On Tuesday, November 3, Americans went to the polls to vote for congressmen and 33 Senate seats, as well as numerous state-level seats, amendments, and other local issues. As the dust has now mostly settled, here is where we stand on the matter of parental rights: Coalition Efforts Unaffected First, the Parental Rights Foundation participates in two vital bipartisan coalitions, the United Family Advocates and the Coalition to End Hidden Foster Care . In both cases, right-leaning family defenders work side by side with family defenders who hail from the left side of the aisle, and often (geographically speaking) from Democrat strongholds. As coalition members on the right side of the aisle lose their voice in Congress (because their contacts in Congress are no longer in the majority), coalition members on the left side of the aisle gain theirs. Since we’re all preaching the same message—protection for children by empowering parents through meaningful reforms to the Child Welfare system—our work continues unhindered and unabated. United Family Advocates recently released a report wherein we expressed a vision for a new funding structure for federal child welfare dollars. Our plan would end the incentives to states to take more children into foster care, and would free money currently earmarked for taking children, so that it can be used instead to help keep families together. This report reflects a dramatic change from the current system and will likely take years to pass into law. But it has triggered an important conversation on Capitol Hill and in the Administration—a conversation that will continue even after the new Congress takes over in January. The Coalition to End Hidden Foster Care, meanwhile, has been championing a bill to require states to collect and provide data whenever families are separated through agency action, even if children are not taken into formal foster care. This bill will give us useful data on how often “hidden foster care” is used and what its outcomes look like. In the current Congress, we secured bipartisan, bicameral support—that is, a Republican and a Democrat both in the House and in the Senate. In the coming Congress, we have lost only one of these, and we are already securing a replacement In short, the work on this effort will continue unabated, as well. Parental Rights Amendment Lightly Affected That brings us, lastly, to the Parental Rights Amendment. In this Congress, we have fourteen total cosponsors. In the elections, those fell into four different categories: Nine cosponsors, including lead sponsor Mary Miller of Illinois, won their reelection bids and will return to Congress in 2027. We anticipate getting their quick sign-on when the PRA is reintroduced in that session. Two retiring cosponsors will be succeeded by like-minded representatives from the same party. Though it will take a little more work on our part, I believe we can get these successors to sign onto a new PRA introduction in 2027. Two cosponsors opted to make a run for their state’s open Senate seat. If they won, we would seek their support in the Senate, but win or lose, they would not be cosponsoring the House resolution. (Neither won their Senate race, however.) Finally, one congressman lost his reelection bid. We are sorry to see this, as we had a good relationship with his office, but we wish great things for him and his staff as they pursue other projects and endeavors starting in January. The bottom line, then, is that we start the new Congress, presumably, with nine to eleven of the fourteen sponsors we have in this Congress, and we will work to grow the numbers from there. Insulated from the Storm So, while the outlook for many issues rose or fell sharply this election, the cause of Parental Rights remains largely insulated from that storm. No post-election analysis remotely suggests that the era of concern for parental rights has passed. This remains a major issue, and one with agreement across the board. We look forward to continuing the conversations for child welfare reform and the Parental Rights Amendment in the new Congress in January. I anticipate great things in the days ahead if we do not lose heart but continue to make our voices heard. Thank you for standing with us to protect children by empowering parents, no matter who is in control on Capitol Hill!
Kate Anderson, Senior Counsel and Director of Center for Parental Rights at the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), joins host Michael Ramey today for an important discussion about parental rights in the classroom. Anderson’s work centers on protecting the fundamental rights of parents from harmful government policies that withhold vital information from parents, secretly transition their children to the opposite gender at school, or blatantly disregard their expressed wishes concerning their children’s health and well-being. Today’s conversation centers around an article Anderson published in The Hill a few months ago entitled “Parents Are Winning – and the Department of Education Is Leading the Charge." The article centered on what schools are teaching children and what limits are needed to ensure parents are informed and involved in what their children are taught regarding gender identity, sex education, and health. The EPPiC Broadcast is hosted by Michael Ramey, President of the Parental Rights Foundation. Stay informed on parental rights news by signing up for email alerts at https://parentalrightsfoundation.org/get-involved/ .
We’re seeing a wave of homeschooling restriction bills move across the nation, and I wanted to be sure you know about it, watch for it, and stand against it when necessary. Since the COVID pandemic of 2020, the popularity of homeschooling has been on the rise. Now, opponents of homeschooling have found a formula to fight back: Find a horrible child abuse death in the target state, connect the death to homeschooling (whether it applies or not), then exploit the child’s death to drive legislation restricting homeschool freedoms. It started last winter in Connecticut , where the tragic death of 11-year-old Jacqueline “Mimi” Torres-Garcia was exploited to pass H.B. 5468 , a new law that prevents any parent from homeschooling until their school district first checks with the Department of Children and Families. If anyone in the household has an open case or is on the state’s child abuse and neglect registry, such individuals are not allowed to homeschool. But every family, including every innocent family, must wait two weeks or more for the state to carry out its check. In New York , proponents of Senate Bill 10715 highlight the horrible deaths of four children—Harper, Hudson, Gavin, and Gracelynn Myers—in Mechanicsville, NY, as reason to restrict homeschooling. Like Connecticut’s law, this bill would empower a school district to prohibit a family from removing their child for home instruction until a review can be conducted to see if there is a pending child abuse investigation or either custodial parent has been convicted of certain crimes. Every family is presumed guilty until their name is cleared. Now it’s on to New Jersey , where the tragic October 13 death of 9-year-old Maya Thomas is being used (already!) to drive mandatory wellness checks for all home-schooled children. The legislation is Senate Bill 741 (S741) . “The local legislators say annual home visits would alert authorities to children trapped inside violent homes,” according to a report at the Daily Journal . The checks would be carried out, says the report, “by a counselor, nurse or social worker employed by the school district.” At first, perhaps some of these actions may seem beneficial. They would allow local school officials to set eyes on every child, to look for any signs that abuse may be occurring. But two huge principles must first be considered: First is the timeless maxim, “extreme cases make bad policy.” Using a case of horrendous abuse as justification to target large swaths of the innocent public is always a bad idea. That each of the efforts listed above is being tied to a heart-tugging story of tragic death by abuse should be sounding alarms. Lawmakers are asked to make a quick, emotional decision, though we know such decisions are rarely wise . Second, in the words of the U.S. Supreme Court, “The statist notion that governmental power should supersede parental authority in all cases because some parents abuse and neglect children is repugnant to American tradition. ” Parham v. J.R. 442 US 584 (1979) at 603. Innocent parents have rights, the benefits of which are shared with their households—rights to security in their homes, to a certain level of autonomy, to make educational decisions for their children. Exercising these rights must not in and of itself make them suspect. The fact that evil parents exist does not give the State power to treat all parents as evil. We believe, rather, that “Natural bonds of affection lead parents to act in the best interests of their children.” ( Parham at 602) Efforts to put homeschooling families under the microscope will only exacerbate the real problem, which is that Departments of Child Services aren’t paying enough attention to the potentially abused children already on their radar. The Connecticut bill mentioned above has already been signed into law. We will alert those of you in New York or New Jersey if either of those bills starts to move, but we invite you right now to contact your state lawmakers and encourage them to resist these efforts. And if you live elsewhere, we will keep you posted if similar bills crop up in your state. Thank you for standing with us to protect children by empowering parents—even if those parents choose to homeschool.
Last week I attended the policy summit of the American Legislative Exchange Council, an association of conservative policy organizations, private sector organizations, and state lawmakers, to present the need to take up reform legislation. Specifically, I presented the need to replace “anonymous reporting” with “confidential reporting” to child abuse hotlines. The following is taken from…
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Ideas that take root in the United Nations have an unsettling tendency to eventually make their way into America’s courtrooms. That’s why the Parental Rights Foundation submitted a comment to the United Nations’ Special Rapporteur on Child Privacy last month, urging respect for the privacy of the child’s family and home, and not just the…
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The second season of the Parental Rights Podcast launched Tuesday, under a different name: the EPPiC Broadcast. Launched in January of this year, the Parental Rights Podcast’s first season featured such guests as the Jennifer Pelletier family, law professor Maxine Eichner, New York City activist Joyce McMillan, and constitutional law professor William Wagner. Season one…
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