Senate panels considers grandparents’ rights and interstate custody

Jennifer Coleman

Tuesday, April 27, 1999 | 5:20 a.m.

CARSON CITY -- A Senate panel voted Tuesday for a bill to help grandparents of divorced couples maintain contact with their grandchildren.

Senate Judiciary members voted for AB436 after hearing Bonnie Wilson, a Reno grandmother of 17, tell how her relationship with her 5-year-old grandson suffered because of the problems between the boy's parents.

Though Wilson was close to her grandson for most of his life, she says their relationship has suffered since the boy's parents split up. She told lawmakers she felt excluded from family events and isn't able to spend much time with him now that his mother has remarried.

"I feel this contact fading," she said.

AB436, by Assemblywoman Merle Berman, R-Las Vegas, would help grandparents such as Wilson by expanding their visiting rights when their children's families fall apart.

"This reinforces the point that the unfortunate event of divorce doesn't need to affect the child's relationship with the grandparents," Berman said.

Berman's bill would allow courts to consider grandparents' visitation rights based on whether or not the child regularly saw them, if the child ever lived with the grandparents, if they financially supported the child and if they could be considered role models.

"If a child grows up in a single-parent home, there could be a loss of stability," Berman said. Grandparents often provide a safe, stable place that their grandchildren can't get from their parents, she said.

But grandparents' visitation rights often get caught in the middle of bitter custody battles or are denied by single parents with whom the grandparents have had a falling-out, Berman said.

Berman's bill would give the courts greater discretion when considering cases like these.

The measure also includes anyone who has been a child's primary caregiver, whether related to the child or not. This would include step-parents and step-grandparents.

The committee also approved a bill that would make parents with joint custody arrangements file for a change in custody status before moving out of state.

Sponsored by Assemblywoman Barbara Buckley, D-Las Vegas, AB544 would let a judge consider the best interest of the child when a parent is moving out of Nevada.

If a parent with joint custody moves out of state, that effectively changes the arrangements so one parent is the custodial parent, Buckley said.

"This puts the child in the forefront of the situation, not the parents," she said. "If a court has already determined there should be joint custody, then you have to reapply for custody. It should be a higher burden when you have two committed parents."