04/30/2015
Below is a letter I wrote, published yesterday in the local paper. As an update, Governor Otter has now scheduled a one-day session, and hopefully this urgent matter can be resolved.
I was surprised to read Wayne Hoffman’s piece last week regarding the child support fiasco currently underway in Idaho, and feel that a response is in order. As an attorney who sometimes handles family law cases, and who deals with child support issues on a regular basis, I find it necessary to clear the air with a few facts.
First, it’s important to note that the vast majority of our elected politicians who have voted on the child support bill have supported it. In fact, this bill was so uncontroversial that the vote for the bill in the Idaho Senate was unanimous. Not a single state senator voted against it.
The bill then went to a committee in the Idaho House, made up of just seventeen individuals. These seventeen individuals, after waiting until the last minute, voted against the bill, nine to eight. The Idaho House as a whole never even got the chance to vote on the bill itself, as these nine individuals on the committee decided to not give the Idaho House the opportunity to vote on it. A bill that received unanimous support in the Idaho Senate got shot down by just nine individuals in the Idaho House.
So what does the child support bill do, exactly? It strengthens the ability of the U.S. to collect child support from parents who live outside the U.S. For example, it makes it easier for a single mom and her five children living in Eastern Idaho to receive child support from a father living in Germany.
More importantly, however, killing the bill has some incredibly negative implications. Idaho currently uses federal software to collect child support; it appears that Idaho, moving forward, will no longer be able to use the software, which means that we’ll have to create our own. This will be not only terribly expensive, but it will also take time; in the meantime, deadbeat parents will be temporarily off the hook, and many single parents and children who depend on child support will struggle without it. Even worse, even if Idaho does come up with its own software, it will have no ability to enforce child support orders outside of Idaho, meaning that a mother with five children living in Shelley, Idaho, whose ex-husband is working in the oil fields in North Dakota, will simply be out of luck. Idaho will also become a refuge for deadbeat parents, as other states will be unable to enforce child support orders for individuals in Idaho. Additionally, we will likely lose tens of millions of dollars in additional funding—funding Idaho depends on. Idaho taxpayers will have to make up the difference.
How many people will this affect? It will affect every single taxpayer in Idaho. There are currently 155,000 child support cases in Idaho, and all of the single parents and children who depend on child support will be affected. There are 25,500 child support cases in Idaho involving parents who live outside of Idaho, and the single parents and children who depend on child support from an out-of-state parent will be hit hardest.
Fortunately, Idaho still has a chance to set things right. Such an important bill should not die just because nine individuals voted against it. Governor Otter should schedule a one-day special legislative session to get the vote of every Idaho legislator on the matter. Otherwise, Idaho is giving a free pass to deadbeat dads and moms while making the lives of hundreds of thousands of children and single parents much more difficult.
