Me and Bill

I'm all over the contacting my elected representatives thing. The State offers an adoption subsidy for "non-recurring expenses". It's not a huge amount of money, but it would pay for a plane ticket. So I applied. International adoptions are eligible according to the application form and the state law (I looked it up).

But here's the thing. The application must be completed 60 days before the adoption takes place. And a "court ordered termination of parental rights" must be provided with the documentation.

That's not how international adoption works. IF we get a court-ordered termination of parental rights, we'll get it in China. I called the contact person at the DHS, and she said that if I can't produce that court order, I am "ineligible." She sounded like a robot. I tried to explain the situation, and she just get repeating it.

I contacted some adoption support group and asked about it, and she told me that the subsidy is meant to support the adoption of kids in the state foster system, so they really want to discourage international adopters from using it.

So now I'm seeing red. If the intent is to support adoption of kids in the state foster system, I'm fine with that, but that's not what the law says. It seems like they're trying to get away with selectively distributing the grants by claiming to be open to everyone, but then setting up procedural roadblocks. That's just dishonest.

So I wrote to my state senator and my delegates.

This morning I got a call from from someone (didn't recognize the phone number) who said, "Who's this?" I said, "Um, who's this?" and he said, "This is Bill". and I said, "Bill, I think you have the wrong number." He apologized, and I said that's fine, and we hung up. Then he called back and I let the machine pick up. After I listened to the message, I discovered that "Bill" is my delegate who was calling to talk about the subsidy issue.

Well dang, Bill. I didn't see an official state phone number on my caller ID, and I'm really not on a first name basis with you, so how the hell was I to know that you are Honorable Bill?

I tried to call him back, but got his machine. I'll keep trying.