I have hesitated posting this thread for a very long time, about six months in fact, because I do not believe those on this site will fully grasp or care about the importance about what is coming. However, on August 16th a new revision of drafted laws was published and because of that I decided to post this thread, and because there are those on this site who have asked about creating power of attorneys.

Currently, there are eleven states that are participating in a publicly funded pilot program to reform guardianship laws. They call themselves the Working Interdisciplinary Network of Guardianship Stakeholders (WINGS). Each state is given up to $ 7 thousand dollars of public tax revenue from the State Justice Institute to create partnerships with and between courts and guardians.

The State of Missouri uses the WINGS name to deceive people into believing that it is part of the national pilot program and thus, has national backing, yet, it is not part of that program. And while the focus of the WINGS program is to develop partnerships, the group calling itself the MO-WINGS task force wants to reform both the entire Missouri Guardianship Code and power of attorney laws. It is a special interest group that is made up of mostly government officials who are misappropriating tax revenue to pay for its operations and activities.

I use to be a very strong supporter of power of attorneys. I, myself, have been a power of attorney for several people including my brother. Recently, my mother sought my counsel about whether to terminate the person appointed as her power of attorney or to terminate the power of attorney itself. After reading the most recent drafted legislation from the MO-WINGS group, i am going to advise my mother, as I advise everyone now, to never again appoint a person as a power of attorney.

Among the many things this group wants done is to give a power of attorney the statutory right and authority to go behind a guardian's back and make decisions and act for a ward of guardianship, without having to obtain the guardian's consent to have something done or not done.

Moreover, they want to give immunity to any third party acting on the decision of the power of attorney even if what they do is not authorized by the guardian, and guardians are to be required to follow what a power of attorney wants done.

The reason for these things is because this group wants to completely abolish adult guardianship's in the State of Missouri and replace them with a power of attorney instead. Thus, they have drafted laws that strip guardians of all legal rights and statutory authority to make independent decisions for and on behalf of the person whom the court appointed them to be guardian of because they are totally or partially incapacitated, disabled, or both.

Now, the Missouri Supreme Court has held that "Constitutional prohibition against enacting a law retrospective in its operation applies only to laws affecting civil rights and remedies and does not apply to criminal statutes” see State v. Honeycutt, 421 S.W.3d 410 (Mo.banc 2013). Nevertheless, the MO-WINGS group wants their legislation to apply retroactively to all guardianship's no matter when they were created and it plans to file the drafted legislation in December 2015 for the upcoming 2016 legislative session.

Protests are fruitless with this special interest group is far more preoccupied with their desire to dictate what rights and liberties a person will have and exercise, than they care about listening to what anyone in a position of opposition has to say. They also do not care what harms and damages their laws will cause others. Thus, the best defense is to become educated and protest with state legislators because what they are proposing is guaranteed to promote criminal activity, abuse, neglect, exploitation, domestic disputes with a serious potential for violence, and the deprivation of rights and liberties for a person with a guardian and a person with a power of attorney.

There is absolutely no one and I mean no one who is going to be immune from the harms and damages that is guaranteed to come if their drafted legislation is enacted into law - and that includes members of the general public because they are going to have to start shelling out more and more tax money to pay for people to be locked away for the rest of their life.

Presently, in Missouri, a power of attorney is a private contract between two people that gives one person the right and authority to make decisions for another if and when the person becomes incapacitated that they are not able to make their own decisions. The drafted laws want to place power of attorneys under the jurisdiction of the probate court and require that a court order exist to modify or terminate the power of attorney, the duties or authority given by the power of attorney, to remove a person appointed as power of attorney and if they are it will be the courts discretion as to who will take that person's place.

This also means that you, your loved one, or some other trusted person appointed as a power of attorney over you or your loved one can be replaced by the court with our without a court hearing and thereby replaced with someone else up to and including a government official who will then have court orders to act on behalf of and make decisions for you or your loved one.

So, my advice is to find some other way to handle your problems instead of using a power of attorney if you are in the State of Missouri, or you or your loved one may end up becoming a victim of this special interest group. Or you can simply not care, believe that you are immune from the effects guaranteed to come, and hope that the day will never come that you or your loved one will need a power of attorney.