HB 1499 Gets Its Hearing: Supporters Fill the Room, Opponents Raise Safety Concerns, No Vote Announced
By Michael Phillips | Family & State
HARRISBURG, Pa. — House Bill 1499, the Pennsylvania proposal to make equal parenting time the legal starting point in custody cases, had its House Judiciary Committee public hearing Monday, Oct. 5, 2026, after 495 days in committee. According to a House Republican Caucus release, the hearing ran more than two hours before more than 100 supporters. No committee vote on the bill has been announced.
As introduced, the bill would create a presumption that shared physical custody, shared legal custody and equal parenting time are in a child’s best interest. It would apply the same presumption to temporary custody orders. A court could overcome it only with clear and convincing evidence that joint custody isn’t in the child’s best interest, or if the parents agree or one parent doesn’t request shared custody. The bill defines equal parenting time as close to 50% as practicable, with neither parent receiving more than 60%. A rebuttable presumption sets the starting point for a judge. It does not guarantee any parent equal time. The dispute is how hard the standard makes it to depart from that starting point.
Sponsor Rep. Jamie Flick, R-South Williamsport, said the Act 11 custody factors passed after HB 1499 was drafted, and that his office addressed them in a recent amendment. It is unclear whether he meant an amendment to HB 1499 or his earlier amendment to HB 378, which became Act 11. No amended version of HB 1499 appears in the General Assembly’s record, which still lists the bill as introduced.
Opposition on the panel
The release says seven of eight panelists objected to the bill. Their concerns centered on domestic violence, a 50/50 presumption at the start of custody cases, and whether the bill accounts for Act 11. The release does not name the panelists or their organizations. Their testimony was not independently reviewed for this report.
Committee members respond
Rep. Rob Kauffman, R-Franklin, the Republican chair of Judiciary and a co-sponsor, said he is seeking data on how many parents, male or female, are awarded primary custody. He acknowledged concerns about the custody factors and said he has heard anecdotal reports that some judges are not impartial, according to the release.
Rep. Andrew Kuzma, R-Allegheny/Washington, a co-sponsor and orphans’ court attorney, said fathers statewide receive primary custody 14% of the time. He cited his own research. The release does not say whether the figure covers contested cases or all custody orders, or what period it spans, so it cannot be verified. Rep. Brenda Pugh, R-Luzerne, a co-sponsor, said drug abuse, child abuse or a protection-from-abuse order would shift the 50/50 equation, and she questioned how the presumption would be put on paper. Rep. George Margetas, R-York, a co-sponsor, said litigants too often depend on the discretion of the judge they draw, a situation he called “Russian roulette.”
Kentucky testimony
Kentucky Circuit Judge Mica Wood Pence told the committee she has seen more parents working together under that state’s equal-parenting law. She said Kentucky’s rates of abuse have dropped, which she attributed to children having two trusted adults to go to, according to the release. The release offers no data for either claim, and the cause of any decline has not been established.
What remains open
Rep. Tim Briggs, D-Montgomery, is the committee’s majority chairman, and the House schedule listed him as chair of the hearing. A March release from Flick said a petition aimed to get Briggs to bring the bill up for a vote. This report found no public statement from Briggs on whether he will.
The House Republican Caucus’s video archive lists an Oct. 5 Judiciary voting meeting on HB 2771 and SB 1273, separate from the HB 1499 hearing, which the official committee archive does not separately list. The committee’s Oct. 7 voting meeting listed HB 2840, SB 1212, and other business. None of the listings named HB 1499. Each includes a catch-all for other business, and a hearing does not require the committee to vote.
The bill has bipartisan sponsorship, with 50 Republicans and 29 Democrats, according to LegiScan, though sponsorship does not mean agreement on the final language. The bill’s official page lists no action after the May 28, 2025 referral, according to a search listing of that page.
Flick’s office did not announce a vote date.
Method: This report relies on an Oct. 5 House Republican Caucus release, an account from the bill’s sponsor’s side, which names no opposition witnesses. The hearing video was not reviewed, and no written testimony or transcript was located. The bill’s provisions come from the introduced text, Act 11’s details from the enrolled act, and committee agendas from the caucus’s Judiciary video listing. The 495-day figure matches the May 28, 2025 referral date.
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