A group called TexProtects, The Texas Association for the Protection of Children, has put out an "Advocacy Alert" urging people to write to the Governor to ask him to sign SB 1440, that bill discussed in previous posts to this Blog that would legalize CPS' illegal behavior in cases like the FLDS raid.
Their argument boils down to this: Current law is terribly vague, but this bill supposedly makes things more specific. Therefore, TexProtects says, the bill "actually provides more protections for a parent in connection with orders in aid of an investigation."
Let's leave aside, for the moment, the phony notion implied by that statement that unlimited state power benefits children and basic due process benefits only parents. Let's ignore, for the moment, that in cases like the FLDS raid it was the children who suffered most from CPS' actions.
The argument from TexProtects still leaves out one small detail: Two key court rulings. One is the Texas Supreme Court ruling in the FLDS case, the other came from a federal appellate court in one of those rare cases where CPS picked on someone with the money to hire good lawyers. These rulings have filled in a lot of the blanks. Thanks to those rulings, the law now is a bit more specific. What SB 1440 really tries to do is undermine those court rulings and effectively return things to where they were before those courts ruled.
And let's get serious. If SB 1440 really increases families' protections, why are groups like Texas CASA and the Center for Public Policy Priorities, groups that strongly favored the FLDS raid, desperate to see SB 1440 become law? And why are so many groups that were against the raid urging a veto?
