Men Who Find They Aren’t the Fathers Still Have to Keep Paying Child Support in Tennessee
Posted by Mr. Thoughtful on April 23, 2008
After my post on Robert Myers below, I promised another post on why it is difficult to change the monumentally unjust laws of the type that have ruined Myers’ life. Here’s a perfect example from the news.
Representative Rob Briley, Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee of the Tennessee legislature, recently killed a bill that would have allowed men who had been paying child support for children they discovered were not their own a legal avenue to get their child support terminated.
After Campfield explained the bill - HB1523 - to the House Judiciary Committee, Rep. Rob Briley, D-Nashville, immediately took the lead in criticizing the measure.
“I think this is the most anti-child piece of legislation I’ve seen down here in 10 years - by far,” said Briley.
I wonder why Representative Briley thinks men should be forced to continue paying child support for children they didn’t father? What makes it worse is that many times, perhaps most of the time, the mothers knew the guy paying child support wasn’t actually the father of the child. They just liked getting that money from the poor sap who was paying it.
Representative Briley concluded the bill proposed was “the most anti-child piece of legislation” he had seen in his legislative career. The bill might more accurately be called anti-fraudulent mother. This guy is a disgrace. I hope he is voted out of office, but given the advantages of incumbency, including the protection of running for re-election in a safe gerrymandered district, he’ll probably be in office as long as he wants to be.
This high-handed action illustrates the near impossibility of changing the laws. The people who run many of the state legislatures have little interest in justice. And voters are mostly too apathetic to ever do anything to boot these people out of office.
