit from fathers’ involvement–New studies examine men’s role in the family. June

16, 2000. [http://www.cnn.com/2000/HEALTH/children/06/16/father.studies/index.html] See also:

What Do Fathers Contribute to Children’s Well-Being?

Meaning of Father Involvement for Children by Tamara Hale

4 H.R. 3073, the Fathers Count Act of 1999, would provide $140 million in grants over four years

to public and private entities to achieve three purposes: (1) promote marriage, (2) promote

successful parenting, and (3) help noncustodial parent improve their economic status. H.R. 3073

was passed by the House on November 10, 1999, but has not been acted on by the Senate. H.R.

4469, the Child Support Distribution Act of 2000, introduced on May 16, 2000 also includes many

of the provisions related to fatherhood that are contained in H.R. 3073. One of the goals of the

proposed fatherhood grant program is to increase the parental involvement (social, emotional,

psychological, and financial) of noncustodial parents in the lives of their children.

by Suzanne Le Menestrel and The. Child Trends Research Brief.
Which IS it? Fathers? or “Parents”? I’ll give you a basic translation guide. When the word “parents” is used in documentation like this, it translates in practice to FATHERS. Go find the word “mothers” in this document, if you can, or as applied to a noncustodial “parent.” But mothers are increasingly becoming “noncustodial” themselves, in part because of these acts.

5 U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services. Office of Child Support Enforcement. SummariesWashington, May 1986. p. xiiixiv.

of Reports by State Commissions on Child Support Enforcement.

6 Horowitz, Robert, and G. Diane Dodson. Child Support, Custody, and Visitation: A Report toAmerican Bar Association, July 1985. p. 3-8.

State Child Support Commissions.

7 Evaluation of the Child Access Demonstration Projects–Report to Congress. Prepared by

(continued…)

Pearson, Jessica, Nancy Thoennes, David Price, and Robert Williams for the Office of Child

Support Enforcement, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. July 1996. p. 2.

8 The FPLS can access data from the Social Security Administration, Internal Revenue Service and

other federal agencies, and the state Employment Security Agencies. The FPLS provides social

security numbers, addresses, employer information, wage and income information, and information

on assets and debts to state and local CSE agencies to establish and enforce child support orders.

The FPLS conducts weekly or biweekly matches with most of the agencies. Each agency runs the

cases against its data base and the names and social security numbers that match are returned to

the FPLS and via the FPLS to the requesting state or local CSE office. Upon request, the

Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary must provide to an “authorized

person” (i.e., an employee or attorney of a CSE agency, a court with jurisdiction over the parties

involved, the custodial parent, etc.) the most recent address and place of employment of any absent

parent if the information is contained in the records of HHS, or can be obtained from any other

department or agency of the United States or of any state. The FPLS also can be used in

connection with the enforcement or determination of child custody and in cases of parental

kidnaping.[misspelled..]]

9 P.L. 105-33, the Balanced Budget Act of 1997, which was signed into law on August 5, 1997

includes safeguards that prohibit the FPLS from providing information on the whereabouts of the

custodial parent (and child or children) in cases where there is reasonable evidence of violence or

abuse and a possibility that disclosure of information could be harmful to the custodial parent or child.

10 In September 1997, all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Guam, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin

Islands were awarded access and visitation grants. In 1998 and 1999, all states and jurisdictions,

except for Guam (which didn’t apply for one), received an access/visitation grant.

11 State Child Access and Visitation Programs: A Preliminary Report Fiscal Year 1997 Funding.

American Institutes for Research. Prepared for Office of Child Support Enforcement, Department

of Health and Human Services. 1999.

12 Some analysts argue that like the courts, the federal government would be ineffective in enforcing

visitation and custody rights unless it adopted measures that would adversely affect children and

be inconsistent with former federal policy (e.g., reduce child support payments if it is proved that

the custodial parent is preventing the noncustodial parent from visiting the child.

13 Evaluation of the Child Access Demonstration Projects–Report to Congress. Prepared by

Pearson, Jessica, Nancy Thoennes, David Price, and Robert Williams for the Office of Child Support Enforcement, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. July 1996. p. ix.

14 Monthly Labor Review, June 1992. Interrelation of child support, visitation, and hours of work,

Veum, Jonathan R. p. 45-47.


Here’s another tidbit:

Should the Federal Government Promote Access/Visitation Rights?

fathers’ rights groups argue that by being solely concerned about increasing child support

collections, the federal government is limiting its approaches to access/visitation issues.

According to the child access project evaluations, relatively few noncustodial parents

(18%) attributed their access problems to disputes about child support, while this was

mentioned by about half of custodial parents (48%). Generally, noncustodial parents cited

economic factors such as low wages, unemployment, or job instability as reasons for

nonpayment as opposed to access or visitation disputes.

Many13There is some evidence that indicates that among fathers who visit their children,

fathers who do not pay their child support are more likely to have frequent contact with

their children (many on a daily basis) than fathers who pay their child support.

fathers’ rights groups would argue that spending time with one’s children (especially on a daily basis) should be counted in terms of reducing that father’s financial obligation.

14 Monthly Labor Review,