PRF President Returns to ALEC to Build Bridges Block

PRF President Michael Ramey with HSLDA attorney Tj Schmidt and Louisiana State Representative Beryl Amedee at ALEC 's 2024 meeting in Denver. 

This week, I am proud to represent the Parental Rights Foundation at the annual national gathering of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), a coalition of private organizations, non-profits, and (mostly Republican) state lawmakers who share certain conservative principles. What excites me the most about our ALEC membership is how many times we have taken model bills for their consideration that have been written by scholars and lawyers from across the political spectrum.

Who else is poised to promote bills like our Confidential Reporting Model with the approval of ACLU lawyers on one side of the aisle and ALEC on the other? (That particular model, through the efforts of coalition partners, has been adopted by both New York and Texas!)

Who else can walk into a room of Republican lawmakers and tell them, helpfully and not dismissively, this is what our left-leaning partners don’t like about your bill, and here is how we can fix it to still accomplish your goals?

There are other organizations that are bigger, wealthier, or more powerful than we are. 

But when it comes to building a bridge for family defense and for fundamental parental rights, I believe your Parental Rights Foundation compares favorably to anyone.

I’m not just proud of our membership in ALEC, a decidedly right-leaning policy coalition. I’m proud of the fact that we can speak into ALEC to remove red flags that would keep our left-leaning friends from signing on.

The need is great.

Every year, 83% of all child welfare investigations are closed as unfounded or unsubstantiated. (Source: NCANDS) That means 5 out of every 6 investigations, no matter how intrusive, were unnecessary. And it means investigators are having to work six times as many cases as they should—a tremendous waste of our precious, limited resources.

Every year, some 50,000 families suffer the termination of their rightful parent-child relationship (called “termination of parental rights,” a term that ignores the permanent cost to the children). Such TPRs should be rare, and only when they are the least restrictive means to meet a compelling governmental interest. They should be a last resort.

But they are not.

In short, our child welfare system is in desperate need of reform. People on the Right know it. People on the Left know it. And your Parental Rights Foundation is instrumental in bringing those people together so we can get the work done.

This week at ALEC is a key part of that bridge building.

I’m not taking a model to ALEC this summer, though I am currently working up a model to take in December. It is right now being reviewed by friends on both sides of the aisle to make sure it will be something we can all agree on.

But you can find the models we have already shared on the ALEC website, including:

• Family Rights in Medical Investigations
• Due Process for Families Facing Separation (“Hidden Foster Care”)
• Central Registry Due Process
• Confidential (Not Anonymous) Reporting to Child Abuse Hotlines
• Reasonable Childhood Independence (“Free Range Parenting”)
• Child Protection Investigations Reform (“Family Miranda”)

Every one of these models, like the one I’m preparing for December, has been vetted by friends on the Left as well as on the Right, and then endorsed by the American Legislative Exchange Council. And we are starting to see that work pay off as some of these models become law in various states around the country.

Your support of the Parental Rights Foundation is what makes this bridge-building possible. Partners like you have paid for our ALEC membership and conference attendance and all the other expenses that go into making this happen. That’s because we are 100% donor funded. We are all in this together.

So, thank you for supporting the Parental Rights Foundation as we build bridges across the aisle to protect children by empowering parents. Together.