Subject: Vote ----- NO ----- on all child support legislation UNTIL
you define the term "child support"
Date: Sat, 11 Jan 2003 09:57:37 -0500 (Eastern Standard Time)
From: "Dave Briggman" <briggman@mac.com>
To: vasenate@hrlp.org, vahouse@hrlp.org
Ladies and gentlemen of the Virginia General Assembly:
In this session of the legislature, you're going to be voting on bills to increase
the Virginia Child Support Guidelines, to raise penalties for failing to pay
child support and many other bills relating to this issue.
As a father who for the previous 16 years had a child support obligation, I
was appalled to discover LESS THAN TWO MONTHS AGO, that the Virginia General
Assembly has never even developed a legal definition for the term "Child
Support", thus, two fathers (and in 95% of the cases in Virginia, it is
the FATHER charged with paying child support while being order, in most cases,
to take a reduced role in his child's life) appearing in the same court before
the same judge could be tasked with providing totally different items for the
benefit of their child whether they can afford it or not.
Although attempted in the Child Support Guidelines Review Panel this past year,
efforts to simply define the term "Child Support" failed. You have
statutes in which the government decides how much a father will pay in child
support and six or seven different statutes that the court casually use to jail
fathers for failing to pay child support, but as a legislative body, you have
a responsibility to define the term. I assumed Virginia had a definition, however,
had I known Virginia had no definition, I would have attempted to challenge
the Constitutionality of being forced to pay for an undefined term in Virginia
law. Now, I encourage others to do exactly that.
It is quite likely that this year, a father or a group of fathers will file
a lawsuit against the Commonwealth of Virginia charging that the Virginia Child
Support Guidelines are unconstitutional, and, based on the argument that they
were crafted in like manner to the Georgia and Tennessee childlines which have
been overturned by the Courts.
As I have opined in previous correspondence to your bodies, your legislation
MAY have the best of intentions.
Throwing more money into the laps of ex-spouses on a tax-free basis with no
accountability is not legislation with the best of intentions in mind, however.
Increasing criminal penalties for failing to pay child support in Virginia where
both Judges and attorneys routinely and illegally co-mingle the two types of
cases together, often without knowledge or participation of a jurisdiction's
Commonwealth Attorney. Adjusting penalities until the problem of "co-mingling"
is resolved is just going to cause further problems.
Both the House and the Senate repeatedly fail to enact legislation which, should
the numerous rogue judges on the bench who write law from the bench such as
Judge Brice and the four other thieves in black robes in Prince William County's
Juvenile and Domestic Relations Court choose not comply with, fail to provide
any protection to the father. Simply adding wording to the statute in the form
of "Any judgment rendered outside the language of this statute is presumptively
void ab initio." Those 13 words protect the rights of any litigant sitting
before any rogue judge because it presumes the judgment of the court is null
and void.
Please back off and do not support any child support increases or decreases
which may come before you this session. Do not support any adjustment to penalties.
If you are a legislator who is not an attorney, allow me to come to Richmond
and meeting with you (or a group) and explain to you the problems Virginia has
with child support from the top down. If you are not an attorney, such explanation
can be made in less than an hour. If you are an attorney, as I've read in the
Washington Times this past week, you obviously see no problems in the system.
Likely because you are enriched from it. Governor Warner has just this week
agreed to meet with a group of fathers in the short term.
Lastly, the General Assembly could do something to greatly reduce the problems
of child support in the Commonwealth. You could enact legislation that persumably
gives both parents joint physical and legal custody. With presumed joint custody,
the matter of child support and it's enforcement becomes a non-issue and we
would have no use for the Division of Child Support Enforcement. One whole Department
of state government would simply go away. Additionally, the legislature could
make it mandatory that in all child support orders the dollar amount that the
custodial parent is required to spend on the child is clearly spelled out. While
I was ordered to pay to my ex-wife $384 a month, my ex-wife was not required
by the order to spend a dime on my child -- and because she wasn't required
to, she didn't.
This is a broken system here in Virginia. Things are happening in Virginia courts,
that are illegal and violative of father's civil rights in many other states
and in Virginia, one cannot find an attorney to take the arguments to the Court
of Appeals to break the system you've created.
Should you enact the recommendation of the Child Support Guidelines Review Panel,
you will likely cause problems in Virginia on a scale you've never imagined.
Please do NOTHING.
Very truly yours,
David Briggman
Keezletown, Virginia