Article in WV MetroNews: Shared custody bill passes House after debate. Wikipedia tracks the shared parenting legislation across the several states (but doesn’t have this development yet). As far as I knew only Kentucky had passed a 50-50 bill, which has been working out very well for them; some others have weaker versions, like “consider” 50-50 (which seems like it probably wasn’t worth the time)–other states listed with bills passed into law are Arizona, Missouri, Oregon, Virginia, and Wisconsin. Hurdles seems to be special interests, and apparently Republicans are more likely to pass them than Democrats, especially “left-leaning” ones.
The WV bill is of the Kentucky sort, not a weak “consider” but something that requires 50-50 physical custody unless an “adversarial hearing” provides, by a preponderance of the evidence, just reason against it, which must be incompetence, abuse, or neglect. It should pass the senate, and then becomes a matter of Governor Jim Justice signing it into law.
