Freestone

This case involves a class action brought by custodial parents, primarily mothers, and their children who have been unable to obtain federally required child support enforcement services from the state of Arizona. The class members sued under § 1983 in an attempt to force the state to comply with its federal obligations, under Title IV-D of the Social Security Act, to identify and seek support from “deadbeat dads.” The federal courts have splintered on the question of whether a § 1983 action is available to enforce Title IV-D. The district court adopted the reasoning and approach of the Sixth Circuit finding such relief unavailable and granted summary judgment against the plaintiff families. We join the First and Eighth Circuits in holding that § 1983 is available and reverse. .

BACKGROUND

As a condition of participating in the federal Ad to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) program, states are required to adopt a plan for child support enforcement pursuant to Title IV-D of the Social Security Act, and to operate a program in substantial compliance with that plan. 42 U.S.C. § 602 (a)(27). The state program must provide a variety of services including establishment of…

dissenting:

I respectfully dissent.

Congress lodged power in the Secretary of Health and Human Services, and qualified that power by requiring the Secretary to negotiate with the state governments regard *1157 ing the terms of its exercise. There is nothing in the law to prevent Governors, Senators and Representatives from telephoning the Secretary to discourage her from overzealous enforcement, which in their view would take too much money away from other important applications.

By creating a private right of action, the majority transfers the power to calibrate the intensity of enforcement efforts from political officials to federal judges. Unlike the Secretary, their decisions cannot be made in a political process, informed by considerations of cost, benefit, and competing claims for money. The people who are to be heard in district court are the lawyers for the parties, not elected officials. Transferring decision making power to the judiciary would be appropriate if there were some law to be enforced for the benefit of a claimant. But there is not. The law at issue says, in substance, that states are supposed to try pretty hard, and do a pretty good job, of enforcing child…