Between both the Ohio House and Senate there was but one sole dissenting vote cast by Sen. Jeff Jacobson (R.)

The expansion bill SB 304, now sits on Governor Ted Strickland’s desk awaiting his signature.

Aging up would merely condemn yet more kids to enduring state sanctioned legalized child abandonment. It would expand and further embed legalized child dumping into the Ohio infrastructure and schools.

Other states have faced similar attempts at expansion, California for example has time and again been faced with attempts to age up that have each time been refused, (see CALIFORNIA: THE TERMINATOR TERMINATES “SAFE HAVEN” BABY DUMP EXPANSION AGAIN.)

Marley, over on the Daily Bastardette also has an incredible piece up today about the dump-law mess in Ohio and first person recounting of the reactions opponents of the legalized child abandonment bill have received:

OHIO: LAME DUCKS SELL OUT FAMILIES, EXPAND SAFE HAVENS. CONSIDER ABANDONMENT A GIFT FROM MOM! (I STRONGLY recommend readers follow the link across.)

Her piece also details the broader background of the dump law landscape in Ohio and makes it clear, some of what Ohio is counting as “safe haven” cases are likely nothing more than boarder baby cases folded in to inflate the statistics. (See my earlier piece on how New Jersey is folding boarder babies into its “safe haven” stats.)

***

Governor Strickland needs to hear from opponents of the “age up”. (Ultimately the dump laws themselves need to be repealed.) For the purposes of this bill however, contacting the Governor and urging he not enlarge the already failed legalized child abandonment program is a starting point.

He can be contacted via his webpage contact form.

Phone- General Info: (614) 466-3555

Fax- Fax: (614) 466-9354

Or snail mail-

Governor’s Office
Riffe Center, 30th Floor
77 South High Street
Columbus, OH 43215-6108

As time is of the essence, I advise contact via e-mail and phone calls with faxes or letters as a form of follow up.

***

This is a copy of the brief note I sent through Governor Strickland’s contact page back on 12/10/08-

I am writing to urgently request you reject increasing the age limit on Ohio’s “safe haven”/legalized child abandonment law.

The legalized child abandonment expansion bill (SB 304) is a tragic expansion of an already disastrous policy.

It is bad enough that state encouragement of child abandonment has already become woven into the fabric of Ohio law and school curriculums, the expansion bill potentially increases the number of babies who will endure the lifelong effects of child abandonment.

I am an adult adoptee, born and raised in Ohio, who has spent several years researching the effects of legalized child dumping. Dump laws cause lifelong damage to kids, their families and communities.

They should be repealed, not expanded.

Thank you for your time and consideration.

-Lauren Sabina Kneisly
co-author of Children of the Corn (http://cornkids.blogspot.com/)
Reporting, Theory,and Opinion on Legalized Child Dumping in Nebraska

Last Friday, December 5th, 2008, the SECA web-page finally went live. (http://www.stopdumpingkids.com/)

SECA, short for “Stop Encouraging Child Abandonment,” is a concept that has been a long time coming.

From the first of the legalized child abandonment laws passed in 1999 until now, efforts to repeal and stop the dump laws have suffered from a lack of an alliance dedicated to focusing primarily on the issue.

Before SECA, responses to dump laws had been piecemeal, portions of existing organizations’ broader missions. Over the years numerous organizations have opposed and testified against the legalization of child abandonment, and individuals have contacted legislators and worked against legalized child dumping. But, there had been no one place dedicated to dismantling the evolving child abandonment infrastructure.

Thus, SECA has finally been created.

Stop Encouraging Child Abandonment works toward nothing less than the full and permanent repeal of laws that legalize child abandonment.

We feel it is not the proper role of any government to encourage child abandonment as policy.

We approach this work firmly grounded in a human/civil/identity rights perspective. We support kids, women, and reproductive autonomy.

The need for SECA had become apparent over the past nine years, but the child welfare crisis in Nebraska with its law legalizing the abandonment of older children finally made it clear to the broader public, a formalized response to legalized child dumping is necessary.

Since the beginning, the consequences of such laws have been clear to those of us “in the field.” With bills rushed through state legislatures and policy and legal criticisms by and large dismissed, the general public simply never had reason to even think about the consequences of “safe haven” laws. Most people had never heard the voice of a kid who had been legally dumped. They had never seen the desperation of mothers and families utilizing the legalized abandonment laws.

Nebraska changed everything.

Nebraska’s older kid dumps, and the state’s eventual age down of eligible dumpees from 18-year olds to those 30 days and younger has solved nothing. It has merely attempted to put off dealing with the inevitable consequences “safe haven” laws create until the infants abandoned under the new law grow old enough to speak for themselves.

The child welfare abandonment disaster across the United States, legalized everywhere except Washington DC., is far from over. It is just beginning.

Out of that context, SECA was born, not so much a formal organization, for now more of a collective voice of allies, organizations, bloggers, and individuals among others working together towards the repeal of the dump laws.

If you are interested in working against the legalized child abandonment laws, or already are, SECA can serve as a resource in that work.

We can be contacted through the SECA contact page.

(Photo courtesy of the Nebraska Unicameral Information Office)

This is the latest in a series of posts I have done criticizing Nebraska’s legalized child abandonment laws. You can find my earlier posts via my Nebraska tag.

***

Nebraska has an incredible State Capitol, it’s a shame to see it used as the venue where the Nebraska Governor and Legislature are abandoning some of the state’s most needy kids.

Regular readers know, I oppose all legalized child abandonment laws, so while I’m going to detail the latest machinations relating to the ‘new and improved’ dump bills (what I’ve dubbed dump law 2.0) the bottom line remains, if any of these bills succeed, Nebraska will continue to fail those most vulnerable and least able to defend their own rights.

Today Nebraska’s Attorney General weighed in on the likely constitutionality (or lack thereof) regarding LB 3 (Annette Dubas’ two tier bill.)

Via Monday’s Nebraska Legislative Journal (link opens a PDF) we get the details on the Attorney General’s opinion on:

Whether LB 3 is within the scope of the Governor’s call for a special session of the Legislature relating to child abandonment.

Again, we’re deep down in the technical issues of what can and cannot be done within the scope of the special session itself. Back on November 14th (Friday) when LB 3 was introduced, Speaker Michael Flood requested an opinion from the Attorney General on LB 3.

The One-Hundredth Nebraska Legislature began its First Special Session on November 14, 2008. That special session was convened pursuant to a 44 LEGISLATIVE JOURNAL Proclamation issued by the Governor on October 29, 2008, under authority of art. IV, § 8 of the Nebraska Constitution. The Governor’s Proclamation called the Legislature into special session “for the purpose of considering and enacting legislation on only” two subjects. Those subjects are:

1. Enacting legislation to limit the application of 2008 Neb. Laws LB 157, Neb. Rev. Stat. § 29-121, by reducing the maximum age of children to whom the statute applies; and

2. To appropriate funds to the Legislative Council for the necessary expenses of the extraordinary session herein called.

Neb. Rev. Stat. § 29-121, the statute specifically addressed in the Governor’s proclamation, reads as follows:

No person shall be prosecuted for any crime based solely upon the act of leaving a child in the custody of an employee on duty at a hospital licensed by the State of Nebraska. The hospital shall promptly contact appropriate authorities to take custody of the child.

Your opinion request, which we received late in the afternoon on November 14, pertains to LB 3 from the First Special Session. You wish to know whether, in our view, LB 3 “is within the scope of the Governor’s call for a special session of the Legislature to enact legislation that limits the application of Neb. Rev. Stat. § 29-121?” For the reasons discussed below, we believe that it is not.

(Emphasis added.)

I’ll let readers go over the details of why via the Legislative Journal link if they are so inclined, suffice it to say, just as I predicted, to date the only real options the legislature has open to it is setting an age limit (again I advocate Zero point Zero, i.e. no kids at all) and how to pay for the special session.

Much of this opinion is based upon an earlier decision the Attorney General rendered:

This is the second opinion request which we have received regarding legislation proposed for the First Special Session and the scope of the Governor’s call. In our Op. Att’y Gen. No. 08008 (November 14, 2008), we indicated that legislation proposed by Senator Pahls was likely outside the scope of the Governor’s call for the special session.

Much of the first opinion is quoted in relation to LB 3 in the Legislative Journal piece. This paragraph summarizes:

It is well established that the legislature while in special session can transact no business except that for which it was called together. . . . The proclamation may state the purpose for which the Legislature is convened in broad, general terms or it may limit the consideration to a specified phase of a general subject. The Legislature is free to determine in what manner the purpose shall be accomplished, but it must confine itself to the matters submitted to it by the proclamation. . . .

Now how exactly the above relates to these three resolutions:

LR1 – Congratulate the Lindsay Holy Family High School Boys’ Cross Country Team for winning the Class D state championship

LR2 – Congratulate Thomas Wilson Hall for earning the rank of Eagle Scout

and

LR3 – Congratulate Matthew Willaert Wallen for earning the rank of Eagle Scout

is all just a bit beyond my legislative know-how, (but apparently when they’re not busy making yet still more of Nebraska’s abandoned kids they have to do something to fill the time and justify spending that $68,761.)

The Attorney General’s opinion also points out what he feels is beyond the constitutional scope of the special session, (speaking of the Governor):

He has not summoned the Legislature to consider and legislate with regard to other legal, medical or administrative ramifications that might flow from the relinquishment of a child at a licensed hospital or from the exemption from criminal prosecution itself.

and from further down:

…the supreme court’s restrictive view of what legislation is considered germane to a special session call does not allow the Legislature to consider bills which go beyond the specified phase of the Governor’s call and which deal in broad terms with child abandonment, the duties of governmental and private institutions, and the duties and rights of parents. Those additional legislative issues must wait, at this point, until the Legislature is assembled in its regular session.

Which has, just as I said, left their hands tied when it comes to offering any other form of concrete help to Nebraska’s kids and families.

The Nebraska Attorney General lays out very clearly, he believes LB 3:

…if enacted during the special session, is in violation of the Nebraska Constitution and void.

So where does this leave us?

Well for starters, with many hours of testimony that was heard Monday afternoon. (I’ll be working with that later on,) which was almost universally about at precisely what age Nebraska’s unequal treatment under law was going to kick in…2-3 days/that magic 72 hours? 30 days? A 2 month minimum? At 6-8 months? 1 year? 2 years?

As I’ve said before Zero point zero is the only way for Nebraska to ensure all kids receive “Equality Before the Law.” Anything else is an arbitrarily picked point in time that ensures a class of kids in Nebraska receive unequal treatment under Nebraska law.

Governor Heineman laid out his stance in a radio interview:

The governor said today that he’s flexible on an age limit and is willing to work with the legislature.

“Somewhere between 3 and 30 days is appropriate,” Heineman said on a statewide radio call-in show broadcast from KFOR in Lincoln.

So, again, where are we? For the moment anyway, stuck with LB 1, (the 72 hour bill) and the amendments that have been offered to date:

Sen. Bill Avery- AM 1- 1 year
Sen. Chris Langemeier- AM 2- 30 Days

Which is to say so far the legislators have accepted inequitable treatment, now they’re merely quibbling over the exact point that inequality will be applied.

We are still waiting for even one Nebraska legislator to step up and introduce a bill with an age cap set at zero point zero, a bill that would put a stop to the practice of child dumping in Nebraska.

The Attorney General’s opinion clearly leaves room for for a Zero point Zero bill:

Therefore, during the First Special Session, the Legislature may lower the maximum age of covered children to whatever age it chooses, or not at all.

(Emphasis added.)

In fact, given the current constraints of the special session, a Zero point Zero bill would be the ONLY means by which the legislature could effectively repeal the dump bill.

Unless and until that happens, we’re merely debating how many abandoned kids can dance on the head of that legalized dump pin.

A damn sad state of affairs, and one under which Nebraska’s kids will continue to lose.

***

All state enabled and encouraged legalized abandonment schemes fail kids.

Zero out the dump law.