P.O.Box 34401 

  Cordova Tenn.  38134

Telephone: 901-691-9396                               Fax; 901-552-4283

www.mycpea.com

                                                        gharris@mycpea.com

May 29, 2008

To: TN Dept.of Human Services

       Child Care Certificate Program

As an advocate of the child care industry, we at Child Care Provider Empowerment Association (CPEA) have a duty to address your document.

This letter is in response to your Regulated Provider Agreement HS-2894 (revised (2/2008). The agreement states that in order” to participate in this program the childcare provider must agree “to the terms outlined in the document. These action places undue burdens on the providers. Items #1 -25

The Regulatory Flexibility Act of 1980 (RFA) requires federal agencies to consider the effects of their regulatory actions on small businesses and other small entities and to minimize any undue disproportionate burden.

The Fourteenth Amendment required that:

• No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the law.
• All citizens, the act declared, "have the right to make and enforce contracts, to sue, be parties and give evidence; to inherit, purchase, lease, sell, hold, and convey real property, and to full and equal benefit of all laws and proceedings for the security of person and property.
•  All governments then, state and federal, are required to protect the rights of person, property, and contract, without interfering with rights of inheritance, property, judicial action, etc.

Under your regulated Provider agreement, Item #1-3 It clearly violates the antitrust law.

“Antitrust law”. The courts decided many years ago that certain practices, such as price fixing, are so inherently harmful to consumers that a detailed examination isn’t necessary to determine whether they are reasonable. The law presumes that they are violations (antitrust lawyers call these per se violations) and condemns them almost automatically.

This regulated Provider Agreement falls under the Administrative law. Especially Items # 12, 16, 18,19,23,24 and 25.

"Administrative Law", has been invented in order to make possible the dishonest exercise of unlimited power by administrative agencies. But, not satisfied with thus circumventing the protections of criminal jurisprudence, an additional strategy has been hit upon, to use civil law, as well as criminal law and "administrative" law, to expand the power of government.

Small businesses are extremely vulnerable to these types of abuses because they often can’t afford to hire an attorney and pay legal fees associated with defending themselves against these claims. This can be devastating for a small business.

Civil rights actually define civil society by delimiting the areas of private action into which government power cannot go. Civil rights thus define the barrier between government action and private action.

• The Tenth Amendment therefore denies to the federal government any powers that have not been delegated to it or denied to the States by the Constitution, while
•  the Ninth Amendment affirms that the federal government is limited, not only by the specific powers that it may exercise, but by all civil rights, whether or not these happen to be specified in the Constitution.

What the government could do is therefore supposed to be clear and limited, while what the government cannot do is supposed to be left with an indefinite and open ended interpretation.

The Regulatory Flexibility Act (RFA) requires each federal agency to review its regulations to ensure that small entities are not disproportionately or unnecessarily burdened Equal Access to Justice.

The SBREFA amendments to the RFA expand the ability of small entities to recover attorney fees in litigation with the government under the provisions of the Equal Access to Justice Act of 1980.

In administrative and judicial proceedings, if the government's demand is found unreasonable when compared with the judgment or decision, the small business can be awarded attorney fees and other expenses related to defending against the action.

Respectfully,

Geraldine Harris

President CPEA

Cc/file

Federal Trade Commission
Room H-130
600 Pennsylvania Ave., NW
Washington, D.C., 20580

Eric Munson
U.S. Small Business Administration

THE OFFICE OF ADVOCACY IN RULEMAKING

2120 Riverfront Drive, Suite 250
Little Rock, AR 72202-1794