Idaho Enemies
Recent events oblige me to make on comment on the McGuckin family saga. During the long illness of the father, the family fell into terrible financial straits because he could not work. The mother did her best. But they were unable to pay the property taxes on their home one mile north of Garfield Bay on a little pothole called Beaver Lake. Eventually the tax debt reached about $8,000. Bonner County's tax department sold the property out from under the McGuckins for $53,000. Bonner County kept the full amount and did not remit a dime of this sale to the McGuckins. They had the audacity to arrest and charge Mrs. McGuckin for failure to adequately feed her children!!!!! They did not charge Mr. McGuckin, he died of his disease not long ago. If people want to know why antigovernment sentiment permeates Northern Idaho, perhaps the habit of local government taxing property whether it creates income or not, whether the owners have the income to pay the taxes or not, and the Sheriff of Nottingham approach to property tax collection when the owners are unable to pay the taxes, might be a reason. It is not just the FBI's criminal assault on the Randy Weaver family without bothering to tell said Weavers who they are and giving them the chance to surrender. See Idaho v. Horiuchi, (9th Cir. 2001) 253 F. 3d. 359, 362-364 for further details.
The Department of Health and Welfare Division of Welfare operates the state's Child Support Services.
The Idaho Legislature provided for license suspension and for court ordered participation in work activities, a direct violation of the Antipeonage Act, in IC §7-612. Any enforcement of this statute is the felony defined by 18 U.S.C. §1581.
Most of the county prosecutors in Idaho have not developed web sites, indeed, most of the counties have either no web site or just a simple web site with only a few pages, and not every department has its own page. Even Ada County, which includes Boise, has such a web site. But I did find a few prosecuting attorneys with their own web pages.
Bingham County Prosecuting Attorney sets forth his child support enforcement policy. He explains that the Department of Health and Welfare has the primary responsibilities in this field and that he brings action against noncustodial parents only upon referral by the state's Department. I would suggest that a more practical policy, given the limited resources available for county prosecutors in Idaho, and given the strong sentiment in this state against government interference in personal lives, provoked all the more by the Weaver and McGuckin cases, that he not perform any child support prosecutions because of the Antipeonage Act. By citing the federal statute, he can say that he is only following the law and his oath of office.
Boundary County Prosecuting Attorney states that he represents the Department of Health and Welfare in Child Protective Act cases arising in this county. This is the county wherein Ruby Ridge and the former home of the Weaver family was located, and where the siege took place.
I could list links to the dozen or so web sites of county prosecutors who have such web sites. But until I know more about whether their duties have anything to do with child support peonage, I will not. The policy stated by the Bingham County Prosecuting Attorney makes sense from a political standpoint. Social conservatives are a bane of our existence. They pollute the conservative movement with their unpopular anti-abortion stance and their frightening "Christian Taliban" attitude towards gay rights and other live and let live concepts, including legalization of marijuana. They are too "law and order" for us libertarian conservatives, who believe it is the Constitution that should be strictly enforced. They do not seem to have limiting government and taxation as among their primary goals. However, the absence of large urban centers with their loony left politics frees states like Idaho from the liberal influence, which includes the feminazi movement that is the driving force behind child support peonage. Anti-government sentiment is rampant in those rural Idaho counties not dominated by Mormons, whose religion teaches obedience to civil government and who tend to support social conservatives. Given the high powered emotions that surround any family law, child custody, or other child welfare case, it is politically smart to leave local county government out of the support enforcement business as much as possible. If county prosecutors in small rural counties have to arrest those noncustodial parents down on their luck due to the rampant layoffs in the rural economy, re-election would get problematical. County officials might respond by simply refusing to enforce such orders, as they prefer re-election. Therefore, we see this pattern such as in Idaho: the state government in Boise taking all of the responsibility for doing just enough support enforcement to qualify for federal funds, while the county officials are left to perform their usual duties of misdemeanor and felony prosecution.
Think about it. Prosecute some guy who is still famous for leading a local high school to football glory because he got divorced and then laid off. His celebrity status will guarantee coverage of the case in the local weekly paper. The few thousand folks in the county can accept that a parent has a duty to provide for his child. Still, they see that duty as being dependent upon an economy that will allow him to meet such duty. Punish the fellow with an excessive support order and for the consequences of worldwide free trade without a planetary minimum wage and we might see such a county turning itself into a "safe haven" for noncustodial parents. The local sentiment may turn against this insane system. What do you have for an economy in such counties?
Agriculture. A finite source of income, limited by the acreage that can be farmed. When the prices the farmers receive are good, it is because of a crop failure. The farmers have nothing to sell! If the farmers produce a bumper crop, the prices are depressed because of the law of supply and demand. If you notice that all of the Cadillacs in farm country were built during the same year, that was the year there was a bumper crop AND good prices. Still, for those who do not own land, agricultural employment is not the road to prosperity. That's why it is dominated by Mexicans for whom conditions back home are even worse.
Timber. Like agriculture, a finite source of income, only the crop takes longer to mature. Either you are not allowed to cut down the old growth forests because of the spotted owl, or you eventually run out of old growth forests. There is some employment planting tree seedlings in the clear cuts, and in thinning out the crop as it grows. Still, you pretty much have to wait for the trees to get big enough before you can cut them down and run them through a sawmill. If a forest fire doesn't burn them first. Because most timber is used in construction, sales are highly dependent upon the business cycle. Recessions always lead to layoffs in timber country. Sure there is paper, which can be made from trees, but paper can be made from any species of tree, and it can be made from hemp. As hemp growing is legalized for industrial purposes, timber employment will take a further hit.
Mineral extraction and refining. Believe it or not, there are those who actually prefer to work in mines. Compared to offices, there is something to be said for an environment where the only thing the boss cares about is whether you can do the job. Blue collar workplaces tend to be like that. Can you run the ore machinery? If yes, you have a job. Until the mine closes down. Which has happened a lot in Idaho. Sometimes, it is because the lode runs out. The pollution previously locked up safely in the ore is now part of the surface environment and everyone has mysterious illnesses. The neighborhood around a refinery is the poster child for the environmental movement. It looks terrible! Mines close down before the lode runs out for many reasons: Environmental regulations. Imports from nations where the environmental regulations are lax and so are the local wages. How do you compete with copper from Bolivia or gold from Siberia under such circumstances? And then there are the recessions, which always lead to layoffs in the mining industry.
Needless to say, county prosecutors in places like rural Idaho might not want the child support business. Which might explain why they either do not have it or do not emphasize it on their web pages.
In California, Idaho, Montana, and Arizona, we see child support enforcement responsibilities moving away from the elected county prosecutors and toward the state governments. The public is not as enthusiastic about cracking down on noncustodial parents as it used to be, if it ever was. As President Bush's base of support is in the very rural counties that seem to be or are abandoning the enforcement of support as a responsibility, perhaps he should rethink his support for this insane system in light of his oath to uphold the Constitution and laws of the United States. The Antipeonage Act is a law of the United States.
If the enforcement of child support is indeed as popular with the public as we are lead to believe, then every elected public official would be proclaiming their enthusiastic support for it. The California District Attorneys would have loudly opposed transferring the control and responsibility over their Family Support Sections to the state government. They did not. The elected county prosecutors in Idaho, Utah, Montana, and Arizona would loudly proclaim on their web sites their enthusiastic efforts to enforce the support obligation. They do not. While many of the county prosecutors in Washington, Oregon, and Hawaii loudly proclaim their enthusiastic enforcement of support, prominently listing child support as a responsibility on their web sites, some of the more rural county prosecutors in these states do not.
It is like with the Metric System. If it was universally popular with the public, the road signs would change and the elected officials would fall over each other taking credit. It is not, and the road signs, at least in the United States, do not change. Elected school board members go silent when asked about the track meets and the math curriculum. When local elected public officials wash their hands of something, it is because it is not popular with the public upon whom they depend for re-election.
There is hope for us, folks!
Article I Section 1 of the Idaho Constitution provides for the inalienable rights of men, including the right to acquire, possess, and protect property.
Article I Section 6 of the Idaho Constitution prohibits excessive bails and fines and cruel and unusual punishments.
Article I Section 11 of the Idaho Constitution provides for the right of the people to keep and bear arms, with a specific exception for the legislating of penalties for possession of firearms by convicted felons and the unlawful use of firearms, and it allows for legislation governing the carrying of concealed weapons. Licensing, registration, and special taxation of the private ownership of firearms and ammunition is specifically prohibited.
Article I Section 13 of the Idaho Constitution includes the state Due Process Clause and other specific protections.
Article I Section 15 of the Idaho Constitution prohibits imprisonment for debt except in cases of fraud. I guess child support is a fraud.
In re Martin, (1955) 76 Idaho 179, 279 P. 2d. 873, 878 decided that obligation to support wife and children is not a "debt" when made specific by a judgment of a court, and can be enforced by contempt. It cited State v. Francis, (1928) 125 Ore. 253, 269 P. 878; Dean v. Dean, (1931) 136 Ore. 694, 300 P. 1027; In re McCabe, (1931) 53 Nev. 463, 5 P. 2d. 538; Ex parte Big Horse, (1936) 178 Okla. 218, 62 P. 2d. 487; Miller v. Superior Court, (1937) 9 Cal. 2d. 733, 72 P. 2d. 868, Robinson v. Robinson, (1950) 37 Wash. 2d. 511, 225 P. 2d. 411; Cain v. Miller, (1922) 109 Neb. 441, 191 N.W. 704; State v. Cook, (1902) 66 Ohio 566, 64 N.E. 567; and Holloway v. Holloway, (1935) 130 Ohio 214, 198 N.E. 579.
The Idaho Court of Appeals again upheld the practice of contempt proceedings where there is a failure to pay child support in Muthersbaugh v. Neuman, (1999) 133 Idaho 677, 991 P. 2d. 865.
I guess it is just easier for judges to go along to get along than to decide that their own state constitution means exactly what it says, regardless of what courts in other states say about their state constitutions. Imagine if all of this bleating about "state sovereignty" was something more than just a stupid ass excuse to avoid enforcing the rights of the citizen. They don't really mean it.
I once worked out an imprisonment for debt argument for Idaho. After updating, I include it on a web page to illustrate the lack of respect for the law and the English language in which it is written by the Idaho courts. Because of the political climate, I am afraid that presented by itself, an imprisonment for debt argument has zero chance of success, a tiny chance if applied to a specific situation. However, if combined with an argument pleading the Antipeonage Act, the chance of success is greater, because you are offering the courts and the bureaucracy a choice: Give me the state constitution, or I will keep pushing the Antipeonage Act, ultimately to demand enforcement of the CRIMINAL provision, 18 U.S.C. §1581!
This is why I like the Antipeonage Act. It cuts through this Gordian Knot of non-law like Alexander's Sword. Somebody in Idaho ought to try it. Do it in a small population county where the local newspaper will cover it.
Feel free to e-mail me at [email protected] with any information that you have to share.
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