SPECIAL SESSION Remarks
Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and members of the committee. My name is Vicky Davis and I’m currently residing in Twin Falls County. I’m a native Idahoan – born in Hailey, graduated high school in Idaho Falls. I trained to become a computer programmer in Santa Clara, California – Silicon Valley in the 1970s. I spent the next twenty some odd years as a Systems Analyst/Programmer designing and writing computer systems for large corporations and government entities.
For the last month and a half, I’ve spent nearly all my waking time researching, reading and writing about S.1067. On the radio the other day Senator Mike Crapo admitted it’s a bad bill. He commended the legislators who tried to fix it. But there is no fix for it because the offending language – the specific reference to the Hague Convention on the International Recovery of Child Support and Other Forms of Family Maintenance is still in the bill.
The purpose of this Hague Convention is to authorize participation in a global “market-based” data exchange system for international child support cases. We don’t know if the system will be used for domestic child support enforcement cases, but I would bet that it will be because from a systems point of view, there is no difference between a domestic cross-border child support enforcement case and an international case. It’s all just data.
The European Commission is paying for the development of the system which is named the iSupport system. The Secretary General of the Hague Conference will control the bridge – the central hub of the system and the extortion power of the federal government in terms of access will be transferred to the Europeans. This shifts the lines of authority to the Hague Conference. Think about that. A function of national and state government will be under the control of Europeans.
That’s treason even if it is through a machine interface.
This Hague Convention was negotiated under Article 6 treaty power. But Article 6 power was NOT SUFFICIENT to ratify this Hague Convention. The reason is self-evident. It requires a change in state law and that’s your jurisdiction. The federal government does not have the power to order you to change state law which is why they issued an extortion demand holding children hostage – the majority of which are not even involved in an international case.
Further, their extortion demand is that you violate Article 1, Section 10 of the Constitution which says –
No state shall enter into any treaty, alliance, or confederation;
There is no ambiguity in that statement. No way to twist the words to mean something different. The integration of the Hague Convention into state law makes Idaho a party to – and subject to The Hague Convention and The Hague Convention is a treaty.
The attempted extortion of the state to violate Article 1, Section 10 is being done through the principles of cooperative federalism. In a paper written by Eric Fish, Legislative Counsel for the Uniform Law Commission, he cited a Supreme Court case – South Dakota v Dole, when he wrote that a federal mandate is constitutional only if it meets the following tests:
The exercise of the spending power must be in pursuit of the general welfare.
Is the mandate to pass S.1067 in pursuit of the general welfare? No it isn’t. It serves a fraction of the population so small as to be statistically insignificant – less than 1 percent of the child support enforcement cases and those cases are an infinitesimally small percentage of the population at large.
Congress must exercise the spending power unambiguously, allowing states to exercise their choice independently but with full cognizance of the repercussions of the choice.
Are you being given the choice independently? No. You are being told to pass it and the feds are holding children hostage.
The conditions must be related to the federal interest, in particular national projects and programs.
Is the international child support enforcement system a national project or program? No – obviously not. It’s international by definition.
The terms of conditional spending must not run afoul of other constitutional provisions.
Does the federal mandate to integrate the Hague Convention into Idaho law run afoul of other constitutional provisions? Yes, it does. It runs afoul of Article 1, Section 10.
These are historic times and there is no place for business as usual. You are on center stage and the world is watching. What we need today are leaders – not weak-knee’d collaborators.
You’re not voting on a child support enforcement system. You are voting on the structural framework of our government. The question is – will it be a legitimate, constitutional government or will you de-legitimize yourselves and the government of the State of Idaho.
If you vote no on S.1067, the world will not come to an end. We have a State Attorney General whose job it is to defend the state to prevent federal government overreach. If you vote to defeat S.1067 it would be a mandate to Attorney General Wasden to defend the rights and prerogatives of the state under the U.S. and Idaho State Constitutions.
One final thing. I am a Mother and a Grandmother and for a significant number of years, when I was raising my son, I did it as a single parent without support. I know it’s hard because I lived it. But there was never a time when I would have traded my son’s future for a few extra dollars in the present day and I don’t think I’m any different than any other Mother on that issue – assuming that they understand the stakes which the main stream media has failed miserably to explain.
Please do the right thing for all the children of Idaho and for their future. Vote for their right to inherit a legitimate American government that operates within a Constitutional framework. Vote to defeat S.1067.
Thank you. If you have any questions I’d be happy to answer them.