Child Support Bill
January 13, 2014
Sunday’s Milwaukee Journal Sentinel’s front page banner headline was: “GOP donor gets lawmaker to write bill to cut his child support.”
The story relates to a wealthy business man who thinks he is paying too much in child support. After losing his appeal, he resorted to asking his legislator (to whom, of course, he contributed money) to draft legislation which would lower his child support.
I was asked by my editor at the Wisconsin Law Journal to write an article about the proposed legislation, but I was reluctant as these so-called “constituent bills” are quite common. They are done by legislators who like campaign contributions (which describe all of them, of course) and don’t like to say “no” to anyone who gives them. But, they rarely go anywhere. In fact, many never even get a hearing. They are merely a mechanism for the legislator to placate a contributor.
But then the article appears on the top of the front page of the Sunday MJS. So, I guess an article is warranted, look for it in an upcoming on-line edition of the Wisconsin Law Journal.
