The adoption bill that Nathan Deal will have to chew over

This was the same bill that, last year, the Senate amended to provide legal protection to child placement agencies that receive taxpayer funding but didn’t want to work with same-sex couples.

Gov. Nathan Deal and House Speaker David Ralston erupted, and the Senate agreed to reconsider. That reconsideration was completed last Wednesday, and could come to a floor vote this week – engrossed to bar any changes.

The offending "religious liberty" clause has disappeared. The most notable change to the bill is that it now also contains HB 359, a bill to permit a beleaguered parent to sign over custody of a child to someone of his or her choosing – even a non-profit corporation — for a year.

HB 359 made it to Governor Deal’s desk last year. He vetoed it.

There is a hint that the governor feared abusive parents could use the measure to run a game of Three-card Monte with a child, sliding the wee one from pillar to post in order to avoid state scrutiny. “Creating a parallel system in which DFCS has no oversight runs contrary to the progress the state has made in strengthening our child welfare system,” Deal wrote.

Now, tacking a vetoed bill onto one already deemed a sensitive measure by the governor is a rather bold move. I even referred to it as a “poison pill” – a provision so objectionable that a bill’s original drafters would refuse to swallow it.

Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle, whose office orchestrated the move, took polite but forceful umbrage at the phrasing. Cagle is running to replace Deal next year, and defended what he said was a four-year priority of Senate Republicans – a non-governmental system of temporary child placement.

"This is extremely important, and I believe that the governor is going to be supportive. I'm very hopeful that we'll get him supportive of it," Cagle said when he was on GPB's "Political Rewind" with me last week. "It is not a poison pill. And I would take offense that one would articulate that this is a poison pill."

More on this in a bit.

Another major change to the adoption bill has to do with child-selling. Seriously. At last week's hearing, the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee said the old version of HB 159 – a measure authored by state Rep. Bert Reeves, R-Marietta, passed by the House, and approved by the governor – would push the state toward the trafficking of juveniles.

"The fear is it will encourage coming closer to something that is actually a crime in Georgia, and that's buying and selling babies," said Jesse Stone, R-Waynesboro, the judiciary committee chair. "We had some strong input on this from the Senate president pro tem's office."

Funny aside here. Blake Tillery, R-Vidalia, secretary of the committee, then asked whether Stone meant Butch Miller, R-Gainesville, who was elected as president pro tem a few days earlier, or David Shafer, R-Duluth, who had just given up the job to run for lieutenant governor?

There was hemming. There was hawing. There was uncomfortable silence. And then Tillery apologized for asking such a silly question.

Of course, everyone in the room knew the changes to be the work of Shafer, who had raised serious objections to HB 159 last year, and had supported the “religious liberty” clause.

Though he prefers to stay in the background, Shafer admitted as much to us on Tuesday, via this text: “As someone who was adopted himself and who wants to keep adoption affordable, I am opposed to anything that would further commercialize the placement of children and increase to cost of adoptive parents by creating the expectation that payment must be made for the newborn infant.”

Which brings us to the matter of buying and selling children. And a Georgia adoption rate that, state lawmakers admit, is only half the nationwide average.

Generally speaking, there are two forms of adoption in Georgia. One can seek out children to raise as one’s own through a state-licensed child-placement agency, or through a private attorney.

Agency adoptions can run between $30,000 and $40,000. Privately arranged adoptions are cheaper — $10,000 or less. Each has its advantages. Private adoptions can be arranged more quickly. Agency adoptions often offer more training and counseling.

But there is one big difference. Let us say that a birth mother with whom an adopting couple is working has been placed on bed rest. She can’t work. According to state law, only in an adoption conducted under the auspices of certified agency can the adopting couple provide living expenses to the birth mother.

The practice is forbidden in private adoptions.

Until last Wednesday, HB 159 would have allowed parents using a private attorney to pay living expenses, too – under the same court scrutiny faced by adoption agencies. Every Deep South state already does.

But Shafer and others thought that might spark a baby-bidding war. They would preserve the status quo. One Senate staffer explained that, if a birth mother in a private adoption required financial support during her pregnancy, she is free to rope in an adoption agency to serve as middle-man. Or in this case, midwife.

And so what some might call an effort to stave off baby auctions, others might see as turf protection of a very common sort in the state Capitol.

There is no question that this drama is overflowing with good intentions and biography. As he mentioned, Shafer personally benefited from adoption. Early in his career, Governor Deal was a juvenile court judge – and has helped arrange adoptions as an attorney.

Cagle was raised by a single mother who, had she run into trouble, might have wanted a temporary place to park her son, without involving the state.

Which brings us back to that measure added to the adoption bill — the one that is not a poison pill. Cagle says that he and his people are working with the governor on it. From what we hear, the governor has yet to be convinced.

The fundamental mechanisms for keeping track of where children go in Georgia society are missing, we’re told. And adding those mechanisms to the governor’s satisfaction would seem to defeat Cagle’s purpose.

Even so, we will bow to the lieutenant governor. His improvement to the adoption bill may not be a poison pill. Rather, it can be described as a large wad of tobacco. The House and the governor will chew it over.

Ordinarily, one does not swallow the remains – but this occasionally happens. Some even survive the experiment.