September 29, 2025 • 52 mins
In this powerful conversation, Robert Garza reveals how his 16-year custody battle educated him about the dangerous loopholes in our family court system—and more importantly, how to fix them. He walks us through his revolutionary "Time Taken, Time Back" bill, which ensures parents automatically receive makeup time when false allegations are disproven. This simple yet powerful concept has already passed unanimously in Texas and North Dakota, protecting millions of families from one of the most common forms of custody manipulation.
Join our Signal Channel: https://shorturl.at/8yqTb
Join The Divorce Dadvocate Membership Community - FULL Episodes - Live Meetings – FREE Workshops & Courses – Private Discussion Groups & MORE! - https://thedivorceddadvocate.com/membership-tiers/
How Are You Adjusting To Your Divorce? Find out in this quiz - http://www.thedivorceddadvocate.com/divorce-quiz.html
*FREE Dads Guide To Divorce* How to survive and thrive during and after divorce: http://www.dadsguidetodivorce.com
Don't suffer in silence! Get relief from the pain and confusion of your divorce and schedule your FREE, No Obligation Coaching Consultation - schedule a time directly into my schedule at www.TalkWithJude.com.
Join other divorced dads who have experienced or are experiencing divorce in this FREE Divorced Dads Online Meetup Group - https://www.meetup.com/Divorced-Dads-Meetup-Group/
Other Resources:
The Divorced Dadvocate Website - http://www.TheDivorcedDadvocate.com
The Divorced Dadvocate YouTube Channel - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GeSwx-F8KK4&list=PLT4HyN5ishYJznK51205ESxGZ2d19YkBp
The Divorced Dadvocate Podcast - https://thedivorceddadvocate.buzzsprout.com/
Divorced Dads Online Meetup Group - https://www.meetup.com/Divorced-Dads-Meetup-Group/
The Divorced Dadvocate Facebook Group - https://www.facebook.com/thedivorceddadvocate/
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
SPEAKER_00 (00:00):
Hello and welcome to the show.
Thank you for tuning in thisweek.
Today I have a very importantguest that has a very important
mission that we're going to uhtalk about and get you involved
with.
Before we jump into that,though, I wanted to welcome
James, a new member to theDivorce David community.
(00:20):
If you are not part of thecommunity yet, check it out at
thedivorcedavicate.com.
We've got a new uh group, uhgroup workshop, group coaching
going on October 29th.
So uh check that out uh as welland get involved, get the
divorce support that you needwherever you're at in this
process atthedivorcedadvocate.com.
(00:44):
All right, my guest from afather fighting for his
children's rights to anationally recognized advocate,
Robert Garza's journey is apowerful story of
transformation.
He is the architect of Texas'sgroundbreaking parental equality
law, and his work is nowreshaping family courts across
the country.
(01:05):
As the new director of Americansfor Judicial Accountability and
the Vice President of NationalFamily Justice, please welcome a
true champion for families,Robert Garza.
Hi, Robert.
Hey, thanks for having me.
Hey, Robert, thank you for forbeing on.
Thank you for what you aredoing.
It's a true blessing that thatyou are that you're doing this
(01:27):
work.
I know that a lot of the dadslistening today are gonna be
very interested in what you'redoing because it is gonna have a
huge impact on their lives inthe future.
It already has in Texas.
But before we jump into whatthat is that you are working on
and the specific laws and howthey'll impact the dads, share a
(01:47):
little bit about your 15-yearcustody journey battle, if you
will, and how that's kind ofshaped why you're doing what
you're doing.
SPEAKER_01 (01:58):
Sure.
So I went through about 16 yearsnow of family court, 43 plus
false allegations.
I spent$700,000 plus just tryingto be a father in my kids'
lives.
It's not been an easy journey.
You know, I was just a fatherparent, just like all of the
listeners out there.
(02:19):
I didn't know anything aboutfamily law, criminal law,
constitutional law, and had to,you know, learn all this going
through this process.
SPEAKER_00 (02:27):
So, yeah, okay.
Well, I'm sorry to hear that.
I have experienced that as well,12 years in in family law court
that'll give you an education,right?
43.
So you've got me on the 43 CSPor CPS allegations for sure.
While I've experienced some ofthat, that is just uh
disconcerting, right?
Having having people looking inyour life all the time.
(02:49):
Share a little bit how thatexperience helps you to start to
understand the landscape of thefamily law, uh, of family law
and family law courts.
Sure.
SPEAKER_01 (03:00):
So every time you go in family court, you're having
to live whatever consequencescome out.
And after going to court so manytimes in over 16 years, you get
educated very quickly on what'sgoing on.
And so I saw all of the legalloopholes that opposing counsel
was able to play with delays,with no accountability, with
(03:22):
false allegations.
And so because of going throughthat and living that, now I
understand those loopholes, andnow we're changing them with the
legislature and shutting allthose legal loopholes down.
SPEAKER_00 (03:36):
Okay.
So let's let's talk about someof those loopholes and let's
talk about actually first giveus an example of what you're
talking about as far as aloophole.
Because some people might bethinking, and the first thing I
thought was like, okay, so ifthere's loopholes, why hasn't
somebody already thought aboutthis?
Why hasn't it happened?
But you know, those listeningand they haven't been in family
(03:59):
law court for 12, 15, 6, 20years will say, okay, well, this
makes purpose sense why there'sloopholes.
But what like kind of give us anexample of what one of those
would be, and then let's jumpinto some of the bills.
SPEAKER_01 (04:12):
Sure.
So one of the biggest legalloopholes that there are, well,
it's not even a legal loophole.
Perjury is a felony pretty muchin every state.
Judges are not prosecuting forit in family court, they're
doing it in criminal court, butnot family court.
This is the problem where mostof everyone's problems are
coming from.
People can get up there, theycan perjure themselves, lie on
(04:33):
the stand, and same thing withfalse allegations.
False allegations are rampantthrough family court, and
there's no accountability forthem.
And knowing this, so goingthrough 43 of these, I figured
out how my ex did this, and shedid it with mandatory reporters.
They've all been ruled out.
She, my ex never came to courtand said I did anything.
(04:54):
She always did it throughthird-party people.
And once that allegation wasruled out, I'd have to pay my
attorney to go to court, get theprotective order dissolved, and
then at the time I would ask forthe judge to give me the time
back to repair the parental bondthat was taken part by
precaution by the court.
She never did.
She got tired of me asking forit every time all this would
(05:16):
happen and said, okay, let'ssave it for final trial.
I saved it for final trial, andshe never ruled on it.
Took over a hundred days torule, got things wrong, and this
is a problem with the legalsystem.
And so what I did was I came outwith time taken, time back that
when you return the child, youshall return the time, the same
type of time, and the same exactamount of time.
(05:38):
And in doing so, itdisincentivizes making a false
allegation, but not a realallegation.
SPEAKER_00 (05:44):
Right.
Okay.
So let's let's clarify for thelisteners the differences
between civil court and familylaw court, because what you said
is is accurate, that if you dothis in civil court and you make
false allegations or or youallege abuse and it's not
whatever, whatever you're lyingabout, then you are responsible
(06:07):
in in civil court.
Family court that just getscompletely you are you're
supposed to be responsible, butit just gets completely,
completely ignored, right?
And and so it's just twodifferent, it's two different
applications of law in twodifferent types of court.
Is that correct?
SPEAKER_01 (06:24):
Yes.
So in family court, there'swhat's called a preponderance of
evidence, and that is like thelowest standard of evidence.
That's 50% plus a feather.
So literally, when you go inthere, if you don't understand
what that is, it's literally youcan say whatever you want, and
that's what the problem is.
And if the judge believes it, itsounds more true or less true.
That's what they're judging youon.
(06:46):
It's either more true or lesstrue.
In criminal court, the standardis clear and convincing
evidence.
So now you have to show proofand why.
And then they also have uhbeyond a reasonable doubt.
No.
Yeah.
Is it sorry, it's clear andconvinced, sorry, preponderance
(07:06):
of evidence, clear andconvincing, and beyond a
reasonable doubt.
Those are the three evidencesthat that they go by.
But the family court's thelowest, and that's the problem
with with what family court'sdoing.
SPEAKER_00 (07:19):
Right.
So for instance, in one of myexperiences, there was just an
allegation made.
There's no there is no preponentevidence.
There's no you know there is noclear evidence around it.
And they do these in ex partemeetings, and then they have a
(07:40):
and then you get a protectionorder, and then you have to
spend, like you said, the moneyin either going through C child
protection services or fullinvestigation, or then appear
before the court, and then youlose time.
Like for instance, I lost weekswith with my daughter.
I know that you've talked aboutthere's like large, large
(08:02):
periods of time that that youmissed over the the time that
you've been doing this, and thenthe courts do not do anything
about that.
And so you wrote this bill tothen mitigate this so that it
now does it stop it, or whatdoes it do?
How does it curb that, if youwill, that that behavior of
(08:24):
making these false allegations?
SPEAKER_01 (08:26):
Sure.
So the way that my ex did it isthat she went to a mandatory
reporter, reported that I washarming the kids.
The mandatory reporter thoughtthey were doing the right thing
and reported it to CPS becausethey're mandated to.
CPS, which is Child ProtectiveServices, thought they were
doing the right thing andopening a case.
And as soon as they open up thatcase, my ex would grab that
(08:48):
report number and go to familycourt and get a protective order
restraining order based on anopen CPS investigation.
All of this was done.
Now I've shut that down in Texasand it's going in a lot of other
states too.
So if the judge would have justgiven me the time back the first
time, second time, my exprobably never would have done
(09:10):
this.
But she saw it as a way to playkeep away with the children.
And so every time another onethey would they would rule it
out, she would make anotherallegation.
And that was the issue, and itkept going, going, going.
And the courts never figured outwhat had happened until we got
to final trial.
And we even asked my ex, like,you know, you know, how many of
(09:31):
these allegations did you makeor these reports?
And she was like, none, andstarted smiling.
That was the whole reason sheknew she did it by proxy.
And so instead of going backafter her or anything else, I
came out with these with theselaws.
Now, the time taken time backgives those resources back to
all of these.
(09:52):
Well so the time taken time backgives these resources back to
all these agencies like thefamily court system.
Now they're not backed up, andit's usually called I coined it,
it's called holiday hijacking,and it's to let the court know
that that person's trying tohijack my holiday with a false
protective order restrainingorder.
And once they do that, is thatyour car alarm?
SPEAKER_00 (10:16):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
It's sorry about that.
Yeah.
All right, sorry, you're gonnahave to cut it.
Yeah, no.
Okay, we're real here, so it'sreal life.
This is real real life stuffwe're talking about, my friend.
SPEAKER_01 (10:27):
So yeah.
So holiday hijacking is whensomebody goes to a court and
gets a protective orderrestraining order right before
major holiday.
So it's right before Christmas,right before Halloween, or you
know, spring break.
Lines of lawyers are out thereat three o'clock or right before
the kids getting out of schoolfiling these things.
Judges know this is an issue,but they keep doing it.
(10:50):
So this discourages that type ofbehavior by giving that time
back.
So if you miss a spring break,then you're gonna then you'll
get two in a row.
If you miss a Christmas, thenyou'll get two in a row.
And so that discourages a falseallegation, but it it will not
discourage a real allegation.
SPEAKER_00 (11:08):
Yeah.
So I wanna I want to be uhclear.
Uh a mandatory reporting personis like a therapist, is like a
school teacher, etc.
So what your ex did wascreatively seed something in one
of these people's minds that wasa false allegation that then
(11:30):
they because they're mandatoryreporters, they have to report
this.
So they don't have a choice.
So her way of doing this, and sothis is just another, there's
lots of creative ways, and I'mand I'm pointing this out
because I want to point this outto the dads that are listening
because lots of them deal withthis, or lots of them see some
of this stuff, or some of themare like, well, mine won't never
(11:50):
do you know, my wife would neverdo that, right?
And yeah, I know it's just we weget they then they get surprised
by this.
So I wanted to point this out sothat they can look for the
signs.
But then what happens is theyhave to they have to report
this, and then your acts tookit, and then there's an
automatic protection order.
(12:11):
The other one you justdescribed, which is the the
holiday hijacking, is they theyand I've experienced this like
right before the parenting timeis supposed to start with the
new parent for the holiday, thenthey just they file something
and then you miss all that time.
And so now what you're doingwith this bill is it makes it
absolutely mandatory for theparent that has created this
(12:36):
situation and made the falseallegations because when you go
through it, then the like yousaid, 43 times you went through
the the the cow call the theprotection services coming out,
finding no evidence of it.
When they find no evidence ofthat, then that time has to be
returned, whether it's whetherit's a day or two days a week or
(12:57):
the holiday.
And then you said that also ifit's the holidays, then they get
like the next two.
So it actually disincentivizesthem because then they're
actually going to be losing timewith their kiddos if they start
doing this stuff.
Is that correct?
Correct.
SPEAKER_01 (13:10):
And the other thing that we did in it also passed in
North Dakota, but we gave it anextra boost in North Dakota.
We put double the time back.
So that really discourages thatone.
SPEAKER_00 (13:21):
Yeah, yeah.
Well, even better.
And so for those saying, well,okay, but you know, can can this
possibly harm a kid on somebodywho's actually doing harm to the
to the kids, the answer is no.
And and why is the answer no?
(13:42):
Tell us why.
SPEAKER_01 (13:42):
Right.
So in my bill, I also write inthere that it's only after
there's been an investigation byCPS or the police department or
anybody, any any investigativeagency, anybody, when it comes
back that there was no findingof abuse or neglect, then is
(14:04):
when you can get your time backor anything like that.
Now, just in case there'ssomething that falls through,
there's also another clause inthere that now it puts the
burden of proof on the otherperson.
Instead of you having to say whyyou're innocent, now they have
to bring more stuff and say whyyou don't deserve that time
back.
It's an automatic time backunless they still want to keep
(14:25):
fighting this.
But there is no problem.
Which is it's been ruled.
SPEAKER_00 (14:29):
Which seems to be right, right, which seems to be
a huge problem, particularlywith with dads that I've
experienced.
We don't, there's just it's notreciprocal.
It doesn't happen.
I oftentimes I see with the mom,the parent if the dad's doing
some BS, and and let's be clearabout what we're talking about
here, too.
This is not a dad or mom issue.
This rules out anybody screwingaround with doing any kind of
(14:52):
false allegations, uh,alienation, stuff like this.
This really starts to put adamper on that.
Now it doesn't, it won't stop itlike you just described.
You're gonna have to go throughthe process, you're gonna have
to you're gonna have to dealwith uh protects the services or
whatever investigation you mighthave a hearing, or you might
(15:12):
have to uh hire an attorney,hire attorney, or you might have
to go to court and and have ahearing with your attorney.
So it is still gonna take youhaving to go and go through
this, but what it does is thenthey get the time back.
SPEAKER_01 (15:25):
Yeah, when when they return the child, they return
the time.
SPEAKER_00 (15:28):
Return the time immediately.
So so that's the parenting timepart of it.
Is there a component of thiswhere attorney's fees or
anything like that getsreimbursed back?
And if not, why is that not partof the bill?
SPEAKER_01 (15:43):
So that's already in what you're filing.
So what you're filing right nowis to dissolve that protective
order restraining order, andthen you can ask for your
attorney's fees.
Okay, so you can ask for yourattorney's fees in anything.
SPEAKER_00 (15:57):
Right.
Okay, so so then you couldpotentially, but that doesn't
mean that you're you're gonnaget it automatically, right?
So in the bill, you won't getattorney's fees, but you will
definitely get time back withyour kids because that is part
of the bill, right?
SPEAKER_01 (16:13):
That's the most big biggest part.
So what are you gonna do rightnow?
Every time I filed, I paid myattorney's fees, and I never got
the time back.
So again, this is kind of like alike the civil rights movement.
You have to ban slavery first,and then you can be president,
then you can be, you know, uhvote, have equal rights, stuff
(16:33):
like that.
Let's ban slavery first.
SPEAKER_00 (16:36):
Yep, that's what I was that's what I was getting
at, Robert, is this is a step inthe process because lots of
times dads are upset.
I was upset always, I'm sure youwere, that we have to pay this
money, go through this, and thenwe like we don't get time back
with our kids, we don't get anymoney back, et cetera.
So this is one step in thatprocess, which is the most
(16:58):
important step, you would argue,which is gaining the time back
to to to to repair thatrelationship with the kiddo
after an allegation, because thething that's not lost on not
lost on us, but doesn't comeinto the conversation, at least
in the family law court, I feel,is that this has done damage to
the kids when you're makingfalse allegations, when you're
(17:20):
you know attempting to do thisand alienate a kid, this is
doing damage with you and andand the child and the child.
So then the dads get that timeback that is the most important
part of it because then you canto repair that relationship with
them.
And it's not even it's not evenjust a justice thing, it's being
able to deepen that relationshipand and maintain that
(17:43):
relationship, which is trying tobe severed.
So that was just the the point.
Now the next point of it is likeyeah, what you said is yeah, it
would be nice to be able to getattorney's fees back and write
that into a bill and like youknow, and and and other things.
And we're gonna talk about youryour other bill here, which
which does have some uh monetarycompensation or fines, if you
(18:06):
will, in that.
But right now, we're trying tojust limit anybody from doing
these false allegations, whichhappens.
I would I would guess, and Idon't know if you have numbers
around this, primarily with withdads or or or to a majority of
the time with with dads, try tonip this in the bud because it
has become such such a bigproblem.
SPEAKER_01 (18:29):
So the time taken, time back bill does a whole lot
of things.
First of all, it returns theresources back to the court
system, it returns the resourcesback to CPS, it returns the
resources back to the districtattorney's office and to CPS.
The biggest travesty in allthis, other than what happened
to me and my children, was that43 times those investigations
(18:53):
could have been going tochildren really being hurt
rather than children not beinghurt.
And I'm just one person, somultiply that over millions of
people, and that's where thisstops before it starts the
behavior.
SPEAKER_00 (19:05):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
You and me, hundreds ofthousands of guys that are that
are listening as well.
So awesome.
Okay, let's talk, let's talkabout the this the the three
strikes law.
So the first one that you werewell first, how many people
instantaneously did this lawimpact in Texas after you were
(19:26):
able to get it?
SPEAKER_01 (19:28):
Yeah.
So the time taken, time backbill took six months.
I couldn't get anywhere in mycase in six months.
It took six months to go throughour legislature.
It went through unanimous,bipartisan the first time.
The governor signed off on it onFather's Day Day.
It impacted over 30 millionTexans all at once as soon as it
(19:49):
came out September 1st, 2023, Ibelieve.
And so it went into effect.
And so at that point, I mean, Icouldn't help that many people
in my lifetime, just one-on-onecases.
And that's where I found thatlegislation is the way to fix
this problems.
SPEAKER_00 (20:08):
Yeah, that's and and and that's and that's brilliant.
So let's let's talk about thethe three strikes law.
What are the three strikes andwhat are the consequences for
this custody interference?
SPEAKER_01 (20:20):
Yep.
So there's two differentversions of it.
There's three-strike civilversion and three strikes
criminal version.
The three-strike civil versionright now, we were having
problems with judges giving handslaps 20 times.
Like we even had one guy thathad 20 interference with child
custody, took the ex to court,never reprimanded really.
(20:42):
And so we came out, and and thisis not just one person, this was
happening all over the state.
And and it happens all over thecountry.
And so what we did is we putthrough what was called three
strikes.
It was a House Bill 3181 inTexas, and it passed this
session.
And so what that does, it giveit makes the judges give jail
(21:04):
time uh on the third strike, andthat's the biggest part of that
one.
So if you go back into civilcourt, not criminal court,
that's the three strikescriminal version.
The three-strikes civil versionis a passed bill right now, and
it went into effect already,September 1st, 2025, that if you
have three contempt filings andconvictions in family court, the
(21:27):
judge has no more discretion inTexas.
It's automatic jail time.
And that's going to discouragethis behavior.
Now, the three strikes criminalversion is when somebody
interferes with your childcustody after you have a court
order.
And then right now it's a statejail felony pretty much in every
state when they interfere, butthey tell you it's a civil
matter to go back to familycourt.
(21:49):
After this bill passes in yourstate, the it's the only tool
that law enforcement has.
And when they come out, they'llbe able to give a$500 fine the
first time, the second time, andthen the third time, it will be
it they get arrested.
And if you think about this,everyone usually has at least
standard possession.
So that's Friday, sorry, everyfirst, third, and fifth weekend,
(22:10):
every Thursday for whether it'stwo hours or overnight.
So your first period ofpossession that that they miss
is going to be a$500 fine.
So that's Thursday.
The second period of possessionis Friday, Saturday, Sunday.
Literally by the third, by thefollowing Thursday, that's the
third strike.
SPEAKER_00 (22:29):
So it doesn't, it doesn't get it doesn't get
dragged out.
And let's let's clarify also forthe audience that when what what
oftentimes happen, and I'm suresome have already experienced
this, if you're if if custody orparenting time is being withheld
and you call law enforcement onthat, they're not going to do
anything.
They're going to say, hey,that's a that's a civil matter,
(22:52):
you need to go back to court,you need to talk to attorneys,
and then you do that, you file acontempt, you may or may not get
the contempt uh ruling for you.
Even if you do get the contemptruling for you, it's usually
something like they don't wantto see you there, basically,
right?
They want you to to figure thisstuff out.
And then, you know, there theycontinue to there's no there's
(23:15):
no incentive to stop doing stufflike that.
So what this does is it not onlyso it not it's not only in
civil, but it makes it acriminal charge.
So the uh the law enforcementthen this actually has teeth.
Law enforcement will dosomething now, because that's
the most frustrating thing nowis you just they just keep
saying no, and law enforcement'slike, I can't put drag the kids
(23:37):
out, I can't do anything.
This then they will give them a$500 citation right there, like
you said.
And then it doesn't takeforever, it doesn't take like
months and months.
If they keep doing it, it couldtake a week, two weeks, right?
And then they could end up injail because they get another
500 citation, and then the thirdtime is bam, they get arrested.
SPEAKER_01 (23:59):
Well, the problem with that, and I'm sure y'all
have experienced it, but after Icame out with the time taken
time back bill my and and thelaw, my ex stopped doing false
allegations and startedinterfering with my child
custody.
So I had to figure that one out,and that's why this was born.
And I went both routes.
I went both.
It took six months to get intofamily court for an enforcement
action because the delays andgames and whatever.
(24:22):
And it took six months to get tolaw enforcement and grand jury
and everything else that way.
So much waste of time, andliterally you can hijack the
kids or brainwash them oralienate them if someone just
withheld all those times.
That's what a lot of you parentsare experiencing.
This will solve the issueliterally within a week.
And a lot of people come backand they're like, Well, you just
(24:43):
want well, not even a lot ofpeople.
It's only one organizationdidn't understand the bill, and
they're like, Are you trying tojail protective parents?
Absolutely not.
Think about it.
And I told them, I was like, letme ask you something.
It's a felony right now, as soonas you withhold the first time.
That's arrest right now.
I'm amending that to two to twotimes, and then the third time
(25:03):
you get arrested, what it isright now.
I'm all for protective parents.
In fact, this is this willprotect protective parents
because now it's that$500 fine'sa misdemeanor.
You go to criminal court, notfamily court, to talk about
this, and you can get itdismissed like a speeding ticket
if you took them to CPS or orsomething's going on.
(25:24):
So you literally have threetimes to bait, you know, to be a
protective parent and figure outsomething, and they'll dismiss
the ticket if if you didsomething, you know, to protect
that child.
But if not, this stops the badparents, but it doesn't harm the
good parents.
In fact, it protects them evenmore.
SPEAKER_00 (25:41):
Right.
And there's and and there's nothe it does not disrupt or
interrupt or stop any dueprocess.
All the due process continues tohappen the same way as the
system.
Like you said in the beginning,all this does is it just takes
away what you're callingloopholes or for people
manipulating the the system totheir advantage.
(26:03):
So that's that's brilliant.
So that's that's the secondbill.
You've already been successfulwith these two bills in in Texas
and in North Carolina or inNorth Dakota, right?
Has the three strikes lawhappened in uh North Dakota
also?
SPEAKER_01 (26:17):
No.
Yes.
So the three strikes they triedto join them before, but now
they did a committee like toinvestigate how much of this
issue is going on.
We already know in Texas.
In fact, San Antonio gets over athousand interference child
custody calls a month.
1,200 cities, that's 1.2 millionuh interference with child
(26:38):
custody calls a month that thelaw enforcements are having to
spend resources going out thatthey can't do anything.
This solves that issue.
Literally, they'll I hope thatnobody gets a fine and nobody
goes to jail.
I hope that it just stops thebad behavior, which I've I 100%
believe it will.
But no matter what, you cannotlegislate crazy.
(26:59):
There's gonna be 1% or 10%,whatever of it that's gonna keep
happening, but not the 90%.
The 90% will go away.
SPEAKER_00 (27:08):
Right.
So and yeah, go ahead.
SPEAKER_01 (27:12):
Yeah, I forgot to tell you.
So when I came out with thethree strikes, right now it's in
in Texas legislation right now.
We've had a session, a specialsession, a second special
session.
There's a lot of stuff going on.
There's 11,000 bills, so it hasnothing to do with mine.
It has everything to do withlike what's going on in Texas.
But after passing it in NorthDakota, the time taken, time
(27:32):
back, and Texas, I saw that thisis how to change on a mass
level.
So what I've done over the lasteight months is sit down and I
wrote over 450 bills.
That's about seven or eight perstate.
And it's these same bills, andI've amended them already for
each state for all anybody thatwants them in their state, they
(27:54):
can just go to robertgarza.usand there's a couple of things
in there they can just downloadand put them in their own state.
SPEAKER_00 (27:59):
Yeah, we're gonna get we're gonna get to that.
I'm gonna because I'm gonna getinto that in in specific detail
for for folks.
But I wanted to make the pointthat there's nobody that should
be arguing against this.
This is beneficial for lawenforcement.
This is this is beneficial forall of the different agencies
that are involved, the mandatoryreporters, obviously the kids,
(28:24):
and and both parents.
There are no drawbacks to this.
It just just clear, it justclears things up, makes things
very definitive, and stopscrazy, like you said, stops
crazy, bad, manipulativebehavior from happening in this
system.
So there's not when when youwhen you introduced this in
(28:45):
taxes, or when she introducedthis in North Dakota, there
wasn't any kind of party lineany any kind of party line
opposition to this, one side orthe other.
Like it went unanimously throughbecause it just makes sense,
correct?
SPEAKER_01 (29:01):
Yeah, well, think about it.
Who's gonna raise their hand andsay, I don't think that that
child deserves that time backafter an allegation has been
there's no abuse found and noneglect.
Not one person.
SPEAKER_00 (29:13):
Right.
Yep, nope, perfect.
I just want to I wanted toclear, I'm gonna make that clear
because you know, we're talkingabout legislatures, it's uh
they're always fighting aboutstuff.
Your bill, there's nothing tofight about in this bill, other
than maybe misconceptions, likeyou said, the one group uh might
have or somebody might have amisconception about what it can
or can't do, but there are nounintended consequences around
(29:36):
this.
The only consequence is thatthere will be better behavior by
everybody in involved, andthere's no due process.
So I wanted to make that clear.
So let's let's talk about thethe family equality bill.
So I'm I'm really excited to totalk about this one.
Yeah, and walk us through thekey proposals of that, such as
(29:56):
the 50 50 custody as a startingpoint and And also the cameras
in the courtroom.
SPEAKER_01 (30:02):
Yeah.
So a new started equality is anew started equality.
It's fifty-fifty for bothparents that are a fit parent,
willing parent, and able-to-doit parent, and live within 25
miles of your child's school.
That's it.
The rest of the bill is, youknow, if the judge wants to go
below those standards, then theyhave to have clear and
(30:23):
convincing evidence, notpreponderance.
I wrote this in the bill, clearand convincing evidence on why
they're going below thatstandard, and they have to write
it into why in into theirdecision why they are going
below those standards.
And so that is all thedifference right now.
And then below that, it hastalks about that you cannot have
(30:43):
50-50 if you have domesticviolence, abuse, convictions,
and some other stuff in thatbill.
The bill is literally a one-pageand it protects everybody.
There is no unintendedconsequences.
There's nothing in that billthat anybody can really argue
about.
SPEAKER_00 (31:00):
Okay, so this puts some responsibility upon the
court in order to describe andand and put in writing what that
preponderance of evidence isthat makes them rule that you
have to be, you have to go offof the 50-50, right?
(31:20):
So this becomes less sub ohclear.
I'm sorry, clear and convincing.
That they have to have clear andconvincing evidence to go away
from 50-50.
So this keeps it, this makes itway more objective and a lot
less subjective.
So so have you so have you gotany pushback from courts on
(31:43):
that?
Because we know that judges liketo rule their their courtrooms
and and have the flexibility torule how they want.
Has there been any feedbackaround around that?
SPEAKER_01 (31:53):
No, in fact, if you look at all my reels, I have
lawyers, I have senators, I haveRepublican, Democrat, it doesn't
matter.
They're all over the board.
Parents, all for all of my billsbecause they're they're good
bills.
It's great legislation, it'sopening.
And the problem with most of thecourts right now is there's a
there's a lot of bad apples inthere that have been there for a
(32:15):
long time that do whatever theywant.
They let justice get to theirhead or or their their positions
because they have immunity.
And so there's really nothingyou can do.
And then when you have a SCJC,which is who you make complaints
to in Texas, if a judge is doingsomething wrong with a less than
1% reprimand, and they couldchoose whether it's private or
(32:35):
or public, this is the issueswith all these things.
But we're changing all thesethings on a mass level.
But as far as pushback on the onany of the bills, no, no, all of
them are very pretty, they'resimple, they're no nonsense
bills.
And like the time taken timeback, I could have
retroactivated the bill and gottwo or three years with my
(32:56):
children back, but I didn't doit because it would stop up the
courts.
I was willing to let go of myown time with my children just
to be able to make these courtsrun more efficiently and for the
people and by the people insteadof what they are right now.
SPEAKER_00 (33:14):
Right.
And that's ultimately what thecourts want, right?
They want an off-ramp to getthis off their books, to get
this done, do it as quickly andeasily and as efficiently as
possible.
There, it's not the courts, Iwould say family law, and this
is my description of it, is lessabout justice and more about
efficiency and you know gettingstuff done and what you're doing
(33:38):
here is really helping that inand it's not a huge complex
process that you're you're well,it's complex for you and writing
all the bills, so let's get intothis a little bit.
But you're not rewriting wholebills, you're not like creating
all new legislature, you'reliterally taking what is
existing, the statutes and thebills that are existing, and
(34:00):
you're just revising and reallyjust tweaking some of those,
which is I'm assuming one of thereasons why the legislators are
like, okay, yeah, this is easy.
I don't have to, we don't haveto lobby this, we don't have to
like get into it's just takingthe existing language, the
existing bills, making somesmall changes to it, and then
getting it passed.
(34:20):
Is that correct?
SPEAKER_01 (34:21):
Yeah, when you can explain it to them and I'm not
emotionally throwing up on themabout my own case and my kids
and whatever else, and you say,look, I have a problem with
family court with falseallegations, here's the
solution.
I have a problem withinterference, here's a solution.
I have a problem with notgetting 50-50 from the get-go,
here's the solution.
SPEAKER_00 (34:39):
So that's straightforward, it's easy.
Like you said, there's it's onepage, right?
So they're they're not lookingat that stacks of bills and
needing to read through them andtry to understand them or have a
legal expert or somebody.
It's real straightforward.
You just described I'm havingissues.
This is an issue in family lawcourt, this is a solution for
(34:59):
it.
Can you look at it?
So on that, on that note, yousaid that you've now gone
through all 50 states here andand and looked at this and have
created a system on your websiteto help all of the rest of us to
work on your behalf, or it'sreally on our behalf, but you've
(35:19):
created the system to help us gothrough that and and approach
our legislators and start theprocess in our respective
states.
Share with us how how we dothat, where we go, and then
we're gonna talk through that alittle bit because I know
automatically people start goinglike, oh, I gotta talk to my
(35:42):
legislator, oh, like I gotta getinvolved in politics now.
And no, it's nothing like that.
It's as straightforward, it'sit's simple.
I'm promising you, it's assimple as I've been involved in
politics.
I have once upon a time I had alifetime in politics, or a life
in politics, I should say itfelt like a lifetime when I was
in it.
But like Robert's describing itis straightforward and it is as
(36:04):
easy as he is describing.
So I want you to, I want thelisteners to pay attention to
this because we need to all now,wherever you're at in your
divorce, get involved.
This is post-divorce, it's notgoing to take a lot of time, but
we need to get involved inhelping.
You know, Robert's helped us tohelp ourselves, but getting
involved in Robert'sorganization and and go through
(36:26):
this process and get this stuffpassed in all 50 states.
So how do they do that?
SPEAKER_01 (36:31):
Yeah, so you go to my website, robertgarza.us, sign
up to be an advocate.
Once you do that, you'll receivean email, click on it, it'll put
you in a in whatever stateyou're in, whether it's Texas,
California, whatever, whereveryou're at, doesn't matter.
And you can be in two states,three states at once, because
some people's cases arecomplicated.
No problem.
(36:51):
Every bill that I've written sofar, well, not all of them, but
eight of them that I've writtenso far are on robertgarza.us.
You literally click on the bill,it'll pull up the bill itself.
It already recognizes what stateyou're in, so you're not having
to thumb through a bunch ofbills or anything else.
It's very straightforward.
So when you click on your state,pulls the bill up, the first
(37:13):
thing you click on islegislative pack, and that will
have three pages.
The first thing is an email, youjust copy paste it to your
legislator.
I already wrote it in in everystate, it's already amended to
your code, and it fits the timetaken, time back, three strikes,
all that into it.
And so you just paste it in anemail to them.
You write your name at the top,theirs, or you theirs at the
(37:34):
top, yours at the bottom, andthat asks for a 10 to 20 minute
Zoom call with them.
And so when they respond to you,you send the Zoom link to me, we
zoom in, you talk to yoursenator or legislator or their
staff and say, hey, here's myproblem that I'm having.
Talk several minutes if you wantabout your case to them, and
then I finish it off with,here's the solution.
(37:56):
I mean, literally 95% of thetime it's a done deal.
And it's that easy.
It's already amended to theirstate.
They read it, they see that itdoesn't affect a lot of their
code.
You're not sending them 23 pagesof revisions.
It's literally one page.
And it's done.
Like literally, this can go in.
(38:17):
Legislation starts usuallyDecember, January.
And so if we can get these billsinto your state early, then
it'll work.
Right.
SPEAKER_00 (38:26):
Folks, listen folks listening to this, this this is
brilliant because what happensis that all of these
legislators, and and and look,this doesn't, it doesn't matter
if if you're a Republican andyou have a Democrat legislator,
or you're a Democrat and youhave a Republican legislature,
none of this matters, right?
Because this is not a partisanissue.
This protects kids and helpsfamilies across the board.
(38:49):
So don't feel like, well, Idon't want to talk to my
legislator for whateverpolitical reason.
That's stupid.
This is, I mean, that's notstupid, but it's just in this
situation, it it doesn't matter.
So so what you can you can it'ssimple, it's like it is cut and
paste that what what Robert hashas created.
And these offices, they payattention to everything that
(39:11):
comes in.
So don't feel like this is awaste of time.
They will respond to you.
Now it might take a little bitof follow-up, but you will
eventually get a response fromsomebody.
It might not be directly fromthe legislator themselves, but
that could probably even bebetter, right, Robert?
SPEAKER_01 (39:28):
Yes.
The legislators are really busyright now, too, with their own
lives, their own businesses, andwhatever else.
And this is the off season.
So if you talk to their staff,which you probably will get
pretty quick on the phone, afteryou send that email, wait a day,
call the staff, you know, calltheir office, say, hey, I just
sent you an email yesterday.
Can you look at it?
And they'll look at it whileyou're on the phone.
(39:49):
When can I set a date?
And literally they'll set you adate right there.
They're super nice to work with.
They'll book the date for you.
And if they're staff, it's evenbetter because a legislator is
really busy and they get youknow bombarded with stuff.
Sometimes they won't rememberwho you were or what that was
about.
But the staff, 90% of the timethat I've seen staff do this,
(40:11):
they know someone that wentthrough what you went through,
or they went through ityourself.
Very few times do we find alegislator that has gone through
this because they all most ofthem come from nuclear families
and just different things.
But when you do get a legislatorthat has gone through this, it
is night and day.
They said, I'll take all yourbills.
Like once they see them, they'redone.
SPEAKER_00 (40:31):
Yeah, yeah.
And and and so legislators,folks, they are people like you
and me.
So they have an interest inwanting to solve things and
problems that are out there.
It's just that it becomes it'ssuch a difficult and complex
process some of the time, butthis is not, and that's and and
that's why I'm encouraging youto get involved with this.
(40:55):
This is really, reallystraightforward to get something
done like this, like Robert hasdone in Texas in six months, and
the impact that it can have, itis worth the the few hours that
you're gonna spend on sending anemail, setting up a call, and
then starting this process.
And then you don't necessarilyhave to be involved with it from
(41:16):
there on in, because what you'vedone now is you've set up a time
to have a Zoom call or phonecall with Robert yourself and
this legislator, and thenRobert's gonna take it from from
from there.
And you can you you can hearjust from from his experience
and from what he's done.
And literally, he's gone in andhe's rewritten multiple bills in
every one of our states.
(41:38):
So he knows and he understandsthe nuances of this.
Him explaining it to them isjust a real straightforward
no-brainer process, like like hesaid.
Yeah, I speak their language.
Yeah, exactly.
Exactly.
And you're but you're not anattorney, right?
You're a dad that has had thisexperience that just wants to
(41:59):
solve the problem for familiesand kids.
And so, which is what we likewhat we all want, and and the
dads listening that are havingchallenges around this, man,
this is something I know.
I'm gonna be we've already gotsomebody here in Colorado, but
I'm gonna do whatever I can tohelp that here because we need
to have this, these bills donein every single state across the
(42:21):
uh the the the country thecountry.
And I wanted to point out so onthe on the the 50-50 parenting
time, the the what is it calledthe new start at equality?
New start at equality bill inKentucky, and you guys heard my
podcast just a couple of weeksago.
In Kentucky, they passedsomething similar to this.
(42:42):
It's not your it's not Robert'sbill, but they passed 50-50
parenting time as a start, madea statutory, it reduced divorces
overall by 25% in just one year.
So the impact that this is goingto have on lives across our
country is absolutely huge.
(43:02):
I cannot, I just cannotemphasize it, guys.
For as little amount of timethat it was going to take each
one of us listening to getinvolved in our state and go to
Robert's website, send an email,set up a time, this can have
just a huge impact.
30 million people in Texas injust six months for for Roberts
(43:23):
for Robert's bill there.
Can you imagine if we if we eachjust did this in each one of our
states, the the huge impact thatwe're gonna have?
Just please, please do it andget involved.
So um let's see.
So let me uh I'll ask you afinal question.
I think well, I wanted to makeout one other point.
(43:43):
Robert also has a training onthis.
So if you're if you're notcomfortable still after
listening to it, going to thewebsite, signing up for to be an
advocate, and then looking atit, he does is it a weekly or a
monthly call where he'll justhe'll even walk.
It's a weekly call, it's open toanybody.
(44:03):
And so so you can jump on that,and he he literally will take
you through the website and showyou how to do this and answer
any questions.
I went I was on it last weekwith with you, and you did a
great job with it.
Friends, this is like this is soit's easier than ordering from
frickin' Walmart for or or orAmazon online, and you're gonna
(44:24):
have a huge, huge impact.
So get involved with that.
SPEAKER_01 (44:27):
So I did want to tell everybody that it was free.
It's free.
There's no cost for training,there's no cost for advocating,
there's no cost for any of that.
Now, if you want me to help youwith your case, that takes away
from the advocacy.
So there's a phone number thatyou can call on the website, but
that costs.
But other than that, all thetraining's free.
The Zoom call every month isfree or every week is free.
(44:49):
The group of going in theretalking to all the other
advocates, all of that is free.
There is no cost for thiswhatsoever.
SPEAKER_00 (44:55):
Yeah.
Well, let's talk a little bitthen also about and and and let
me point out this Robert doesn'tget paid to do this.
So Robert is working full-time.
He does this, the side and theimpact that this is having.
So talk a little bit about thatthat um consulting also that
that you're doing and and andhow people can get a hold of you
(45:16):
for that as well.
SPEAKER_01 (45:17):
So because I spent $700,000, I literally have that
much knowledge in what you allare going through right now.
And for years, for the last fiveto seven years, I've been
helping tons of parents gothrough this.
The problem is, as you willknow, it takes hours of time to
be able to do this, you know, toadvocate for your case and
(45:38):
whatever else.
I can shorten your process.
I just I had I even have rightnow attorneys calling me with
their litigants to talk throughstrategy on where to go with
this because a lot of them havenever been through false
allegations.
They don't understand thenuances, and especially if you
get a seasoned attorney, a lotof the people that I was against
(45:58):
were board certified.
So there's regular attorneys,and then the top 10% are board
certified.
The law firms I was goingagainst were board certified.
And so believe me, I know allthe dirty tricks.
We can shut them down veryquickly, and we can get you
possession back with your kidspretty quick.
But you can just go to againRobertGarza.us, book a Zoom, and
(46:19):
it gives you a calendar.
You book whatever time you want,whether it's weekdays, weekends,
whatever, after hours, it's allin there.
So yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (46:28):
But that doesn't sound that's yeah, and so that's
that's different, but I I that'simportant for that.
There's a ton of dads listening,and we get guys every single
week that are going throughthis, that are being alienated,
haven't seen their kids formonths, that are having
challenges.
So you provide some someexpertise uh around that.
(46:51):
And it's an it's an unfortunateexpertise to have, right?
If we any of us has experiencedthat, but it can be mitigated
provided you take the rightsteps, and you just gotta you
can't bury your head with it.
I think it was the first thingthat I would say, and you got to
pay attention to some somethings that are that are
happening.
And so as to your point, Robert,attorneys are not terrific at
(47:13):
strategizing around this andmitigating this because it's uh
90, 90 plus percent of of casesget settled outside of court,
and there's no issues like this.
So it's only the small minorityof cases that even go to court
and go to trial.
Uh, and it's an even smallerminority that have some of these
issues that are that are goingon.
(47:34):
But they're real issues, andthey're and and and they need to
be addressed because they'redamaging kids.
So Robert can be a huge, hugeasset and a resource around that
as well.
So support him in that if you'vegot that going on.
Hopefully you don't, but it, butif you do, he can definitely
help you out with that.
And then also go torobertgarza.us and get involved
(47:55):
in your state in getting thesebills passed.
And said it now five times atleast.
But there is just there, I soI've been doing this, Robert,
for five years now.
There are there's not anotherthing that I've seen that had
can have such a quick andimmediate impact on this family
law uh system than what you'redoing here.
(48:17):
And you're a blessing to uh tohaving take taking this fight
on.
And it's not even really afight, it's just refining a
system that is meant to be goodand and judicious and balanced
and fair for everybody, but thatgets manipulated because of just
certain people.
And so all you're doing istightening those loopholes.
(48:39):
And so the fight for tighteningloopholes so that we can have uh
a better process is just reallyfan and and brilliant, my
friend.
Absolutely brilliant how you'vegone about doing this.
So uh so go to robertgarza.us,get involved in that process.
Robert, anything else that youwant to say to the dads?
SPEAKER_01 (48:58):
Yeah, if you go to my Facebook page, please watch
all the reels.
You'll understand the bills, whyI did it, what they do, watch
them several times because youmight get confused.
You know, Dr.
Warren Farrell said something,he wrote the boy crisis.
He said that there could be noother system designed to hurt
the family more than the familycourt system in its present
(49:21):
form.
Let's change that.
SPEAKER_00 (49:25):
Yeah, well, that's that's a good place to to leave
it, and and we can have animpact on that uh just by by
helping you through thisprocess.
Robert, thanks so much for beinghere.
I sincerely appreciate it.
Again, God bless you for thework that you're doing.
I appreciate it.
And we're gonna we're gonna haveyou up on our website as our
trusted ally.
So if people want informationthere, uh there'll be there'll
(49:47):
be information in our show notesto get involved, uh, and we'll
be keeping in touch with Robertas well.
We'll be putting up his his dayuh his weekly call so you can
get on there if you just want tostart at that.
So we're just we're gonna bepartnering with Robert to
whatever extent we can to uh tohelp him through this process.
So Robert, thank you.
Thank you all.
Hello and welcome to the show.
Thank you for tuning in thisweek.
Today I have a very importantguest that has a very important
mission that we're going to uhtalk about and get you involved
with.
Before we jump into that,though, I wanted to welcome
James, a new member to theDivorce David community.
(00:20):
If you are not part of thecommunity yet, check it out at
thedivorcedavicate.com.
We've got a new uh group, uhgroup workshop, group coaching
going on October 29th.
So uh check that out uh as welland get involved, get the
divorce support that you needwherever you're at in this
process atthedivorcedadvocate.com.
(00:44):
All right, my guest from afather fighting for his
children's rights to anationally recognized advocate,
Robert Garza's journey is apowerful story of
transformation.
He is the architect of Texas'sgroundbreaking parental equality
law, and his work is nowreshaping family courts across
the country.
(01:05):
As the new director of Americansfor Judicial Accountability and
the Vice President of NationalFamily Justice, please welcome a
true champion for families,Robert Garza.
Hi, Robert.
Hey, thanks for having me.
Hey, Robert, thank you for forbeing on.
Thank you for what you aredoing.
It's a true blessing that thatyou are that you're doing this
(01:27):
work.
I know that a lot of the dadslistening today are gonna be
very interested in what you'redoing because it is gonna have a
huge impact on their lives inthe future.
It already has in Texas.
But before we jump into whatthat is that you are working on
and the specific laws and howthey'll impact the dads, share a
(01:47):
little bit about your 15-yearcustody journey battle, if you
will, and how that's kind ofshaped why you're doing what
you're doing.
SPEAKER_01 (01:58):
Sure.
So I went through about 16 yearsnow of family court, 43 plus
false allegations.
I spent$700,000 plus just tryingto be a father in my kids'
lives.
It's not been an easy journey.
You know, I was just a fatherparent, just like all of the
listeners out there.
(02:19):
I didn't know anything aboutfamily law, criminal law,
constitutional law, and had to,you know, learn all this going
through this process.
SPEAKER_00 (02:27):
So, yeah, okay.
Well, I'm sorry to hear that.
I have experienced that as well,12 years in in family law court
that'll give you an education,right?
43.
So you've got me on the 43 CSPor CPS allegations for sure.
While I've experienced some ofthat, that is just uh
disconcerting, right?
Having having people looking inyour life all the time.
(02:49):
Share a little bit how thatexperience helps you to start to
understand the landscape of thefamily law, uh, of family law
and family law courts.
Sure.
SPEAKER_01 (03:00):
So every time you go in family court, you're having
to live whatever consequencescome out.
And after going to court so manytimes in over 16 years, you get
educated very quickly on what'sgoing on.
And so I saw all of the legalloopholes that opposing counsel
was able to play with delays,with no accountability, with
(03:22):
false allegations.
And so because of going throughthat and living that, now I
understand those loopholes, andnow we're changing them with the
legislature and shutting allthose legal loopholes down.
SPEAKER_00 (03:36):
Okay.
So let's let's talk about someof those loopholes and let's
talk about actually first giveus an example of what you're
talking about as far as aloophole.
Because some people might bethinking, and the first thing I
thought was like, okay, so ifthere's loopholes, why hasn't
somebody already thought aboutthis?
Why hasn't it happened?
But you know, those listeningand they haven't been in family
(03:59):
law court for 12, 15, 6, 20years will say, okay, well, this
makes purpose sense why there'sloopholes.
But what like kind of give us anexample of what one of those
would be, and then let's jumpinto some of the bills.
SPEAKER_01 (04:12):
Sure.
So one of the biggest legalloopholes that there are, well,
it's not even a legal loophole.
Perjury is a felony pretty muchin every state.
Judges are not prosecuting forit in family court, they're
doing it in criminal court, butnot family court.
This is the problem where mostof everyone's problems are
coming from.
People can get up there, theycan perjure themselves, lie on
(04:33):
the stand, and same thing withfalse allegations.
False allegations are rampantthrough family court, and
there's no accountability forthem.
And knowing this, so goingthrough 43 of these, I figured
out how my ex did this, and shedid it with mandatory reporters.
They've all been ruled out.
She, my ex never came to courtand said I did anything.
(04:54):
She always did it throughthird-party people.
And once that allegation wasruled out, I'd have to pay my
attorney to go to court, get theprotective order dissolved, and
then at the time I would ask forthe judge to give me the time
back to repair the parental bondthat was taken part by
precaution by the court.
She never did.
She got tired of me asking forit every time all this would
(05:16):
happen and said, okay, let'ssave it for final trial.
I saved it for final trial, andshe never ruled on it.
Took over a hundred days torule, got things wrong, and this
is a problem with the legalsystem.
And so what I did was I came outwith time taken, time back that
when you return the child, youshall return the time, the same
type of time, and the same exactamount of time.
(05:38):
And in doing so, itdisincentivizes making a false
allegation, but not a realallegation.
SPEAKER_00 (05:44):
Right.
Okay.
So let's let's clarify for thelisteners the differences
between civil court and familylaw court, because what you said
is is accurate, that if you dothis in civil court and you make
false allegations or or youallege abuse and it's not
whatever, whatever you're lyingabout, then you are responsible
(06:07):
in in civil court.
Family court that just getscompletely you are you're
supposed to be responsible, butit just gets completely,
completely ignored, right?
And and so it's just twodifferent, it's two different
applications of law in twodifferent types of court.
Is that correct?
SPEAKER_01 (06:24):
Yes.
So in family court, there'swhat's called a preponderance of
evidence, and that is like thelowest standard of evidence.
That's 50% plus a feather.
So literally, when you go inthere, if you don't understand
what that is, it's literally youcan say whatever you want, and
that's what the problem is.
And if the judge believes it, itsounds more true or less true.
That's what they're judging youon.
(06:46):
It's either more true or lesstrue.
In criminal court, the standardis clear and convincing
evidence.
So now you have to show proofand why.
And then they also have uhbeyond a reasonable doubt.
No.
Yeah.
Is it sorry, it's clear andconvinced, sorry, preponderance
(07:06):
of evidence, clear andconvincing, and beyond a
reasonable doubt.
Those are the three evidencesthat that they go by.
But the family court's thelowest, and that's the problem
with with what family court'sdoing.
SPEAKER_00 (07:19):
Right.
So for instance, in one of myexperiences, there was just an
allegation made.
There's no there is no preponentevidence.
There's no you know there is noclear evidence around it.
And they do these in ex partemeetings, and then they have a
(07:40):
and then you get a protectionorder, and then you have to
spend, like you said, the moneyin either going through C child
protection services or fullinvestigation, or then appear
before the court, and then youlose time.
Like for instance, I lost weekswith with my daughter.
I know that you've talked aboutthere's like large, large
(08:02):
periods of time that that youmissed over the the time that
you've been doing this, and thenthe courts do not do anything
about that.
And so you wrote this bill tothen mitigate this so that it
now does it stop it, or whatdoes it do?
How does it curb that, if youwill, that that behavior of
(08:24):
making these false allegations?
SPEAKER_01 (08:26):
Sure.
So the way that my ex did it isthat she went to a mandatory
reporter, reported that I washarming the kids.
The mandatory reporter thoughtthey were doing the right thing
and reported it to CPS becausethey're mandated to.
CPS, which is Child ProtectiveServices, thought they were
doing the right thing andopening a case.
And as soon as they open up thatcase, my ex would grab that
(08:48):
report number and go to familycourt and get a protective order
restraining order based on anopen CPS investigation.
All of this was done.
Now I've shut that down in Texasand it's going in a lot of other
states too.
So if the judge would have justgiven me the time back the first
time, second time, my exprobably never would have done
(09:10):
this.
But she saw it as a way to playkeep away with the children.
And so every time another onethey would they would rule it
out, she would make anotherallegation.
And that was the issue, and itkept going, going, going.
And the courts never figured outwhat had happened until we got
to final trial.
And we even asked my ex, like,you know, you know, how many of
(09:31):
these allegations did you makeor these reports?
And she was like, none, andstarted smiling.
That was the whole reason sheknew she did it by proxy.
And so instead of going backafter her or anything else, I
came out with these with theselaws.
Now, the time taken time backgives those resources back to
all of these.
(09:52):
Well so the time taken time backgives these resources back to
all these agencies like thefamily court system.
Now they're not backed up, andit's usually called I coined it,
it's called holiday hijacking,and it's to let the court know
that that person's trying tohijack my holiday with a false
protective order restrainingorder.
And once they do that, is thatyour car alarm?
SPEAKER_00 (10:16):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
It's sorry about that.
Yeah.
All right, sorry, you're gonnahave to cut it.
Yeah, no.
Okay, we're real here, so it'sreal life.
This is real real life stuffwe're talking about, my friend.
SPEAKER_01 (10:27):
So yeah.
So holiday hijacking is whensomebody goes to a court and
gets a protective orderrestraining order right before
major holiday.
So it's right before Christmas,right before Halloween, or you
know, spring break.
Lines of lawyers are out thereat three o'clock or right before
the kids getting out of schoolfiling these things.
Judges know this is an issue,but they keep doing it.
(10:50):
So this discourages that type ofbehavior by giving that time
back.
So if you miss a spring break,then you're gonna then you'll
get two in a row.
If you miss a Christmas, thenyou'll get two in a row.
And so that discourages a falseallegation, but it it will not
discourage a real allegation.
SPEAKER_00 (11:08):
Yeah.
So I wanna I want to be uhclear.
Uh a mandatory reporting personis like a therapist, is like a
school teacher, etc.
So what your ex did wascreatively seed something in one
of these people's minds that wasa false allegation that then
(11:30):
they because they're mandatoryreporters, they have to report
this.
So they don't have a choice.
So her way of doing this, and sothis is just another, there's
lots of creative ways, and I'mand I'm pointing this out
because I want to point this outto the dads that are listening
because lots of them deal withthis, or lots of them see some
of this stuff, or some of themare like, well, mine won't never
(11:50):
do you know, my wife would neverdo that, right?
And yeah, I know it's just we weget they then they get surprised
by this.
So I wanted to point this out sothat they can look for the
signs.
But then what happens is theyhave to they have to report
this, and then your acts tookit, and then there's an
automatic protection order.
(12:11):
The other one you justdescribed, which is the the
holiday hijacking, is they theyand I've experienced this like
right before the parenting timeis supposed to start with the
new parent for the holiday, thenthey just they file something
and then you miss all that time.
And so now what you're doingwith this bill is it makes it
absolutely mandatory for theparent that has created this
(12:36):
situation and made the falseallegations because when you go
through it, then the like yousaid, 43 times you went through
the the the cow call the theprotection services coming out,
finding no evidence of it.
When they find no evidence ofthat, then that time has to be
returned, whether it's whetherit's a day or two days a week or
(12:57):
the holiday.
And then you said that also ifit's the holidays, then they get
like the next two.
So it actually disincentivizesthem because then they're
actually going to be losing timewith their kiddos if they start
doing this stuff.
Is that correct?
Correct.
SPEAKER_01 (13:10):
And the other thing that we did in it also passed in
North Dakota, but we gave it anextra boost in North Dakota.
We put double the time back.
So that really discourages thatone.
SPEAKER_00 (13:21):
Yeah, yeah.
Well, even better.
And so for those saying, well,okay, but you know, can can this
possibly harm a kid on somebodywho's actually doing harm to the
to the kids, the answer is no.
And and why is the answer no?
(13:42):
Tell us why.
SPEAKER_01 (13:42):
Right.
So in my bill, I also write inthere that it's only after
there's been an investigation byCPS or the police department or
anybody, any any investigativeagency, anybody, when it comes
back that there was no findingof abuse or neglect, then is
(14:04):
when you can get your time backor anything like that.
Now, just in case there'ssomething that falls through,
there's also another clause inthere that now it puts the
burden of proof on the otherperson.
Instead of you having to say whyyou're innocent, now they have
to bring more stuff and say whyyou don't deserve that time
back.
It's an automatic time backunless they still want to keep
(14:25):
fighting this.
But there is no problem.
Which is it's been ruled.
SPEAKER_00 (14:29):
Which seems to be right, right, which seems to be
a huge problem, particularlywith with dads that I've
experienced.
We don't, there's just it's notreciprocal.
It doesn't happen.
I oftentimes I see with the mom,the parent if the dad's doing
some BS, and and let's be clearabout what we're talking about
here, too.
This is not a dad or mom issue.
This rules out anybody screwingaround with doing any kind of
(14:52):
false allegations, uh,alienation, stuff like this.
This really starts to put adamper on that.
Now it doesn't, it won't stop itlike you just described.
You're gonna have to go throughthe process, you're gonna have
to you're gonna have to dealwith uh protects the services or
whatever investigation you mighthave a hearing, or you might
(15:12):
have to uh hire an attorney,hire attorney, or you might have
to go to court and and have ahearing with your attorney.
So it is still gonna take youhaving to go and go through
this, but what it does is thenthey get the time back.
SPEAKER_01 (15:25):
Yeah, when when they return the child, they return
the time.
SPEAKER_00 (15:28):
Return the time immediately.
So so that's the parenting timepart of it.
Is there a component of thiswhere attorney's fees or
anything like that getsreimbursed back?
And if not, why is that not partof the bill?
SPEAKER_01 (15:43):
So that's already in what you're filing.
So what you're filing right nowis to dissolve that protective
order restraining order, andthen you can ask for your
attorney's fees.
Okay, so you can ask for yourattorney's fees in anything.
SPEAKER_00 (15:57):
Right.
Okay, so so then you couldpotentially, but that doesn't
mean that you're you're gonnaget it automatically, right?
So in the bill, you won't getattorney's fees, but you will
definitely get time back withyour kids because that is part
of the bill, right?
SPEAKER_01 (16:13):
That's the most big biggest part.
So what are you gonna do rightnow?
Every time I filed, I paid myattorney's fees, and I never got
the time back.
So again, this is kind of like alike the civil rights movement.
You have to ban slavery first,and then you can be president,
then you can be, you know, uhvote, have equal rights, stuff
(16:33):
like that.
Let's ban slavery first.
SPEAKER_00 (16:36):
Yep, that's what I was that's what I was getting
at, Robert, is this is a step inthe process because lots of
times dads are upset.
I was upset always, I'm sure youwere, that we have to pay this
money, go through this, and thenwe like we don't get time back
with our kids, we don't get anymoney back, et cetera.
So this is one step in thatprocess, which is the most
(16:58):
important step, you would argue,which is gaining the time back
to to to to repair thatrelationship with the kiddo
after an allegation, because thething that's not lost on not
lost on us, but doesn't comeinto the conversation, at least
in the family law court, I feel,is that this has done damage to
the kids when you're makingfalse allegations, when you're
(17:20):
you know attempting to do thisand alienate a kid, this is
doing damage with you and andand the child and the child.
So then the dads get that timeback that is the most important
part of it because then you canto repair that relationship with
them.
And it's not even it's not evenjust a justice thing, it's being
able to deepen that relationshipand and maintain that
(17:43):
relationship, which is trying tobe severed.
So that was just the the point.
Now the next point of it is likeyeah, what you said is yeah, it
would be nice to be able to getattorney's fees back and write
that into a bill and like youknow, and and and other things.
And we're gonna talk about youryour other bill here, which
which does have some uh monetarycompensation or fines, if you
(18:06):
will, in that.
But right now, we're trying tojust limit anybody from doing
these false allegations, whichhappens.
I would I would guess, and Idon't know if you have numbers
around this, primarily with withdads or or or to a majority of
the time with with dads, try tonip this in the bud because it
has become such such a bigproblem.
SPEAKER_01 (18:29):
So the time taken, time back bill does a whole lot
of things.
First of all, it returns theresources back to the court
system, it returns the resourcesback to CPS, it returns the
resources back to the districtattorney's office and to CPS.
The biggest travesty in allthis, other than what happened
to me and my children, was that43 times those investigations
(18:53):
could have been going tochildren really being hurt
rather than children not beinghurt.
And I'm just one person, somultiply that over millions of
people, and that's where thisstops before it starts the
behavior.
SPEAKER_00 (19:05):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
You and me, hundreds ofthousands of guys that are that
are listening as well.
So awesome.
Okay, let's talk, let's talkabout the this the the three
strikes law.
So the first one that you werewell first, how many people
instantaneously did this lawimpact in Texas after you were
(19:26):
able to get it?
SPEAKER_01 (19:28):
Yeah.
So the time taken, time backbill took six months.
I couldn't get anywhere in mycase in six months.
It took six months to go throughour legislature.
It went through unanimous,bipartisan the first time.
The governor signed off on it onFather's Day Day.
It impacted over 30 millionTexans all at once as soon as it
(19:49):
came out September 1st, 2023, Ibelieve.
And so it went into effect.
And so at that point, I mean, Icouldn't help that many people
in my lifetime, just one-on-onecases.
And that's where I found thatlegislation is the way to fix
this problems.
SPEAKER_00 (20:08):
Yeah, that's and and and that's and that's brilliant.
So let's let's talk about thethe three strikes law.
What are the three strikes andwhat are the consequences for
this custody interference?
SPEAKER_01 (20:20):
Yep.
So there's two differentversions of it.
There's three-strike civilversion and three strikes
criminal version.
The three-strike civil versionright now, we were having
problems with judges giving handslaps 20 times.
Like we even had one guy thathad 20 interference with child
custody, took the ex to court,never reprimanded really.
(20:42):
And so we came out, and and thisis not just one person, this was
happening all over the state.
And and it happens all over thecountry.
And so what we did is we putthrough what was called three
strikes.
It was a House Bill 3181 inTexas, and it passed this
session.
And so what that does, it giveit makes the judges give jail
(21:04):
time uh on the third strike, andthat's the biggest part of that
one.
So if you go back into civilcourt, not criminal court,
that's the three strikescriminal version.
The three-strikes civil versionis a passed bill right now, and
it went into effect already,September 1st, 2025, that if you
have three contempt filings andconvictions in family court, the
(21:27):
judge has no more discretion inTexas.
It's automatic jail time.
And that's going to discouragethis behavior.
Now, the three strikes criminalversion is when somebody
interferes with your childcustody after you have a court
order.
And then right now it's a statejail felony pretty much in every
state when they interfere, butthey tell you it's a civil
matter to go back to familycourt.
(21:49):
After this bill passes in yourstate, the it's the only tool
that law enforcement has.
And when they come out, they'llbe able to give a$500 fine the
first time, the second time, andthen the third time, it will be
it they get arrested.
And if you think about this,everyone usually has at least
standard possession.
So that's Friday, sorry, everyfirst, third, and fifth weekend,
(22:10):
every Thursday for whether it'stwo hours or overnight.
So your first period ofpossession that that they miss
is going to be a$500 fine.
So that's Thursday.
The second period of possessionis Friday, Saturday, Sunday.
Literally by the third, by thefollowing Thursday, that's the
third strike.
SPEAKER_00 (22:29):
So it doesn't, it doesn't get it doesn't get
dragged out.
And let's let's clarify also forthe audience that when what what
oftentimes happen, and I'm suresome have already experienced
this, if you're if if custody orparenting time is being withheld
and you call law enforcement onthat, they're not going to do
anything.
They're going to say, hey,that's a that's a civil matter,
(22:52):
you need to go back to court,you need to talk to attorneys,
and then you do that, you file acontempt, you may or may not get
the contempt uh ruling for you.
Even if you do get the contemptruling for you, it's usually
something like they don't wantto see you there, basically,
right?
They want you to to figure thisstuff out.
And then, you know, there theycontinue to there's no there's
(23:15):
no incentive to stop doing stufflike that.
So what this does is it not onlyso it not it's not only in
civil, but it makes it acriminal charge.
So the uh the law enforcementthen this actually has teeth.
Law enforcement will dosomething now, because that's
the most frustrating thing nowis you just they just keep
saying no, and law enforcement'slike, I can't put drag the kids
(23:37):
out, I can't do anything.
This then they will give them a$500 citation right there, like
you said.
And then it doesn't takeforever, it doesn't take like
months and months.
If they keep doing it, it couldtake a week, two weeks, right?
And then they could end up injail because they get another
500 citation, and then the thirdtime is bam, they get arrested.
SPEAKER_01 (23:59):
Well, the problem with that, and I'm sure y'all
have experienced it, but after Icame out with the time taken
time back bill my and and thelaw, my ex stopped doing false
allegations and startedinterfering with my child
custody.
So I had to figure that one out,and that's why this was born.
And I went both routes.
I went both.
It took six months to get intofamily court for an enforcement
action because the delays andgames and whatever.
(24:22):
And it took six months to get tolaw enforcement and grand jury
and everything else that way.
So much waste of time, andliterally you can hijack the
kids or brainwash them oralienate them if someone just
withheld all those times.
That's what a lot of you parentsare experiencing.
This will solve the issueliterally within a week.
And a lot of people come backand they're like, Well, you just
(24:43):
want well, not even a lot ofpeople.
It's only one organizationdidn't understand the bill, and
they're like, Are you trying tojail protective parents?
Absolutely not.
Think about it.
And I told them, I was like, letme ask you something.
It's a felony right now, as soonas you withhold the first time.
That's arrest right now.
I'm amending that to two to twotimes, and then the third time
(25:03):
you get arrested, what it isright now.
I'm all for protective parents.
In fact, this is this willprotect protective parents
because now it's that$500 fine'sa misdemeanor.
You go to criminal court, notfamily court, to talk about
this, and you can get itdismissed like a speeding ticket
if you took them to CPS or orsomething's going on.
(25:24):
So you literally have threetimes to bait, you know, to be a
protective parent and figure outsomething, and they'll dismiss
the ticket if if you didsomething, you know, to protect
that child.
But if not, this stops the badparents, but it doesn't harm the
good parents.
In fact, it protects them evenmore.
SPEAKER_00 (25:41):
Right.
And there's and and there's nothe it does not disrupt or
interrupt or stop any dueprocess.
All the due process continues tohappen the same way as the
system.
Like you said in the beginning,all this does is it just takes
away what you're callingloopholes or for people
manipulating the the system totheir advantage.
(26:03):
So that's that's brilliant.
So that's that's the secondbill.
You've already been successfulwith these two bills in in Texas
and in North Carolina or inNorth Dakota, right?
Has the three strikes lawhappened in uh North Dakota
also?
SPEAKER_01 (26:17):
No.
Yes.
So the three strikes they triedto join them before, but now
they did a committee like toinvestigate how much of this
issue is going on.
We already know in Texas.
In fact, San Antonio gets over athousand interference child
custody calls a month.
1,200 cities, that's 1.2 millionuh interference with child
(26:38):
custody calls a month that thelaw enforcements are having to
spend resources going out thatthey can't do anything.
This solves that issue.
Literally, they'll I hope thatnobody gets a fine and nobody
goes to jail.
I hope that it just stops thebad behavior, which I've I 100%
believe it will.
But no matter what, you cannotlegislate crazy.
(26:59):
There's gonna be 1% or 10%,whatever of it that's gonna keep
happening, but not the 90%.
The 90% will go away.
SPEAKER_00 (27:08):
Right.
So and yeah, go ahead.
SPEAKER_01 (27:12):
Yeah, I forgot to tell you.
So when I came out with thethree strikes, right now it's in
in Texas legislation right now.
We've had a session, a specialsession, a second special
session.
There's a lot of stuff going on.
There's 11,000 bills, so it hasnothing to do with mine.
It has everything to do withlike what's going on in Texas.
But after passing it in NorthDakota, the time taken, time
(27:32):
back, and Texas, I saw that thisis how to change on a mass
level.
So what I've done over the lasteight months is sit down and I
wrote over 450 bills.
That's about seven or eight perstate.
And it's these same bills, andI've amended them already for
each state for all anybody thatwants them in their state, they
(27:54):
can just go to robertgarza.usand there's a couple of things
in there they can just downloadand put them in their own state.
SPEAKER_00 (27:59):
Yeah, we're gonna get we're gonna get to that.
I'm gonna because I'm gonna getinto that in in specific detail
for for folks.
But I wanted to make the pointthat there's nobody that should
be arguing against this.
This is beneficial for lawenforcement.
This is this is beneficial forall of the different agencies
that are involved, the mandatoryreporters, obviously the kids,
(28:24):
and and both parents.
There are no drawbacks to this.
It just just clear, it justclears things up, makes things
very definitive, and stopscrazy, like you said, stops
crazy, bad, manipulativebehavior from happening in this
system.
So there's not when when youwhen you introduced this in
(28:45):
taxes, or when she introducedthis in North Dakota, there
wasn't any kind of party lineany any kind of party line
opposition to this, one side orthe other.
Like it went unanimously throughbecause it just makes sense,
correct?
SPEAKER_01 (29:01):
Yeah, well, think about it.
Who's gonna raise their hand andsay, I don't think that that
child deserves that time backafter an allegation has been
there's no abuse found and noneglect.
Not one person.
SPEAKER_00 (29:13):
Right.
Yep, nope, perfect.
I just want to I wanted toclear, I'm gonna make that clear
because you know, we're talkingabout legislatures, it's uh
they're always fighting aboutstuff.
Your bill, there's nothing tofight about in this bill, other
than maybe misconceptions, likeyou said, the one group uh might
have or somebody might have amisconception about what it can
or can't do, but there are nounintended consequences around
(29:36):
this.
The only consequence is thatthere will be better behavior by
everybody in involved, andthere's no due process.
So I wanted to make that clear.
So let's let's talk about thethe family equality bill.
So I'm I'm really excited to totalk about this one.
Yeah, and walk us through thekey proposals of that, such as
(29:56):
the 50 50 custody as a startingpoint and And also the cameras
in the courtroom.
SPEAKER_01 (30:02):
Yeah.
So a new started equality is anew started equality.
It's fifty-fifty for bothparents that are a fit parent,
willing parent, and able-to-doit parent, and live within 25
miles of your child's school.
That's it.
The rest of the bill is, youknow, if the judge wants to go
below those standards, then theyhave to have clear and
(30:23):
convincing evidence, notpreponderance.
I wrote this in the bill, clearand convincing evidence on why
they're going below thatstandard, and they have to write
it into why in into theirdecision why they are going
below those standards.
And so that is all thedifference right now.
And then below that, it hastalks about that you cannot have
(30:43):
50-50 if you have domesticviolence, abuse, convictions,
and some other stuff in thatbill.
The bill is literally a one-pageand it protects everybody.
There is no unintendedconsequences.
There's nothing in that billthat anybody can really argue
about.
SPEAKER_00 (31:00):
Okay, so this puts some responsibility upon the
court in order to describe andand and put in writing what that
preponderance of evidence isthat makes them rule that you
have to be, you have to go offof the 50-50, right?
(31:20):
So this becomes less sub ohclear.
I'm sorry, clear and convincing.
That they have to have clear andconvincing evidence to go away
from 50-50.
So this keeps it, this makes itway more objective and a lot
less subjective.
So so have you so have you gotany pushback from courts on
(31:43):
that?
Because we know that judges liketo rule their their courtrooms
and and have the flexibility torule how they want.
Has there been any feedbackaround around that?
SPEAKER_01 (31:53):
No, in fact, if you look at all my reels, I have
lawyers, I have senators, I haveRepublican, Democrat, it doesn't
matter.
They're all over the board.
Parents, all for all of my billsbecause they're they're good
bills.
It's great legislation, it'sopening.
And the problem with most of thecourts right now is there's a
there's a lot of bad apples inthere that have been there for a
(32:15):
long time that do whatever theywant.
They let justice get to theirhead or or their their positions
because they have immunity.
And so there's really nothingyou can do.
And then when you have a SCJC,which is who you make complaints
to in Texas, if a judge is doingsomething wrong with a less than
1% reprimand, and they couldchoose whether it's private or
(32:35):
or public, this is the issueswith all these things.
But we're changing all thesethings on a mass level.
But as far as pushback on the onany of the bills, no, no, all of
them are very pretty, they'resimple, they're no nonsense
bills.
And like the time taken timeback, I could have
retroactivated the bill and gottwo or three years with my
(32:56):
children back, but I didn't doit because it would stop up the
courts.
I was willing to let go of myown time with my children just
to be able to make these courtsrun more efficiently and for the
people and by the people insteadof what they are right now.
SPEAKER_00 (33:14):
Right.
And that's ultimately what thecourts want, right?
They want an off-ramp to getthis off their books, to get
this done, do it as quickly andeasily and as efficiently as
possible.
There, it's not the courts, Iwould say family law, and this
is my description of it, is lessabout justice and more about
efficiency and you know gettingstuff done and what you're doing
(33:38):
here is really helping that inand it's not a huge complex
process that you're you're well,it's complex for you and writing
all the bills, so let's get intothis a little bit.
But you're not rewriting wholebills, you're not like creating
all new legislature, you'reliterally taking what is
existing, the statutes and thebills that are existing, and
(34:00):
you're just revising and reallyjust tweaking some of those,
which is I'm assuming one of thereasons why the legislators are
like, okay, yeah, this is easy.
I don't have to, we don't haveto lobby this, we don't have to
like get into it's just takingthe existing language, the
existing bills, making somesmall changes to it, and then
getting it passed.
(34:20):
Is that correct?
SPEAKER_01 (34:21):
Yeah, when you can explain it to them and I'm not
emotionally throwing up on themabout my own case and my kids
and whatever else, and you say,look, I have a problem with
family court with falseallegations, here's the
solution.
I have a problem withinterference, here's a solution.
I have a problem with notgetting 50-50 from the get-go,
here's the solution.
SPEAKER_00 (34:39):
So that's straightforward, it's easy.
Like you said, there's it's onepage, right?
So they're they're not lookingat that stacks of bills and
needing to read through them andtry to understand them or have a
legal expert or somebody.
It's real straightforward.
You just described I'm havingissues.
This is an issue in family lawcourt, this is a solution for
(34:59):
it.
Can you look at it?
So on that, on that note, yousaid that you've now gone
through all 50 states here andand and looked at this and have
created a system on your websiteto help all of the rest of us to
work on your behalf, or it'sreally on our behalf, but you've
(35:19):
created the system to help us gothrough that and and approach
our legislators and start theprocess in our respective
states.
Share with us how how we dothat, where we go, and then
we're gonna talk through that alittle bit because I know
automatically people start goinglike, oh, I gotta talk to my
(35:42):
legislator, oh, like I gotta getinvolved in politics now.
And no, it's nothing like that.
It's as straightforward, it'sit's simple.
I'm promising you, it's assimple as I've been involved in
politics.
I have once upon a time I had alifetime in politics, or a life
in politics, I should say itfelt like a lifetime when I was
in it.
But like Robert's describing itis straightforward and it is as
(36:04):
easy as he is describing.
So I want you to, I want thelisteners to pay attention to
this because we need to all now,wherever you're at in your
divorce, get involved.
This is post-divorce, it's notgoing to take a lot of time, but
we need to get involved inhelping.
You know, Robert's helped us tohelp ourselves, but getting
involved in Robert'sorganization and and go through
(36:26):
this process and get this stuffpassed in all 50 states.
So how do they do that?
SPEAKER_01 (36:31):
Yeah, so you go to my website, robertgarza.us, sign
up to be an advocate.
Once you do that, you'll receivean email, click on it, it'll put
you in a in whatever stateyou're in, whether it's Texas,
California, whatever, whereveryou're at, doesn't matter.
And you can be in two states,three states at once, because
some people's cases arecomplicated.
No problem.
(36:51):
Every bill that I've written sofar, well, not all of them, but
eight of them that I've writtenso far are on robertgarza.us.
You literally click on the bill,it'll pull up the bill itself.
It already recognizes what stateyou're in, so you're not having
to thumb through a bunch ofbills or anything else.
It's very straightforward.
So when you click on your state,pulls the bill up, the first
(37:13):
thing you click on islegislative pack, and that will
have three pages.
The first thing is an email, youjust copy paste it to your
legislator.
I already wrote it in in everystate, it's already amended to
your code, and it fits the timetaken, time back, three strikes,
all that into it.
And so you just paste it in anemail to them.
You write your name at the top,theirs, or you theirs at the
(37:34):
top, yours at the bottom, andthat asks for a 10 to 20 minute
Zoom call with them.
And so when they respond to you,you send the Zoom link to me, we
zoom in, you talk to yoursenator or legislator or their
staff and say, hey, here's myproblem that I'm having.
Talk several minutes if you wantabout your case to them, and
then I finish it off with,here's the solution.
(37:56):
I mean, literally 95% of thetime it's a done deal.
And it's that easy.
It's already amended to theirstate.
They read it, they see that itdoesn't affect a lot of their
code.
You're not sending them 23 pagesof revisions.
It's literally one page.
And it's done.
Like literally, this can go in.
(38:17):
Legislation starts usuallyDecember, January.
And so if we can get these billsinto your state early, then
it'll work.
Right.
SPEAKER_00 (38:26):
Folks, listen folks listening to this, this this is
brilliant because what happensis that all of these
legislators, and and and look,this doesn't, it doesn't matter
if if you're a Republican andyou have a Democrat legislator,
or you're a Democrat and youhave a Republican legislature,
none of this matters, right?
Because this is not a partisanissue.
This protects kids and helpsfamilies across the board.
(38:49):
So don't feel like, well, Idon't want to talk to my
legislator for whateverpolitical reason.
That's stupid.
This is, I mean, that's notstupid, but it's just in this
situation, it it doesn't matter.
So so what you can you can it'ssimple, it's like it is cut and
paste that what what Robert hashas created.
And these offices, they payattention to everything that
(39:11):
comes in.
So don't feel like this is awaste of time.
They will respond to you.
Now it might take a little bitof follow-up, but you will
eventually get a response fromsomebody.
It might not be directly fromthe legislator themselves, but
that could probably even bebetter, right, Robert?
SPEAKER_01 (39:28):
Yes.
The legislators are really busyright now, too, with their own
lives, their own businesses, andwhatever else.
And this is the off season.
So if you talk to their staff,which you probably will get
pretty quick on the phone, afteryou send that email, wait a day,
call the staff, you know, calltheir office, say, hey, I just
sent you an email yesterday.
Can you look at it?
And they'll look at it whileyou're on the phone.
(39:49):
When can I set a date?
And literally they'll set you adate right there.
They're super nice to work with.
They'll book the date for you.
And if they're staff, it's evenbetter because a legislator is
really busy and they get youknow bombarded with stuff.
Sometimes they won't rememberwho you were or what that was
about.
But the staff, 90% of the timethat I've seen staff do this,
(40:11):
they know someone that wentthrough what you went through,
or they went through ityourself.
Very few times do we find alegislator that has gone through
this because they all most ofthem come from nuclear families
and just different things.
But when you do get a legislatorthat has gone through this, it
is night and day.
They said, I'll take all yourbills.
Like once they see them, they'redone.
SPEAKER_00 (40:31):
Yeah, yeah.
And and and so legislators,folks, they are people like you
and me.
So they have an interest inwanting to solve things and
problems that are out there.
It's just that it becomes it'ssuch a difficult and complex
process some of the time, butthis is not, and that's and and
that's why I'm encouraging youto get involved with this.
(40:55):
This is really, reallystraightforward to get something
done like this, like Robert hasdone in Texas in six months, and
the impact that it can have, itis worth the the few hours that
you're gonna spend on sending anemail, setting up a call, and
then starting this process.
And then you don't necessarilyhave to be involved with it from
(41:16):
there on in, because what you'vedone now is you've set up a time
to have a Zoom call or phonecall with Robert yourself and
this legislator, and thenRobert's gonna take it from from
from there.
And you can you you can hearjust from from his experience
and from what he's done.
And literally, he's gone in andhe's rewritten multiple bills in
every one of our states.
(41:38):
So he knows and he understandsthe nuances of this.
Him explaining it to them isjust a real straightforward
no-brainer process, like like hesaid.
Yeah, I speak their language.
Yeah, exactly.
Exactly.
And you're but you're not anattorney, right?
You're a dad that has had thisexperience that just wants to
(41:59):
solve the problem for familiesand kids.
And so, which is what we likewhat we all want, and and the
dads listening that are havingchallenges around this, man,
this is something I know.
I'm gonna be we've already gotsomebody here in Colorado, but
I'm gonna do whatever I can tohelp that here because we need
to have this, these bills donein every single state across the
(42:21):
uh the the the country thecountry.
And I wanted to point out so onthe on the the 50-50 parenting
time, the the what is it calledthe new start at equality?
New start at equality bill inKentucky, and you guys heard my
podcast just a couple of weeksago.
In Kentucky, they passedsomething similar to this.
(42:42):
It's not your it's not Robert'sbill, but they passed 50-50
parenting time as a start, madea statutory, it reduced divorces
overall by 25% in just one year.
So the impact that this is goingto have on lives across our
country is absolutely huge.
(43:02):
I cannot, I just cannotemphasize it, guys.
For as little amount of timethat it was going to take each
one of us listening to getinvolved in our state and go to
Robert's website, send an email,set up a time, this can have
just a huge impact.
30 million people in Texas injust six months for for Roberts
(43:23):
for Robert's bill there.
Can you imagine if we if we eachjust did this in each one of our
states, the the huge impact thatwe're gonna have?
Just please, please do it andget involved.
So um let's see.
So let me uh I'll ask you afinal question.
I think well, I wanted to makeout one other point.
(43:43):
Robert also has a training onthis.
So if you're if you're notcomfortable still after
listening to it, going to thewebsite, signing up for to be an
advocate, and then looking atit, he does is it a weekly or a
monthly call where he'll justhe'll even walk.
It's a weekly call, it's open toanybody.
(44:03):
And so so you can jump on that,and he he literally will take
you through the website and showyou how to do this and answer
any questions.
I went I was on it last weekwith with you, and you did a
great job with it.
Friends, this is like this is soit's easier than ordering from
frickin' Walmart for or or orAmazon online, and you're gonna
(44:24):
have a huge, huge impact.
So get involved with that.
SPEAKER_01 (44:27):
So I did want to tell everybody that it was free.
It's free.
There's no cost for training,there's no cost for advocating,
there's no cost for any of that.
Now, if you want me to help youwith your case, that takes away
from the advocacy.
So there's a phone number thatyou can call on the website, but
that costs.
But other than that, all thetraining's free.
The Zoom call every month isfree or every week is free.
(44:49):
The group of going in theretalking to all the other
advocates, all of that is free.
There is no cost for thiswhatsoever.
SPEAKER_00 (44:55):
Yeah.
Well, let's talk a little bitthen also about and and and let
me point out this Robert doesn'tget paid to do this.
So Robert is working full-time.
He does this, the side and theimpact that this is having.
So talk a little bit about thatthat um consulting also that
that you're doing and and andhow people can get a hold of you
(45:16):
for that as well.
SPEAKER_01 (45:17):
So because I spent $700,000, I literally have that
much knowledge in what you allare going through right now.
And for years, for the last fiveto seven years, I've been
helping tons of parents gothrough this.
The problem is, as you willknow, it takes hours of time to
be able to do this, you know, toadvocate for your case and
(45:38):
whatever else.
I can shorten your process.
I just I had I even have rightnow attorneys calling me with
their litigants to talk throughstrategy on where to go with
this because a lot of them havenever been through false
allegations.
They don't understand thenuances, and especially if you
get a seasoned attorney, a lotof the people that I was against
(45:58):
were board certified.
So there's regular attorneys,and then the top 10% are board
certified.
The law firms I was goingagainst were board certified.
And so believe me, I know allthe dirty tricks.
We can shut them down veryquickly, and we can get you
possession back with your kidspretty quick.
But you can just go to againRobertGarza.us, book a Zoom, and
(46:19):
it gives you a calendar.
You book whatever time you want,whether it's weekdays, weekends,
whatever, after hours, it's allin there.
So yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (46:28):
But that doesn't sound that's yeah, and so that's
that's different, but I I that'simportant for that.
There's a ton of dads listening,and we get guys every single
week that are going throughthis, that are being alienated,
haven't seen their kids formonths, that are having
challenges.
So you provide some someexpertise uh around that.
(46:51):
And it's an it's an unfortunateexpertise to have, right?
If we any of us has experiencedthat, but it can be mitigated
provided you take the rightsteps, and you just gotta you
can't bury your head with it.
I think it was the first thingthat I would say, and you got to
pay attention to some somethings that are that are
happening.
And so as to your point, Robert,attorneys are not terrific at
(47:13):
strategizing around this andmitigating this because it's uh
90, 90 plus percent of of casesget settled outside of court,
and there's no issues like this.
So it's only the small minorityof cases that even go to court
and go to trial.
Uh, and it's an even smallerminority that have some of these
issues that are that are goingon.
(47:34):
But they're real issues, andthey're and and and they need to
be addressed because they'redamaging kids.
So Robert can be a huge, hugeasset and a resource around that
as well.
So support him in that if you'vegot that going on.
Hopefully you don't, but it, butif you do, he can definitely
help you out with that.
And then also go torobertgarza.us and get involved
(47:55):
in your state in getting thesebills passed.
And said it now five times atleast.
But there is just there, I soI've been doing this, Robert,
for five years now.
There are there's not anotherthing that I've seen that had
can have such a quick andimmediate impact on this family
law uh system than what you'redoing here.
(48:17):
And you're a blessing to uh tohaving take taking this fight
on.
And it's not even really afight, it's just refining a
system that is meant to be goodand and judicious and balanced
and fair for everybody, but thatgets manipulated because of just
certain people.
And so all you're doing istightening those loopholes.
(48:39):
And so the fight for tighteningloopholes so that we can have uh
a better process is just reallyfan and and brilliant, my
friend.
Absolutely brilliant how you'vegone about doing this.
So uh so go to robertgarza.us,get involved in that process.
Robert, anything else that youwant to say to the dads?
SPEAKER_01 (48:58):
Yeah, if you go to my Facebook page, please watch
all the reels.
You'll understand the bills, whyI did it, what they do, watch
them several times because youmight get confused.
You know, Dr.
Warren Farrell said something,he wrote the boy crisis.
He said that there could be noother system designed to hurt
the family more than the familycourt system in its present
(49:21):
form.
Let's change that.
SPEAKER_00 (49:25):
Yeah, well, that's that's a good place to to leave
it, and and we can have animpact on that uh just by by
helping you through thisprocess.
Robert, thanks so much for beinghere.
I sincerely appreciate it.
Again, God bless you for thework that you're doing.
I appreciate it.
And we're gonna we're gonna haveyou up on our website as our
trusted ally.
So if people want informationthere, uh there'll be there'll
(49:47):
be information in our show notesto get involved, uh, and we'll
be keeping in touch with Robertas well.
We'll be putting up his his dayuh his weekly call so you can
get on there if you just want tostart at that.
So we're just we're gonna bepartnering with Robert to
whatever extent we can to uh tohelp him through this process.
So Robert, thank you.
Thank you all.
Popular Podcasts
CrimeLess: Hillbilly Heist
It’s 1996 in rural North Carolina, and an oddball crew makes history when they pull off America’s third largest cash heist. But it’s all downhill from there. Join host Johnny Knoxville as he unspools a wild and woolly tale about a group of regular ‘ol folks who risked it all for a chance at a better life. CrimeLess: Hillbilly Heist answers the question: what would you do with 17.3 million dollars? The answer includes diamond rings, mansions, velvet Elvis paintings, plus a run for the border, murder-for-hire-plots, and FBI busts.
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.