April 2024 CSQ

support. Better-off fathers, on the other hand, often received nominal
orders. In fact, many divorced fathers did not have a monthly support order
at all. Part of my job as a state attorney was to review lump sum divorce
decrees to determine whether they satisfied a “best interests of the child”
standard. It was then common for wives to get the house and a lump sum
settlement of a few thousand dollars in lieu of a monthly support order
during a child’s minority.
This also was before UIFSA was enacted. We operated under the Uniform
Reciprocal Enforcement of Child Support Act (URESA). In order to enforce
child support orders across state lines, both states had to enter into a
compact—a little like a bilateral agreement in international cases. Part of
my job was to review new URESA agreements. My interstate child support
case wasn’t going to go anywhere because Minnesota didn’t have a
URESA agreement with Pennsylvania. I didn’t even try to enforce my case.
I represented the state in several class action lawsuits challenging federal
laws enacted in 1981 and 1984. My first case was a constitutional
challenge to the tax offset program. In another case, the state joined
families in challenging federal sibling deeming rules, which required all
children in the household to apply for AFDC and assign their child support
rights. We had affidavits from several parents who decided to change
custody rather than assign their support payments or who stopped paying
child support altogether. During my career, I’ve been privileged to work on
two U.S. Supreme Court cases.
Program architecture underlies family experiences. In late 1994, I
began working as a policy analyst at a national policy advocacy
organization called the Center for Law in Social Policy (CLASP) in
Washington, DC, and later became its family policy director. I specialized in
family policy for 15 years, focusing on low-income families and fathers,
domestic violence, and prison re-entry, including the Second Chance Act. I
also focused on the guts of the child support program: systems
implementation, program structure, and financing. A major part of my job
was legislative advocacy. I was often on the hill and in the media, and
coordinated closely with state directors. I had a hand in almost every child
support law passed by Congress between 1996 and 2009, when I became
OCSS commissioner.
1994 was truly an incredible time to return to the child support program.
Three weeks into the job, I went to my first NCSEA policy forum. The
conference was held at a pivotal point in the program’s history: the shift to