Read the letter to Bedford police.
Read the letter to Euless police.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

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When he asked me how I was, I said, “You tell me. Are you going to let our UIL bill out of committee?”

He then told me that HB 1374 (the House version of the bill) was dead, and I said yes, but SB 929 (the Senate version) was still available for a vote in his committee. When he told me that we did not have the votes, I said that was not my understanding, to which he responded that some did not want to vote on the bill. I told him he should tell them to “man up” and vote. He said he would not do that as chairman, which is a kind way of saying, “I’m not going to allow a vote on your bill.”

On Friday Representative James Frank, who has been working on this bill as if it were his own, asked the speaker of the House to speak to Aycock about the bill. Aycock then told Frank that he would allow a vote if I would give him a written document, on THSC letterhead with my signature, giving him credit for passing the bill out of his committee and assuring that THSC would not “retaliate” against any legislator who voted against the bill or “walked the vote in committee.” (“Walking the vote” is the practice of leaving during the vote to avoid registering a vote for or against a bill.) This was a tacit acknowledgment that we did indeed have enough votes to get the bill out of committee.

Although I was in San Antonio at a home school conference on Friday, we drafted the statement Aycock had given us and presented it to him. And although he was not happy, he moved to suspend the House rules to allow the Public Education Committee to meet that evening at 7 p.m. At the meeting, although a quorum was present, two of our supporters had already left town because the House was not in session on Saturday. No vote was taken because we were one vote short of the six votes needed. As some have noted, if Chairman Aycock had really wanted the bill to pass, he could have asked someone on the committee to vote “yes” just to get the bill to the floor. Obviously, he did not do so.

Saturday was the last day for a Senate bill to pass the Texas House. While time is slipping away, we still have a bill or two in the Senate that we could amend with our SB 929 language. Stay tuned. It ain’t over ‘til it’s over!

The post Oh So Close! appeared first on Texas Home School Coalition.

Some have questioned why THSC got involved in this issue, and others have even said it was not a home school issue at all. Our response is that the foundation of our home school freedom is the fundamental, constitutional right of parents to direct the care, control, and upbringing of their children. Any weakening or violation of that right strikes at the very heart of our home school freedom, and that is the reason we publicly opposed this bill. It would directly undermine the right of parents to make decisions for their children in certain situations where doctors and/or hospitals sought to overrule the parents.

It’s a short step from not allowing parents to make medical decisions for their children to not allowing them to make educational decisions.

Fortunately, the vast majority of the home school community clearly understood the risk and responded in a huge way. The House sponsor of SB 303 even told THSC representatives that doctors were better qualified than parents to make decisions for children in end-of-life situations because parents are “too emotionally involved.” We would never tolerate a policy that gave “educational professionals” instead of parents the right to make educational decisions, nor should we in the area of medical decisions. Home schoolers were seen as a key element of the coalition that killed this bill. Thank you for responding!

The post SB 303 Dead, Dead, Dead appeared first on Texas Home School Coalition.

The good news is the Family Law Foundation’s (FLF) bills to expand the number of families that could be sued under the Grandparent Access Statute also died. SB 1148, carried by Senator West, was effectively killed by overwhelming opposition from parents and families across Texas. Senator West sought a compromise proposed by FLF which was rejected by us because it would not only expand the number of families exposed to such lawsuits but would also require no “expert testimony” to prevail against the parents. HB 391, the House version of the FLF’s bill, died in the House Committee on Judiciary and Civil Jurisprudence. Had THSC not been there to sound the alarm on these bills, they may well have passed, to the detriment of the fundamental constitutional right of parents.

While it is disappointing that we did not pass the TPRRA, we made significant progress this session. We had a Senate bill that we did not have last session and we had a hearing on the measures in both the House and Senate. We also had more witnesses testify than we did two years ago, and their testimonies had a dramatic impact. More and more legislators are becoming aware of the problem, and our support is growing. We will continue to work on this issue, re-file the bills next session, and educate legislative candidates on the issue during the next campaign season. Thank you for supporting our efforts with your prayers and finances.

The post Good News and Bad News on Parental Rights appeared first on Texas Home School Coalition.

Parental Rights Advance

If TPRRA does pass, people like Heather Wyatt won’t have to live in fear anymore. Heather Wyatt’s story starts with abuse and ends with abuse. It’s one of many examples of a victim being victimized because of loopholes in a law called the Grandparent Access Statute.

These loopholes in the law allow vindictive in-laws to force fit parents into financially devastating legal battles–legal battles over who will have possession of the fit parent’s children. (For more information, visit: thsc.org/tprra.)

THSC is determined to change the Grandparent Access Statute to give parents back the rights they once had. The TPRRA will:

• Force in-laws to back up their claims with evidence
• Remove a judge’s ability to use temporary orders in these cases because the children are not facing abuse (If the children were facing abuse, the in-laws would be filing under a different section of the law. If it was an emergency situation needing emergency orders, the in-laws should contact the police.)
• Require a higher standard of evidence to be used in these types of cases
• Require expert testimony
• Protect parental rights by changing other aspects of the law (read more about TPRRA)

The loopholes will not be closed, and parental rights will not be strengthened, if our parental rights bill is not passed! Call your representative and ask them to vote for HB 2547.

Contact Your State Representative:

1. Visit: Who Represents Me Directory
2. Enter your address.
3. Select your state representative.
4. Call him or her and ask them to vote in favor of HB 2547.

This may be our last chance until 2015 to protect parents and children from the Grandparent Access Statute! Make those calls and share this email with others.

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As a non-attorney, it was a trying and, at some times, agonizing experience for me. Although both sides offered a good-will attempt to find something we could both agree upon, the TFLF would not accept our three major points of 1) restricting a judge’s discretion for temporary orders (since we are dealing with fit parents), 2) requiring a final hearing within 45 days, and 3) raising the standard of evidence from “preponderance” to “clear and convincing.” In turn, we would not accept their two major points of 1) increasing the number of situations in which grandparents could sue fit parents and 2) requiring no expert testimony to prove that denial of access or possession would significantly impair the physical health or emotional well-being of the child—something the current law requires.

In the last meeting with this group, the lobbyist for TFLF became very animated and claimed that we were being unreasonable by not accepting their proposal. He complained that we had been pursuing these changes for six years and that his plan had been for us to accept the “compromise” and to agree that we would not seek further changes in this statute for two legislatives sessions. He also strongly disapproved of our framing of this issue as one that is often between well-off grandparents against low-income families and single parents.

However, I find it interesting that in public hearings in the House and the Senate, proponents of our bill and opponents of their bill included parents and families who have been devastated by such lawsuits, while those giving testimony against TPRRA and for the TFLF bill were lawyers. That pretty much sums up this battle: parents and families against attorneys.

While SB 1194 is languishing in the Senate Jurisprudence Committee as a result of these talks, the House version, HB 2547, will be debated on the House floor on Thursday—or at least it will be on the House Calendar for that day, which is also the last day that a House bill can be voted out of the House.

Please call your state representative and ask him or her to vote for HB 2547 on Thursday. Tell them that a parent’s fundamental, constitutional right to direct the care, control, and upbringing of their children should not be limited to those who have enough money to defend that right against wealthy grandparents in court.

The post Lawyers vs Families appeared first on Texas Home School Coalition.

Loopholes in the Grandparent’s Access Statute allowed the judge to take Chassidie’s children away from her. The original intention of this law was to allow grandparents to sue for the right to visit their grandchildren. Now it is being used by in-laws to get much more than visitation. THSC is determined to remove these loopholes from the law. We have a bill in the Texas House of Representatives to do just that, but it is waiting to be heard on the House floor.

Our bill, Texas Parental Rights Restoration Act, would:

• Force in-laws to back up their claims with evidence.
• Remove the judge’s ability to use temporary orders in these cases because the children are not facing abuse. If the children were facing abuse, the in-laws would be filing under a different section of the law. If it was an emergency situation needing emergency orders, the in-laws should contact the police.
• Protect parental rights by changing other aspects of the law. Read more about TPRRA.

The Calendar Controls Our Fate

Calendars Committee sets the schedule for when a bill will be heard on the House floor. Not only could this committee delay our bill, they could decide not to schedule it at all!

Call Today (and Tomorrow)

Because of your calls, the Texas Parental Rights Restoration Act has made it this far. Use your influence to help this bill go the rest of the way to becoming law . . . before May 7th. According to the House rules, May 7th is the last day for a bill to be scheduled to go to the house floor by the Calendars Committee.

The members of the Calendars Committee will be at the Capitol today and tomorrow, so please call both days. Ask the representatives below to place HB 2547 on the calendar for a vote.

Calendar Committee

Chair: Rep. Todd Hunter
(512) 463-0672
hunter.todd@house.state.tx.us

Vice Chair: Rep. Eddie Lucio III
(512) 463-0606
eddie.lucio_iii@house.state.tx.us

Members:
Rep. Roberto Alonzo
(512) 463-0408
roberto.alonzo@house.state.tx.us

Rep. Carol Alvarado
(512) 463-0732
carol.alvarado@house.state.tx.us

Rep. Dan Branch
(512) 463-0367
dan.branch@house.state.tx.us

Rep. Angie Chen Button
(512) 463-0486
angie.button@house.state.tx.us

Rep. Byron Cook
(512) 463-0730
byron.cook@house.state.tx.us

Rep. Myra Crownover
(512) 463-0582
myra.crownover@house.state.tx.us

Rep. Sarah Davis
(512) 463-0389
sarah.davis@house.state.tx.us

Rep. Craig Eiland
(512) 463-0502
craig.eiland@house.state.tx.us

Rep. John Frullo
(512) 463-0676
john.frullo@house.state.tx.us

Rep. Charlie Geren
(512) 463-0610
charlie.geren@house.state.tx.us

Rep. Helen Giddings
(512) 463-0953
helen.giddings@house.state.tx.us

Rep. John Kuempel
(512) 463-0602
john.kuempel@house.state.tx.us

Rep. Doug Miller
(512) 463-0325
doug.miller@house.state.tx.us

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Read the letter.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

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This strong bipartisan support and what the media reports as “mild opposition from some public education groups” indicate this measure has increasingly strong support and could become law. The Senate bill (SB 929) will now go to the House Public Education Committee, where the House version of the measure (HB 1374) had a hearing on April 9 and has a majority of members of the committee in support of the bill.

The deadline for House bills to be voted out of the Texas House is the second week of May. However, since SB 929 has now passed, that deadline is no longer an issue since the House can act later on a Senate bill.

The post Tebow Bill Update appeared first on Texas Home School Coalition.

You may remember that a couple of weeks ago Senator West scheduled a hearing on SB 1148 and hours before the hearing withdrew the bill because of the high number of calls against the bill. The hearing did not begin until 8:30 p.m. because the Senate was in session until that time. As a result many witnesses who had planned to testify or register for SB 1194 and against SB 1148 were not able to attend.
Nevertheless, two families stayed all day long, including a mom, with three of her children, who had driven from Fort Worth and stayed all day long to give her emotional testimony and then made the hours-long drive home. The chairman was obviously opposed to our bill and directed the supporters of each bill to meet and “find some middle ground.”

Family law attorney Cecelia Wood and I spent a couple of hours with attorneys supporting SB 1148 to discuss our positions on the issue and will give written responses to each side and the senator in the next day or so. I do not expect an agreement. As I pointed out, they want to expand the opportunities to allow grandparents to sue for access and possession, and we want to limit it. That does not make for much middle ground.

Yesterday (April 24) the House Committee on Judiciary and Civil Jurisprudence voted HB 2547 out of committee. We are now working with the author to get the House Calendars Committee to schedule a vote for the bill on the House floor. We continue to need and appreciate your prayers.

The post TPRRA Update appeared first on Texas Home School Coalition.