Presumption of Equal Parenting Time for Fit Parents

HB1770 recognizes a foundational truth: fit parents, not courts, are the proper and presumptive authorities over how children are raised. By establishing equal parenting time as the legal default, the bill honors what Scripture has always affirmed -- that parents bear the primary responsibility for nurturing and forming their children (Proverbs 22:6; Ephesians 6:4). The state's role is to protect that responsibility, not to routinely displace it.

The bill's most significant structural reform is its evidentiary standard. To deviate from the 50/50 presumption, a court must find clear and convincing evidence of actual harm to the child. This is not a minor procedural adjustment. It fundamentally reorients family court proceedings away from unchecked judicial discretion and toward a rights-respecting framework that takes parental authority seriously.

The existing "best interest of the child" standard, however well-intentioned in name, has in practice granted judges extraordinary latitude to substitute their own preferences for the considered judgment of fit parents. Without rigorous evidentiary requirements or mandatory written constitutional findings, that standard becomes an instrument of judicial overreach. HB1770 corrects this structural problem directly.

The bill also requires that any deviation from equal parenting be supported by written constitutional findings subject to strict scrutiny. This transparency and accountability mechanism ensures that when courts do intervene in parental arrangements, they must justify that intervention on constitutional grounds -- not on vague assessments of what a judge believes would be preferable.

Though this bill was held in committee, its provisions represent exactly the kind of durable, principled parental rights reform that strengthens families and restores proper boundaries between state power and parental authority. The American Council urges legislators to support its reintroduction and passage.