Arizona Republican State Representative Lisa Fink is in her first term in office, but she’s also President of the Protect Arizona Children Coalition (PACC).
She told us it was in that role that she was first exposed to family court abuses.
A man called PACC for help with his family court case. Though PACC primarily focused on parental rights in schools, Representative Fink said she listened to his story.
“My jaw dropped,” Representative Fink told us, “This is not America; this is North Korea.”
This father’s story, she told us, included the Mengeleesque reunification camps, where kids are taken by strangers, driven up to ten hours to a hotel, and forced to spend four days being indoctrinated to believe their abusive parent loves them and they only believe they are abusive because of the other parent.
Generally, the child is then forced to live EXCLUSIVELY with their abusive parent for at least ninety days, but usually much longer.
“I don’t know much about this, but I’m going to help you,” she remembered telling this father.
Her advocacy helped lead to the passage of SB1372 in Arizona, which bans reunification camps. Check out my interview with Tori Nielsen, who went through one as a teenager.
Upon being elected, her prior experience made her a perfect fit for the ad hoc joint legislative committee on family court orders.
That committee has held several hearings, which have received some attention.
Rich and I previously interviewed the co-chairs Republican State Senator Mark Finchem and Republican State Representative Rachel Keshel.
On August 27, the committee held its last hearing.
I asked Representative Fink if the committee risked losing momentum for reform.
She disagreed stating that it was time for the next steps: a report and legislative action.
She has already gotten to work on legislation, though none has passed.
One bill- HB 2762- would give children fourteen and older the ability to decide which parent they would live with.
Another bill- HB 2254- would make temporary orders…temporary, by requiring a hearing every 120 days to continue a temporary order.
She also co-sponsored HB 2256 to ban therapeutic interventionists. That passed the legislature before Arizona Democrat Governor Katie Hobbs vetoed it.
Representative Fink told us that HB2256 started out as a bill to ban parental alienation.
That language was removed, Representative Fink told us, because parental alienation is not recognized and such legislation would only create new problems.
On parental alienation, Representative Fink agreed with me that it is largely pseudoscience, while Rich was agnostic.
He said what’s more important is to ban reunification camps, which violate civil rights and have no basis in psychology.
The biggest bone of contention came when we debated the efficacy of presumed 50/50 custody.
Representative Fink agreed with me that this presumption creates a one size fits all model.
She said that presumed 50/50 custody places parental rights over children’s rights.
Rich, on the other hand, argued that 50/50 reduces conflict, and pointed to his home state, Florida, which has that law.
Fink said that presumed 50/50 is the law in Arizona, and she hasn’t seen any reduction in conflict.
Check out the video below from 2021 of former Australian Member of Parliament (MP), Graham Perrette, with the best takedown of presumed 50/50.
The next legislative session in Arizona will be a critical one for reform in Arizona and the US.
