ACFC, ACES Leaders Face-off on Bradley Amendment

A divorced father gets laid off. Or injured. Or sick. His income drops. The court won't give him a downward modification, or he's not able to apply for one, or he didn't know he had to get one. His child support arrearages pile up. Interest and penalties are tacked on. Soon the father has a debt he couldn't possibly pay, and which he never should have been expected to pay.

Widely viewed in family law circles as bad law, abolishing or reforming the Bradley Amendment is one of the most important goals of the fatherhood movement.

The Association for Children for the Enforcement of Support is, along with the National Organization for Women, the fatherhood movement's leading opponent. A nationwide organization which advocates higher child support levels and tougher child support enforcement, ACES opposes a repeal of the Bradley Amendment, fearing that irresponsible fathers may then be able to evade child support by allowing their arrearages to accumulate and then getting a sympathetic judge to wipe them out. It was these fears which led to the Bradley Amendment in 1986.

Stephen Baskerville is the president of the American Coalition for Fathers and Children, the world's largest shared parenting organization. Debbie Kline is the Executive Director of ACES and a frequent guest on His Side.  Baskerville and Kline debated the Bradley Amendment on His Side with Glenn Sacks on March 27, 2005.

To learn more, see:

• The American Coalition for Fathers & Children

• The Association for Children for the Enforcement of Support

• List of ACES' Accomplishments

• Glenn's co-authored column Laws must protect the rights of military dads (Army Times, Marine Corps Times, 3/28/05)

• Ron Henry's Child Support at a Crossroads: When the Real World Intrudes Upon Academics and Advocates (Family Law Quarterly, Vol. 33, No. 1, 1999)

• Child-support-law amendment comes to attention of Hill; Provision revision could end to horror stories  (Washington Times, 4/27/99)

• Glenn's three minute radio commentary on the Francis Borgia child support case

• The Men's Health Network's Testimony to the Committee on Ways and Means Subcommittee on Human Resources (4/27/99)

• Read the Bradley Amendment here

• Glenn's co-authored column It's Child Support Guidelines that Need Surgery, Not 'Deadbeat Dads' (Cincinnati Post, Kentucky Post, 5/12/04)

• California Child Support Bill Will Help Newly Released Prisoners Rebuild Their Lives (Los Angeles Daily Journal, San Francisco Daily Journal, 5/9/02)

• Glenn's co-authored column New Study Shows Child Support Guidelines in Need of Reform (Daily Breeze [Los Angeles], 6/20/04)

• Glenn's co-authored column Divorced from Reality on Child Support (Newark Star-Ledger, 9/6/02)

• His Side: Are Child Support Levels Too High? (12/12/04)

• His Side: Showdown in Motown: Michigan Dads vs. Leader of ACES (4/18/04)

• His Side: Child Support Civil Rights Violations (7/18/04)

• His Side: Do Men Gain Economically from Divorce? (2/29/04)

• His Side: The Degradation of LA's 'Deadbeat Dad Court' (8/24/03)

• His Side: Child Support System Abuses Drive Fathers out of Their Children's Lives (6/1/03)