Equal Parenting Voted as TOP 15 Legislative Priority at 2024 TX GOP State Convention

The issue of Equal Parenting and passing Equal Shared Parenting laws in Texas was voted a top 15 Legislative Priority at the 2024 Texas Republican State Convention in San Antonio, TX this past weekend.

Whether or not the priority makes the cut of top 8 priorities, this is a major achievement and sends a major statement that this is a very important issue of the people and the people want an Equal Parenting law passed now. With the several thousand Texas Republican grassroots delegates backing this issue to get passed, you would think it would get done at the next Texas Legislative session in a state run by Republicans, especially considering this is a bi-partisan and non-partisan issue (the right for kids to see their parents) and has had both Republican and Democrat State Representative sponsors and authors over the years. In fact, this issue would be passed overwhelmingly in the Texas Legislature (as it did in many other states recently, including Florida) if the Texas House juvenile justice and family issues committee chairman would just stop preventing it from getting to the floor for a vote.

The exact wording of the Legislative Priority voted on at the State Convention reads as follows:

Equal Parenting

Protect parent-child relationships as fundamental rights by making equal shared (50/50) parenting, including custody and access, the starting point for all fit, willing, and able parents, and by reforming child support so that it considers the time and income of both parents.

The process to get voted on as a top 15 priority is that the temporary legislative priorities committee hears days of testimony on which of the hundreds of issues should be considered priorities. The temporary committee then votes on the top 15 issue to pass on to the permanent committee. The permanent committee then hears more testimony and they discuss and make changes to what issues should be in the top 15 priorities. These top 15 priorities then move on to the entire delegation for a floor discussion and or changes to what should be in the top 15 and then after a vote of the entire floor of thousands of delegates, the top 15 list is approved and moves on to a vote to rank the issues in order to get the top 8 priorities. All 15 priorities are important and get attention as top issues, but the top 8 get more push from the party leaders to get them passed. The final ranking has not been released yet.

Equal Parenting has already been in the Texas GOP Platform for the past decade, but it takes work to keep it there and to get it voted on as a priority. In addition to the many people who testified in favor of Equal Parenting at the convention, Equal Parenting advocate David Bellow has also sent a postcard to the several thousand delegates and got a half page ad in the convention program in order to educate and bring awareness to the issue of Equal Parenting and the severe negative effects that non equal parenting laws have on kids and society, including contributing to the current fatherless epidemic.

More info and facts on Equal Parenting and Equal Shared Parenting laws can be found at www.DavidBellow.com and also www.EqualJusticeTaskForce.com