Senators work to ease the path to adoptions

No law requires members of Congress to have firsthand experience on the legislation they support. Some bills, however, have a personal flavor.

Missouri Sen. Roy Blunt serves as co-chair of the Congressional Coalition on Adoption. He also has been a lead sponsor on legislation regarding this subject, including a resolution approved by the Senate last week designating Nov. 23 as National Adoption Day.

“As an adoptive dad myself, I know how much joy welcoming a child into your home can bring,” Blunt said this month in recognizing several Missouri families as Angels in Adoption.

In 2006, Blunt and his wife, Abigail, adopted a son from an orphanage in Russia. Charlie Blunt, now in his teens, has been a presence during the senator’s travels around Missouri, including in St. Joseph.

The Missouri Republican has worked for years with Democratic Sen. Amy Klobuchar, a Minnesotan and presidential candidate, in leading the Adoption Coalition, which he calls the largest bipartisan and bicameral caucus in Congress.

Earlier this month, the co-chairs urged officials in the Health and Human Services Department and the State Department to raise awareness of adoptions through a designated month, November.

They noted that countless children throughout the world lack a permanent home, and that includes more than 437,300 young people in foster care across the United States. Of those, 125,400 wait for adoption.

Blunt said nearly 13,000 Missouri children reside in the foster care system.

“We urge (your departments) to help these children find permanent homes through adoption from the foster care system, domestic private agencies, intercountry adoption and family guardianship,” Blunt and Klobuchar wrote.

The senators introduced legislation in February calling for the State Department’s Bureau of Consular Affairs to establish an Intercountry Adoption Advisory Committee. This bipartisan panel would develop, refine and implement policies on adoptions across international boundaries.

“(If) someone in Guatemala wants to adopt a Guatemalan child or someone in Russia wants to adopt a Russian child, that is all fine,” Blunt said in a Senate speech last week.

“But if they don’t have adoptive families in the country they were born in, let’s open the door in a more effective way for American families who want to be part of that.”

Blunt and Klobuchar, who clash at times as chairman and ranking member, respectively, of the Senate Committee on Rules and Administration, also introduced a measure in May called the Supporting Adoptive Families Act.

The bill aims at helping adoptive families with pre-adoption and post-adoption services, which include treatment for mental and behavioral health problems.

“Sen. Blunt and I continue to work with colleagues on both sides of the aisle to help make the adoption process better for children and families across our country,” Klobuchar said in a statement. “It’s important to increase awareness about children in need of loving homes.”

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