Custody rights of deployed military parents
protected in McCoy’s legislation

Lawmaker says, 'we should never disrespect
the rights of service personnel'

February 3, 2009

OLYMPIA – “Deployed military parents shouldn’t have to worry about their child-custody orders being changed while they’re far from home serving their country,” said state Rep. John McCoy.

The Tulalip Democrat is prime-sponsoring House Bill 1170 to see to it that “any change in a parent’s custodial arrangements as a result of the parent’s military duties must only be a temporary change.”

McCoy’s measure has passed the House Judiciary Committee, and it’s now in the House Rules Committee awaiting the scheduling of floor action.

Current state law has resulted in court decisions that are “for the most part indifferent to the rights of military parents,” he explained. “But certainly if a dad or mom is away because they’re serving our country in the military, their parental rights involving custodial arrangements for their kids should not be compromised.

“Folks in the service should have every right to participate in any custody proceedings,” McCoy added, “and they obviously cannot do that if they’re deployed. We should never disrespect the rights of service personnel, certainly not when they’re serving in a wartime capacity.”

The issue hits home particularly hard here in Washington, which of all the states has the seventh highest population of active-duty military personnel.

Unfortunately, the Snohomish County legislator noted, “the obvious stresses of wartime military service lead to more divorces than is usually the case in military families. And for that reason, this is an issue that comes up these days more frequently than when our nation isn’t at war.”

Military parents will have an opportunity to resolve custody questions before they’re deployed, according to other terms of the McCoy legislation.

The bill would make it possible for a court to delegate the residential time or visitation of a military parent to a person other than the parent during the military parent’s deployment. A court would have to speed up hearings and make it possible for a military parent to testify electronically if the military parent cannot be in court in person.

McCoy said another key objective in the bill “is to make the custody proceedings more streamlined so that any unresolved issues can be sorted out more fairly and efficiently.

“This measure also seeks to have folks use the dispute-resolution process more extensively.”

Representatives from the National Guard Association of Washington, the U.S. Department of Defense, and the Washington Military Department testified for McCoy’s legislation in a committee hearing.

Check this Web site for more information about HB 1170.