Committee sends consented‑termination/adoption clarification to amending order

The House Health and Welfare Committee voted to send Senate Bill 1021 to the amending order with committee amendments that clarify how consented terminations of parental rights are handled when the Department of Health and Welfare is involved.

Representative Rasor, sponsor of the bill, said the measure restores a practice used in 2020 that allowed termination and adoption hearings to be compressed into a single proceeding in most cases, returning to a process the state used before a court decision changed practice. "This returns, other than in certain carefully selected situations, those two hearings back together so that the termination hearing and the adoption hearing can again be had at the same time," Rasor said.

Jared Larson, Legislative and Regulatory Affairs Chief at the Idaho Department of Health and Welfare, described the amendment as addressing "all consented terminations," and said the new subsection clarifies that when a consented termination involves a child in the department's custody the process used in 2020 should apply. "This puts all consented terminations on equal footing in Idaho law," Larson said.

Representative Bieswanger moved that the bill be sent to general orders with the committee amendment; the committee agreed and sent SB 1021 to the amending order with the described clarifying language. The amendment deletes two printed lines and inserts language that, in part, reads: "a consent to termination signed by the parent or parents of the child has been filed, and the termination is initiated by the department pertaining to a child who is in the legal custody of the Department." The committee recorded passage of the motion and the bill will proceed to the amending order for further drafting and consideration on the floor.