Equality vs. Funding
Part 1
As we all know, for decades there have been long standing issues of inequality. In our most recent decade we have seen significant improvements, but the issue of equality still bares new and more complex challenges than ever before. One of the most perplexing challenges comes from within Family Law. It has been known for decades that significant and legitimate concerns of inequality have been leveled against the Family Courts. This imbalance has consequently shattered millions of children and families.
It has been thought for years that the custodial parent has all the power within a family court action. The truth of the matter is family court rulings are “weaponizing” the custodial parent, in order to procure Federal funding for administrative costs for county agencies through incentives and performance measures. I have stated for years, based on my facts and findings, that it is not the custodial parent that is causing the perception of inequality; it’s the aggressive pursuit by county administrators that shatters the family beyond recognition, thus creating generational poverty that maximizes this “funding machine”.
Over the years lawmakers across the United States have proposed revisions to Family Law that has come with significant resistance or has just flat-out fallen on deaf ears to the idea of equality. Many lawmakers are unaware of the judicial activism that hides behind the shadows of judicial discretion (Sword and Shield Precedent). This type of activism reveals the significant disregard for the emotional brutality inflicted upon shattering children and families in the pursuit of Federal incentives and performance measures.
Some of these well known funding mechanisms are known as: CSPIA Act of 1998; Title IV-D, Federal Performance Incentive Pool /Federal Entitlement Programs and DWD 44, not to mention the direct correlation to the CDC’s “Adverse Childhood Experiences Study” which creates impending cyclical dynamics that triggers a whole host of other State and Federal legacy programs.
The most recent phenomenon is the increasing number of non-custodial mothers. In this new phenomenon there looms potential for a monumental challenge within Family Law; these challenges will consequently up-end the funding mechanisms that have shattered families for decades. Where will the challenge come from? Based on trends, it’s most likely this legal challenge will come with the full- force and fury of a determined, strong, self -assured, non-custodial mother who has been subjected to paying an unprecedented child support order while being judicially silenced.
This legal challenge won’t be of Family Law itself, but of the forged underpinnings of judicial activism that has created this imbalance of equality in the pursuit of State and Federally funded revenue streams.
The charge of inequality would be difficult for an Appellate and/or Supreme Court to ignore. I believe a decisive ruling in favor of equality of this magnitude, not seen since the sixties and seventies would forever set an unequivocal precedent of equality, not seen within present family law. This will force legal, constitutional, and academic scholars challenging the constitutionality of decades-old family law decisions as well as Appellate and Supreme Courts questioning the many pareidolia characteristics of the continued inequalities beyond the equal and civil rights movement of the twentieth century.
