1% Solution/ New Mexico & Texas Marriage Legislation - 3/ 25/07

Sun Mar 25 19:12:09 EDT 2007

- STATE MONEY FOR MARRIAGE IN NEW MEXICO
- TEXAS LEGISLATION

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- STATE MONEY FOR MARRIAGE IN NEW MEXICO
> Diane, 
> The New Mexico legislature just passed, and Governor Richardson just signed,
> an appropriations bill that included over $250,000 for marriage strengthening
> programs in the state.  That makes NM the second state this year, along with
> Utah, to appropriate money for marriage strengthening. Even more
> significantly, New Mexico is the first "BLUE" state, with a Democratic
> governor and Democratic controlled House and Senate, to pass marriage
> strengthening legislation.  Senator Boitano deserves our thanks for his
> leadership and tireless commitment to marriage.  If the Famli effort to
> generate state resources for marriage strengthening can succeed in New Mexico,
> it can succeed in your state.

> Chris Gersten
> http://www.famli.us

Sen Boitano has been diligent.  Check the Smart Marriage archive to see some
very creative marriage legislation he's introduced starting in 2001.  Nice
to see that this one passed.

I encourage you to visit the famli.us website to find out how to join the
campaign in your state. Texas and NY especially need your support and all
hands on deck. You can attend Gersten's "1% Solution" workshop in Denver,
but that's months away.  In the meantime, I urge you to download the
recording of the Atlanta session (only $9.95) to learn what this is all
about and why adding 1% of state TANF money to the federal effort is is an
obvious, logical, practical solution. Watch the listserv for opportunities
to throw your support into this important effort. We have to row together.
Call 800-241-7785 and order session #756-516.

Here's the same session as it will be offered in Denver:
> 320 - Friday, June 29, Denver
> Getting State Money: The 1% Solution
> Chris Gersten
> Learn how to access state marriage money  how to open doors and build
> relationships with state and federal elected and appointed officials.

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- TEXAS LEGISLATION
Marriage legislation is being introduced in Texas in three parts: 1) The 1%
Solution; 2) A Pre-marital Education Incentive and 3) Mandatory skills-based
Divorce Education.  Texas marriage activists will testify in committee
tomorrow, Monday March 26th.  Fingers crossed and send them energy. Here are
various media treatments of the proposals.  - diane

More money could be pumped into programs to foster healthy marriages.
3/20/2007
590 KLBJ-AM

House appropriations committee chairman Warren Chisum's proposal is pushing
for the state to spend almost 10-million dollars per year on programs
promoting healthy marriages.

While Chism wants to spend more money on the front end of marriages,
Representative Donna Dukes says she'd rather see the money spent on foster
care, child protective services or women's health care.

Chism's proposal is written into a version of the state budget that the
house appropriation committee is expected to vote on this week.

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Budget writer pushes more money for marriage training
Other lawmakers question whether programs are best use of federal family
assistance dollars
By Jason Embry
AMERICAN-STATESMAN 
March 19, 2007

Call it the Dr. Phil bill.

Some key lawmakers want to boost the amount of tax money that Texas spends
on programs designed to foster healthy marriages. Advocates of doing so call
it a way to prevent problems that later cost the state government, such as
child abuse and poverty.

"If we don't start addressing marriages and keeping families together, then
we're never going to be able to fund the social costs in this state of
divorced families and separations and that sort of thing," said House
Appropriations Committee Chairman Warren Chisum, R-Pampa. "If we'd spend
more money on the front end, there'd be less money to spend on the back
end."

Congress has designated $100 million to be spent on healthy-marriage
programs. Those programs can include advertising campaigns on the components
of stable marriages, high-school lessons about healthy relationships and
budgeting, and marriage skills classes for couples.

Chisum is pushing for the state to spend almost $10 million per year in
federal Temporary Assistance for Needy Families money on programs promoting
healthy marriages, which would double current annual spending on Texas
marriage programs.

But some say there are better uses for those dollars. Rep. Dawnna Dukes,
D-Austin, said she'd rather see the money spent on foster care, Child
Protective Services or women's health care.

"My concern is that there are programs that are without historical records,
historical performance, that are awarded funds when we know of programs that
have been effective," Dukes said.

Chisum's proposal is written into a version of the state budget that the
House Appropriations Committee is expected to vote on this week. That vote
will be followed by many more. The Senate is working on its own budget, and
in several weeks the two sides will start working on a compromise plan.

Texas now spends marriage money on programs that include counseling for
couples and classes on marriage and parenting for expectant parents. The
state delivers the services though groups including Lutheran Social
Services, the Center for Social Work Research at the University of Texas,
the Texas Migrant Council and others that provide other social services to
families.

The Bush administration's push for marriage incentives nationally has
created considerabe debate, with critics saying such programs are, at best,
oversimplified and could in fact encourage women to stay in abusive
relationships. There is conflicting research on how much marriage does to
eradicate poverty.

According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, at least two
common threads run through healthy marriages. The marriages are mutually
enriching and spouses share a deep respect for each other, the department
says.

Oklahoma uses the federal money for marriage training at schools, prisons,
military bases and churches. In Louisiana, it's used at faith-based and
community centers in low-income neighborhoods.

Celia Hagert of the Austin-based Center for Public Policy Priorities, which
advocates for more spending on programs to help low-income families, said a
better use of the dollars proposed for marriage programs would be to help
low-income residents get education and training that will help them advance
in the workforce.

"We don't have the extra dollars to spend on those (marriage) initiatives
right now," Hagert said. "We need to be investing more on the sort of basic
core services that help these families get out of poverty."

But Rep. Betty Brown, R-Athens, said some children do not have any
two-parent families around them.

"They're starting to consider (marriage) as not really an alternative,"
Brown said. "They need education, they need training in finding out their
children can be benefited by a stable, two-person relationship."

Added Chisum, "I'm happy for us to grade this system and see if it works."
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Proposal seeks more money to promote healthy marriages
Express News (San Antonio)
March 15, 2007
Peggy Fikac
Austin Bureau

AUSTIN ‹ The state would funnel millions more federal dollars into promoting
healthy marriages among low-income Texans under a proposal pushed by House
Appropriations Committee Chairman Warren Chisum, R-Pampa, and others.

Chisum put a provision in the state budget being developed by the panel to
direct up to $4.8 million more annually from the Temporary Assistance for
Needy Families block grant into a healthy marriages initiative.

That would more than double current spending from all sources on the program
overseen by the Health and Human Services CommissionÖ, which contracts with
organizations around the state. (There are similar initiatives that don't
flow through the commission.) Chisum and other backers say the effort
addresses problems that cause marriages to break up, which thrusts single
parents into poverty.

³If we don't start addressing these problems on the front end, we'll never
be able to fund the back end,² Chisum said. ³That's the biggest issue we
have out there, is not having a family unit..... Hopefully we'll have a
whole lot of surplus TANF funds if we get this done (because) we won't have
single mothers out there with kids, which is what the TANF money is for.²

Others questioned whether it was the best use of TANF money, which also can
be used for cash assistance, job preparation and, in a limited amount,
family planning. The healthy-marriage money can be used for programs such as
relationship skills and advertising the value of marriage.

Rep. Dawnna Dukes, D-Austin, voiced concern that the initiative drains money
from other programs. ³People who have these problems could be going to see
their minister,² she said. ³It just doesn't seem like the best use of state
funds.²

Advocates for the poor noted that women may eschew marriage for economic
reasons, since they may lose Medicaid for their children if their household
income rises slightly. Rep. Robert Puente, a San Antonio Democrat and member
of the mostly-Republican House leadership, said the state should first fill
gaps in basic services such as health care for needy citizens before
venturing further.

³To designate this amount of money for something as nebulous as healthy
marriages ‹ I don't think it's money well spent,² Puente said. ³It's
incumbent on us as a state to fund these basic social services for our
citizens. If we're successful at that, let's look at Warren Chisum's
proposals.²

But Rep. Betty Brown, a Terrell Republican on the Appropriations panel, said
there are young people whose lives ³could be made so much better by a
stable, two-parent family relationship. Until we address that, we really in
many instances don't have hope of lessening the numbers in these other
programs.² 

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11th Annual Smart Marriages Conference, Denver Adam's Mark Hotel,
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