Say Anything Blog

The Grand Forks Herald has come out against the Shared Parenting Initiative.  Well, not against the initiative per se, but rather against enacting it as law by approving through a popular vote in the upcoming election.  The Herald calls the SPI a “radical” change to North Dakota’s family law system and claims that such a change would be better if it were the result of debate among the legislators.

That’s a position I’m not entirely unsympathetic too, but there is good reason to be skeptical of the legislature’s ability to effect any sort of reform to North Dakota’s family law system.

North Dakota’s Department of Human Services has been actively opposing the Shared Parenting Initiative (using your tax dollars to do so) since it was first put on this year’s ballot by petition bearing the signatures of some 17,000 North Dakotans.  The DHS, one of North Dakota’s largest bureaucracies, has a lot of pull with our legislators. 

The North Dakota Bar Association has also been actively campaigning against the Shared Parenting Initiative.  They made a $16,000+ donation to the North Dakota Children’s Caucus (run out of the same offices as the far-left NDPeople.org group, formerly known as the North Dakota Progressive Coalition) to oppose the Shared Parenting Initiative with ridiculous billboards and signs like this one.  Why are the state’s lawyers opposing Shared Parenting?  Probably because shared parenting will result in fewer biller hours for them on divorce cases.  But whatever their reasons, the point is that they also have a lot of pull with the state’s legislature.

The whole reason the Shared Parenting Initiative was put on the ballot in front of North Dakota voters is because the legislature, in the past, has been totally unwilling to take up this sort of reform.  It is needed, but they aren’t willing to address it.  Why?  Probably because the North Dakota Department of Human Services and the ND Bar Association, both looking to protect their bank accounts, have a lot more pull in Bismarck then a group of concerned parents.

So all due respect to the opinion of the Grand Forks Herald, but North Dakotans aren’t likely to get any sort of relief on this issue from the legislature.  The people need to put turn this initiative into law to at least begin the process of reform.