TFLF (Texas Family Law Foundation) continues to make arguments against equal parenting bills in Texas. This year it’s HB 453 and last year it was HB 2363, even though the current laws have been shown to hurt children and parents.

Representative White asks The Family Law Foundation President JoAl Cannon Sheridan questions about the equal parenting bill and former representative Pena does an excellent job making the case for why he is determined to get a 50/50 bill passed in Texas. Representative James White is the current sponsor of current equal parenting bill HB 453, he was a co-sponsor on HB 2363 last session.

This year however the bill that White has sponsored has not been heard for public testimony in the committee yet. The lobbyists, Steve and Amy Bresnen have claimed that there have been death threats. There has been rumor that White is holding the bill until investigations are complete. However, Frank Bustoz has posted evidence that no investigations are currently ongoing.

Representative Tony Tinderholt, is sponsoring a controversial bill with real death threats and yet he stands behind his bill and is still pushing it through. And he even has to have police protection! The Blaze reports that “In spite of the threats, Tinderholt intends to continue fighting for his bill.”

 

Watch the following video where the President of TFLF, JoAl Cannon Sheridan, provides her reasoning for opposing equal parenting bills in Texas in 2015, along with Attorney Hays. JoAl is making the same arguments this legislative session, she claims however that the 8.5 days difference that noncustodial and custodial parents have this year is only 3.5 days. Watch the video and you will see her use the same terms that TFLF used in their presentation to the committee in October of last year, “The Big Kept Secret.” We are all familiar with how labeling drives perception which drives behavior. TFLF lobbyists appear to be very well trained in this. How about training these attorneys to follow the supreme law of the land!

JoAl makes the same testimony and uses the same buzzwords from the 84th legislative session this session, except that she has changed the number of days that noncustodial parents don’t have their child compared to the custodial parent from 8.5 days to 3.5 days this session, under the expanded standard possession order. The statute didn’t change but somehow her math has.

Currently parents in Texas are required to enter into an adversarial court system where they are required to pay and fight to keep their equal rights. Their time and rights to their child is not seen as an automatically protected right by the state bar, like your right to drive and your right to vote.

Legislators like White and former house representative Pena see this as a problem for parents who are poor. We see this as a problem for all parents, rich or poor.

We have seen wealthy parents making over six-figure incomes be driven into bankruptcy in the current system. (You can find help on how to fight for your rights here.)

We have seen healthy, happy children be dragged into the process by the people working the system.

We have seen judges mistreat pro se parents.

We have seen parents get bullied in the system to forfeit their rights, run out of money and not be able to get justice.

The system is broken and the people the lawmakers currently have advising them, the TFLF, have a conflict of interest in keeping the adversarial system so that they can continue to make money.

Parents are at a disadvantage when their lawmakers allow special interest groups to manipulate them into keeping unconstitutional policies.

This lobbyist group, TFLF, or the Foundation, has been manipulating the lawmakers for the last 12 years, 6 legislative sessions (Texas only has legislative sessions every two years). Large numbers of children are still being stripped from fit and loving parents, and some of these children are dying.

Over the last 12 years, CPS has been sanctioned by the federal government and now has a federal marshall that oversees their practices. This however does not help two parents going through the system where CPS has not taken possession of their child.

Over the last 12 years, the number of parents and children being hurt by the current law has grown. There is local, organized efforts challenging the unconstitutional practices happening daily in the Texas family courts. Parents throughout Texas travel to Austin every week begging the lawmakers to protect them from the current laws.

Children have been killed, parents have been edited out of their child’s life, and driven into bankruptcy. Children are losing fit and loving parents. Children are being placed in known registered sex offenders hands and with abusive parents.

The current laws are far from doing the job that TFLF claims that it does. The current law that TFLF defends is “A system that allows lies and money to dictate outcomes”. This system took Eryk’s life. Will you let this system continue to irreparably harm young children and take young lives?

For Eryk, for your children, for their children, call your lawmaker and tell them not to buy TFLF’s manipulations any longer and to pass equal parenting as a start to ending the abusive practices that hurt children.

Parental alienation is more prevalent in a system that allows one parent to have power over the other parent’s rights.

You can meet Rod McCall at the National PA Symposium in Texas in April here.

If you are currently in the court system and are trying to protect yours and your child’s rights you can find more information on how to do that here.