Texas Legislature – Parent Guidance Center

Why legislation matters…

Parent Guidance Center tracks parental rights related legislation for you free of charge. Every other year when the Texas state legislature goes into session, decisions are made about YOUR family and YOUR rights as a parent, often with little fanfare and usually without any press. A tiny, one word change, such as MAY to SHALL, can negatively (or positively) impact you and your children without your knowledge!

Most parents are busy working and raising their families and/or can’t afford to get involved in politics. Meanwhile, your parental rights still need to be defended at the capitol. There aren’t any “special interest groups” interested in defending your parental rights. Lobbyists aren’t looking out for families or the “little guy” when they influence legislators. Most high-paid lobbyists (or hired guns as they are often called) are on a mission from the highest bidder to take away your rights as a parent or push some unnecessary or involuntary program on families without their consent.

Many lobbying groups come to the capitol on behalf of children and proceed to put “protection of children” ahead of parental rights. While we all can agree children need protecting, it should never be at the expense of parental rights.

Parent Guidance Center looks out for families – children and parents – and strives to strike a balance between protecting a child and protecting parental rights. The two are NOT mutually exclusive as some may believe.

Check out the Texas Legislature link to find your representative and find bills that may effect your future. Get involved . . .

Legislators need to hear from PARENTS: Calls, emails, visits to legislators, written testimony, and public testimony are all very powerful tools to let your parent voice be heard.

Vetoes

SB 1440 Veto

SB 359 Veto

After the 81st Legislature in 2009, Parent Guidance Center led the campaign to ask for a veto of SB 1440. Below is the press release that led to the successful veto.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

FLDS-STYLE RAID COMING TO A HOME NEAR YOU

COMPLIMENTS OF THE TEXAS LEGISLATURE

Austin, Texas: The Texas Legislature passed a new law, SB 1440, on May 30^th which will potentially suspend 4^th amendment rights against unreasonable search and seizure during the investigation phase of child protection cases.

Activists, advocates, and parents across Texas are calling for Governor Perry to veto SB 1440 to protect families’ Constitutional rights.

All families are at risk in the state of Texas if the governor signs this bill. The FLDS case, where Texas took over 400 children based on the “umbrella of beliefs” held by their parents and no tangible evidence of abuse or neglect, demonstrated the sweeping power that the government wields against families, even when reports are false. Rights are ignored in the name of “child protection.”

If SB 1440 is not vetoed, Child Protective Services will be able to gain access to people’s homes and children by merely presenting an affidavit to the court asking for a court order to “aid in an investigation.”

This dispenses with a search warrant based on probable cause or a hearing during which parents can defend themselves and CPS must prove “good cause” for obtaining access to children and their medical and mental health records.

“If after being served this order, parents assert their 4^th amendment rights, they may be held in contempt of court!” said Johana Scot , executive director of Parent Guidance Center , an organization that helps parents involved in CPS cases. “How can this be in the best interest of a child in the United States of America ?”

The original bill (SB 1064 by Kirk Watson) died on the floor but was revived by Patrick Rose as a last minute amendment to Watson’s SB 1440 and seeks to get around obstacles to information gathering with merely a court order issued for “aid in an investigation” when accusations of abuse or neglect are made “based on information available” which in the case of the FLDS was a hoax phone call.

Parents who do NOT agree to let their children be questioned, transported, or traumatized by strangers could then be presented with a court order sworn by “an investigator or authorized representative of the department” who could then gain access to their property, records, and children. These court orders can also be obtained without a family’s knowledge that they are being investigated.

The new law goes even further by striking the term “for good cause shown” and lowers the evidentiary bar by only requiring “fair probability that allegations of abuse or neglect will be sustained if the order is issued or executed.”

A search warrant requires probable cause; CPS investigations will no longer require good cause at all. Anonymous reports and lack of a hearing will place all families in jeopardy.

“It is disappointing and disturbing that the Texas Legislature would seek to get around court rulings that kept families’ rights in place,” Scot said.

“This bill puts families between a rock and a hard place with confusing language that makes the law harder for ordinary citizens to understand rather than clarifying it.”

The Department of Family and Protective Services has already made great strides to change their policies and procedures after these court rulings.

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After the 84th Legislature ended in 2015, Parent Guidance Center led the campaign to ask for a veto of SB 359. Below is the press release that led to the successful veto.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Warrantless Detention Coming to Texas

Hospitals and Emergency Rooms!!!

Austin, Texas: The Texas Legislature decided to strip our constitutional rights away by passing SB 359 which will allow for warrantless detentions of our citizens for up to 4 hours in hospitals, emergency rooms, free-standing emergency clinics, and mental health facilities if patients want to leave before examination or treatment is complete and are “believed” to have a mental illness – No warrant, no hearing, no lawyer, no protections, no exceptions. Everyone using a hospital or emergency room is at risk!

Liberty-minded activists and parents across the state are calling for Governor Abbott to VETO SB 359 and keep constitutional rights, patient rights, medical freedom rights, and parental rights intact.

SB 359 gives doctors and hospitals police-type powers to detain and restrain by allowing each facility to design and implement its own unconstitutional warrantless detention policy to detain and/or restrain any person who “voluntarily” comes to that facility for any type of services – not just mental health.

“Basically, anyone who disagrees with a doctor or hospital and wants to leave against medical advice is at risk of being told they are delusional and can be coerced for the next 4 hours,” said Johana Scot, Executive Director for Parent Guidance Center. “And doctors already hold all the cards when it comes to treatment of children – if parents disagree, doctors just call CPS.”

SB 359 allows hospitals to write their own detention policies, creates the perfect storm for fraud and abuse, gives hospitals the same right to detain without warrant as peace officers, violates parental rights to choose and refuse treatment for their child, incrementally erodes other future rights since the detention will be listed in a person’s medical file, circumvents the existing process of informed consent, and could be used to violate current statutes that bar deception and coercion tactics at medical facilities.

And if that list is not enough to scare every Texan and make them think twice before seeking any medical care for themselves or their children, SB 359 clearly absolves doctors and facilities of any civil and criminal liability!

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