State Lawmaker Exposes Family-Court Racketeering, Vows to Fight a DCS Crisis, and Mourns the Assassination of Free‑Speech Martyr Charlie Kirk
By Richard Luthmann with Michael Volpe
A Father’s Call Sparks a Legislative Revolt
Representative Lisa Fink never intended to become the face of Arizona’s family‑court reform movement. A newly elected state representative and president of the Protect Arizona Children Coalition, she was known for her efforts to combat sexualized curricula. Her life changed when a desperate father called and told her his children were torn from him and sent to a secret “reunification camp.”
Fink listened in disbelief and replied, “This is not America. This is North Korea.”
That phone call sparked a political crusade. She drafted a ban on these camps, modeled on a similar California bill, and teamed with Senator Shawnna Bolick. The resulting bill, SB 1372, faced last‑minute opposition from Democrats and skepticism from Governor Katie Hobbs, but Fink’s tenacity won.
Hobbs ultimately signed the law, banning “reunification camps” and preventing courts from rebranding them as such.
Fink later told The Unknown Podcast co‑hosts Michael Volpe and Richard Luthmann that activists pounced on the hearings as “political theater.” Still, the committee gathered enough evidence to move forward. The hearings revealed a broken system and turned Fink into a lightning rod for families dealing with court‑ordered kidnappings.
She now sees her appointment to the Ad Hoc Committee on Family Court Orders not as an honor but as a duty. In her words, the state must stop ignoring parental rights protected by the Ninth and Fourteenth Amendments.
Her journey from citizen activist to crusading lawmaker demonstrates how one citizen’s story can ignite sweeping reform.
Arizona Family Court Revolt: Broken Best‑Interest Doctrine and the Therapy Racket
The hearings convinced Fink that Arizona’s family courts routinely ignore Arizona Revised Statute §25‑403, which lists “best interest factors” courts must consider.
“It looks like they’re just totally ignored,” she told Volpe.
She described a system where judges sidestep the law, fail to explain decisions, and order “therapeutic interventionists” who drain family savings. She even asked the presiding family‑court judge if courts should “fix families”; the judge said no.
Fink denounced court‑appointed therapists and interventionists as extortionists.
“How is it in the best interest of the child to bankrupt families? It’s not,” she said.
She wants parents to be allowed to choose licensed counselors covered by insurance instead of paying a cottage industry of court insiders. Her reforms would require judges to address every best‑interest factor in written orders, revisit temporary orders every 90 days, and provide reasons for extensions.
She also demands audio and video recordings of child interviews so parties can see what was said. Fink laments that children’s voices are often ignored and insists teenagers deserve a say in custody decisions, noting that a 14‑year‑old’s preference is “correct about 90 percent of the time.”
She calls for open courtrooms and declares, “Sunshine is a great disinfectant.” She plans to strip quasi‑judicial immunity from court appointees and require them to testify under oath.
To her, family‑court corruption is not a bug but a feature, engineered by judges, lawyers, and paid experts who profit from drawn‑out cases. Fink insists these systemic abuses violate both parents’ rights and children’s well‑being and says the legislature must confront judges who refuse to follow the law.
Arizona Family Court Revolt: Bills, Acrimony, and the DCS Nightmare
Fink has introduced a flurry of bills aimed at restoring sanity to custody disputes. One bill would require judges to revisit temporary orders every 90 days, forcing them to explain why a family remains under court supervision. Another would allow teenagers to choose their custodial parent; she argues that judges should respect their wishes because they know which household is safer.
She co-sponsored a bill to presume 50/50 custody, but later acknowledged that it created new dangers. The presumption “puts more on parental rights” instead of “what’s in the child’s best interest.” Fink now opposes embedding a blanket presumption and warns that abusers could use it to get equal time.
She rejects the “parental alienation” label, saying it often serves as a pretext for re‑indoctrination camps. When a child refuses visitation, courts brand the parent an alienator and order expensive reunification therapy. Her 2256 bill removed all references to parental alienation to avoid “legitimizing pseudo‑science.”
The scandal isn’t limited to courts. Fink says Arizona’s Department of Child Safety (DCS) flouts the law and endangers children. She notes that nearly 60 percent of missing children disappear from group homes and unlicensed foster homes. Many are listed as “runaways,” which means nobody searches for them. Her proposed legislation would classify them as missing until proven otherwise and mandate that up-to-date photos be included on the national Missing Kids Registry.
She also champions kinship-care funding, arguing that relatives or neighbors can provide children with better care than strangers. Governor Hobbs vetoed her kinship‑care bill, but Fink vows to resurrect it.
She accuses Hobbs of ignoring family‑court reforms and says she is ready to “paint the governor anti‑family” when four reform bills die on Hobbs’ desk. Fink believes that a growing wave of parents is making family‑court corruption a statewide political issue.
Arizona Family Court Revolt: Virtue, Free Speech, and a Republic Under Siege
Late in the podcast, co‑host Richard Luthmann raised the “elephant in the room.” He asked how cultural battles over gender ideology and parental rights fit into Fink’s agenda and invoked Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk. Fink replied that America’s survival hinges on preserving the family.
“The family is the most important unit,” she said, citing the Declaration of Independence’s reference to the “laws of nature and of nature’s God.”
She opposes totalitarian solutions and warns that legislating morality invites tyranny. Still, she argues that state law must protect parental rights against radical curricula.
In a sober moment, Fink described attending Kirk’s memorial. Kirk was fatally shot at a campus event during his American Comeback Tour; the deranged gunman fired from a rooftop, and prosecutors are seeking the death penalty.
Fink called the assassination “devastating” and condemned those who celebrated it. She said the shooter alone is responsible, cautioning conservatives not to blame political opponents.
She rejects “hate speech” laws, quoting philosopher John Locke to argue that punishing thoughts merges church and state. Fink cautions against foreign‑funded agitators sowing division and calls resultant violence a national‑security threat.
When asked how to restore the Republic, she invoked the concept of civic virtue.
“We enforce ourselves instead of having the state enforce us,” she said.
She urged Americans to live by Judeo-Christian principles, such as honesty, respect, and fidelity. Her final message transcends politics: a free society thrives when citizens police themselves, cherish their families, and protect speech—even when it offends.
