GRANDPARENTS NEED A VOICE

CHEYENNE – Wyoming’s Joint Judiciary Committee will take another crack at a proposal to give third-party guardians such as grandparents, aunts and uncles more standing in custody proceedings.

The bill was sponsored last year by the Judiciary Committee. But as a brand-new bill in a short budget session, it didn’t make it to the House floor.

It’s one of the first items on the agenda for Monday’s Joint Judiciary Interim Committee meeting at the Worland Community Center Complex at 1200 Culbertson Ave. in Worland.

Annie McGlothlin, a Laramie County resident who has advocated for the bill, said she’s optimistic about the bill’s chances this year.

McGlothlin became involved with the cause out of personal experience. The grandmother has been caring for her daughter’s 5-year-old son for most of his life. Last year, his father came back into the picture and attempted to take the boy from the only home he’d ever known, she said.

McGlothlin said unless she went through the lengthy and expensive process of terminating the father’s parental rights, she had no standing in court to keep the child – he could go back to his father against his own will.

The proposal on the table this year would create a new category of guardian, a “de facto custodian,” who cares for the child for an extended period of time both physically and financially, without participation from the child’s biological parent.

It would give those people grounds in court to petition for custody rights. They must prove by clear and convincing evidence that there is a lack of participation by the parents and that it’s in the child’s best interest to live with the de facto custodian.

Under court precedent and current law, parents have a fundamental, constitutional right to take care of their children.

Some lawmakers during the session and last year feared the bill could put children in the wrong hands.

But McGlothlin said there are hundreds, or even thousands, of kids across the state who end up going back to parents who are using drugs or involved in criminal activity.

“I just cannot tell you how many stories are similar to mine,” she said. “I listen to all of them, and I think, ‘this (bill) has got to happen.’”