The Alec and Lydia Act went into effect on June 22, 2026. Since that day the most common question we hear from parents is this: my case was already in the court pipeline when this law went into effect. Does it apply to my family?
We believe that it does. We believe that the Alec and Lydia Act should govern every court case that is heard after June 22, 2026, no matter when the case was filed. Most notable in our research on this issue is the opinion by the bill’s sponsor, Rep. Lisa Fink, who responded to us in writing:
Question: "Did you mean for the Alec and Lydia Act to apply to family law cases in the pipeline and those filed prior to June 22, 2026?"
Representative Fink: “It should apply to ALL cases.”
There is no ambiguity in that statement. This is the bill's sponsor confirming legislative intent directly. The legislature also made clear the urgency of this protection by waiving the standard ninety-day waiting period that normally applies before a new Arizona law takes effect. Instead, the legislature added an emergency clause, making the Alec and Lydia Act effective the moment Governor Katie Hobbs signed it on June 22, 2026. A legislature that waives ninety days to protect children immediately is not a legislature that intended its protections to apply only to cases filed after a particular date.
Everything else in this article including the statutory analysis, the 2013 parallel, the text of A.R.S. § 25-411(L), the legislative history and the public policy argument is the legal foundation that supports what Representative Lisa Fink has now confirmed. Courts should apply the Alec and Lydia Act to protect children in every case before them. The sponsor of the law intended this outcome. The text of the law says so explicitly. The history behind the law says so.
That is definitive. The sponsor of this law carried it through four public hearings, a floor debate, and a unanimous vote, and has confirmed directly what it means: ALL family court cases. (emphasis added)
This is not retroactivity. No one is arguing “do overs.” We are arguing that the courts have a duty to protect children in all cases in their courtroom by applying the Alec and Lydia Act after June 22, 2026.
We believe that the courts have an ongoing duty to protect children and that duty does not depend on filing dates; it depends on the law on the day the court is making its decision. So, we believe that the Alec and Lydia Act applies to every parenting case in front of an Arizona court from June 22, 2026 forward, regardless of when the case was filed or when any prior orders were entered.
Independent legal practitioners writing about the Act have also described HB 2995 as having deleted nearly all of the prior A.R.S. § 25-403.03 and replaced it with an entirely new framework. That argument favors governing cases under the Alec and Lydia Act now. What this law means for your specific family depends on where your case stands right now. It also depends on a host of other facts. But the legal foundation for the analysis starts here.
The Blueprint for Child Safety and Abused Parents in Domestic Violence Cases
We recognize that applying the Alec and Lydia Act to pending cases is really not an either or legal position. In fact, choosing to use it or not based on a filing date is probably an incorrect way to go about thinking about this.
It is not a choice between the old law and the new law. It is a mandate to use a blueprint that dozens of legislators, judges, attorneys, domestic violence experts, and families spent a year building together specifically to help courts do what they have always had the authority to do. (yes, it is mandatory but the safety measures have always been available). Courts have always been able to restrict parenting time when a child was at risk. Courts have always been able to order treatment for an abusive parent. Courts have always had the ability to protect the victim parent from co-parenting with their abuser. Courts have always been able to analyze their reasoning in writing.
The Alec and Lydia Act did not change any power the court already had, it did not impose new rules for abusive parents that the court did not already possess. No one should be surprised about any of these guardrails. The legislature gave the courts the benefit of their knowledge in a clearly written blueprint, a carefully constructed framework for protecting children and abused parents in exactly the situations where protection matters most. We should all be grateful for that instructive blueprint. And we believe that when courts consider this question they will conclude that the Alec and Lydia Act helps them help keep children safe. And it helps them help the abused parents. It is a roadmap that makes the way clear and consistent for everyone.
What the Alec and Lydia Act Amended
Remember how this began. Hope Hooton lost both of her children on May 20, 2024 when their father shot and killed them during his court-ordered unsupervised parenting time. The red flags were there. The father had been hospitalized on a psychiatric hold and had a documented history of domestic violence. He had violated a protective order. Hope Hooton spent the next two years turning her tragedy into purpose. She testified before the Arizona Legislature. She worked tirelessly with so many others, including the bill’s sponsor, Lisa Fink, to write and get this bill passed.
Before June 22, 2026 Arizona family courts had broad discretion when there was an allegation of domestic violence. A judge could find domestic violence occurred and still award the abusive parent joint legal decision making and equal parenting time. There were no mandatory presumptions. (The court could have made this presumption before the Act.) No required written findings for temporary orders. But a court could have issued a written analysis. There was no special statutory recognition of coercive control as domestic violence, but it has always been domestic violence. The old laws left too much to judicial discretion and too many children were unprotected.
The Alec and Lydia Act amended that framework. Here is what the law now requires.
When a court finds that domestic violence occurred:
"There is a mandatory rebuttable presumption that an award of legal decision-making or parenting time to the parent who committed the act or acts of domestic violence is contrary to the child’s best interests." A.R.S. § 25-403.03(F).
And if that presumption is not rebutted:
"The court shall not grant joint legal decision-making or sole legal decision-making authority to that parent" and "shall impose restrictions on the manner and frequency of that parent’s interactions with the child." A.R.S. § 25-403.03(H).
Shall not. Shall impose. Mandatory. The court has no discretion about whether to protect children when there is a presumption.
Courts must also make specific written findings at every stage including temporary orders hearings when domestic violence is alleged. A.R.S. § 25-403.03(B). Coercive control is now part of the definition of domestic violence. A.R.S. § 25-403.03(L). Financial abuse, isolation, surveillance, threats, and weaponizing the court system are all included.
One provision matters enormously for families with existing cases or cases in the pipeline.
"The court may not refuse evidence of a collateral act or acts of domestic violence on the grounds that the alleged act or acts of domestic violence or a related legal claim has been decided, predates the last decree or could have been litigated at another time or place." A.R.S. § 25-403.03(E)
What can no longer be excluded? The history that was never told. The strangulation no one mentioned at the first hearing. The financial control that was never named. The coercive control that no court ever heard. All of it is now admissible. The old rule penalized victims for what prior counsel failed to present or didn’t know how to present. Or maybe the victim didn’t have counsel and didn’t know how to tell the court about it.
We Believe the Act Applies to Every Case In Front of the Court After June 22, 2026
Our argument rests on seven independent foundations. Any one of them is sufficient. Together they are conclusive. The legislative intent is confirmed by the bill's sponsor. The public policy of Arizona mandates child safety above all. Arizona family law requires courts to apply current law to every parenting determination. The language in the Act mandates that it applies to existing orders. Arizona courts have applied amendments to this same statute immediately since 2013. The Act intentionally omitted a savings clause. And the Arizona Supreme Court has held that procedural circumstance cannot override the paramount obligation to protect children.
1. Legislative Intent: Lisa Fink, the Sponsor of This Law Opines it applies to “ALL” cases
The legislative history of the Alec and Lydia Act does not answer the question about the pending cases directly. Maybe they thought it was obvious. No floor statement we are aware of says expressly that the Act was intended to apply to cases already pending when it passed. But we do not believe that this is a difficult issue to overcome.
The Arizona Legislature passed this law, in part, in direct response to documented, specific failures in the existing family court system affecting families who were already in court proceedings. The Joint Legislative Ad Hoc Committee on Family Court Orders held four public hearings throughout 2025. It heard approximately forty hours of testimony. The vast majority of that testimony came from families who were in the pipeline. Some had been in the courts for years. Some for nearly a decade. The committee was formed to address what was happening to those families. The legislation it wrote was the direct result of examining and remedying those failures.
The bill was sponsored by Representative Lisa Fink, who described the Act during House floor debate as a clarification of existing custody law rather than new law. That characterization is relevant to how courts should interpret the Act’s reach. A clarification of existing law does not create new rights that attach only on a filing date. It restates and reinforces what the law was always intended to require. Applied to the pending cases question, the argument is this: if the Act clarifies what Arizona courts were always supposed to do when domestic violence is present, then applying it to pending cases is not imposing new obligations (on the abusive parent) retroactively. It is requiring courts to do what the law always required.
We acknowledge that legislative history is a critical argument but not legal precedent. Courts are not bound to apply a statute based on legislative intent. The text of the statute is what governs. And the text of the statute supports our position. The legislative history is offered here not as the primary argument but as the backdrop against which the other arguments should be understood.
Our Arizona legislature spent over a year documenting failures in existing family court cases and then enacted a law with an emergency clause, no savings clause, and express language addressing modification proceedings with pre-existing orders. They were not writing a statute for future cases only. The history suggests urgency to help children now. And it makes any competing interpretation, to wait to protect any children, impossible to comport with the urgency.
2. Public Policy: Child Safety Above All Including Parental Access
Child safety and children’s best interest are not a matter of filing dates for any divorce or paternity action. When the Arizona Legislature passed the Alec and Lydia Act it declared the public policy of this state. Child safety comes first. Before parental access. Before filing dates. The Act reads directly:
"In any legal decision-making or parenting time matter, the court shall consider domestic violence as contrary to the best interests of the child and shall assign primary importance to the safety and well-being of both the child and domestic violence victim. If an express or implied conflict arises between the requirements of this section and a competing presumption, mandate or public policy in this title, the provisions of this section take priority." A.R.S. § 25-403.03(A).
This provision takes priority over other statutes, mandates or public policy. Consider what the competing (errant) arguments would produce in real life practice. Hypothetically, a case filed in May 2026 involves three years of domestic violence such as financial abuse, isolation, surveillance, threats. There is an Order of Protection. Trial is set for December 2026. The court decides the case is governed by the “old” law. Yes, there was domestic violence but that does not affect the children. The mandatory presumption does not apply. The court has broad discretion to award joint legal decision making and equal parenting time to the abusive parent despite three years of domestic violence. The child is not protected. The child might be murdered.
The same hypothetical case filed in July 2026. Same exact facts. Same three years of domestic violence. Same Order of Protection. Same child. Same trial date. Alec and Lydia Act governs. The abusive parent has no legal decision making. The abusive parent has no unsupervised parenting time. The abused parent does not have to co-parent with the abuser. The child is protected.
Two children. Same courthouse. Same domestic violence. Same risk. Same trial date. Different filing dates. One child protected. One child is not safe. We do not believe that the same courthouse on the same date would produce such drastically opposite conclusions and leave one child unsafe based on the filing date. That is the very heart of the Alec and Lydia Act. That would make no sense. It is contrary to the legislative intent and defies the public policy of child safety and best interests.
That is not what the legislature intended when it named this law after two children who were murdered. That is not what child safety as the paramount concern of Arizona public policy means. And that is not what we believe Arizona courts will hold when the question is squarely before them.
When A Court Is Uncertain, the Tiebreaker Is Written Into the Statute
There is one more public policy argument that we believe is compelling and that courts should consider carefully. What happens when a court is genuinely uncertain how to rule on this question? What is the default? Arizona law answers that too. A.R.S. § 25-403.03(A) says that child safety takes priority over every competing mandate or public policy in this title. So even if a court views the pending case filing date question as a close call and even if it sees legitimate arguments on both sides, the tiebreaker is written into the statute. The court errs on the side of the child. Let us think about what the alternative looks like. A court that is uncertain whether the Act applies to a pending case and defaults to the old law (the one that no longer exists). It has then purposefully chosen to resolve the uncertainty in favor of the abusive parent and against the child’s safety. It has chosen a framework that was mostly deleted and then amended by the legislature. It has chosen the old law over the new law when the new law was enacted specifically to save children’s lives because the old law was failing children and two children were murdered. There is no judicial principle, no rule of statutory construction, no canon of interpretation that requires a court to resolve uncertainty about a child safety statute against the child. The public policy of Arizona points in one direction only: protect the child.
3. A.R.S. § 25-403(A) Has Always Required Courts to Apply Best Interests to Every Parenting Determination
This statute has existed for decades and has not changed. It reads:
"The court shall determine legal decision-making and parenting time, either originally or on petition for modification, in accordance with the best interests of the child." A.R.S. § 25-403(A).
“Either originally or on petition for modification” means any available evidence no matter the timing of the filing of the petition. Every parenting determination whether it is a new case or modification must be made in accordance with the best interests of the child. What determines best interests? The current law on the day of the determination.
A court making any parenting determination after June 22, 2026 determines best interests under the law as it exists on the day of that determination. The Alec and Lydia Act is that law. A.R.S. § 25-403(A) has always required courts to apply current law to every parenting determination. This is the foundation of Arizona family law.
4. The Alec and Lydia Act Expressly Applies to Families With Existing Orders
The Alec and Lydia Act amended A.R.S. § 25-411, the modification statute, and added this:
"An allegation of an act or acts of domestic violence as defined in section 25-403.03 shall be a primary factor in the court’s consideration of modification of a legal decision-making or parenting time order. The court shall allow a parent to present evidence of an act or acts of domestic violence that occurred before the existing legal decision-making or parenting time order." A.R.S. § 25-411(L). [emphasis added]
This amendment discusses evidence that existed prior to the “existing… order.” Hypothetically, let’s assume there was a 2025 parenting time order (existing order). After June 22, 2026, the Court shall allow a parent to present evidence prior to the “existing order” (the 2025 order) and by implication evidence since the existing order until the hearing date. If a court currently chooses not to allow that prior evidence based on the petition filing date, that language has no meaning whatsoever if a court only applied it to newly filed cases. Obviously a new case has no existing order so there is nothing for that phrase to refer to.
The legislature wrote that provision specifically for families who already have court orders. It is the only context in which the phrase “before the existing order” has any meaning. If the Act were intended to apply only to newly filed cases that provision would be completely meaningless. We believe the legislature does not write meaningless provisions.
A.R.S. § 25-411(L) is the legislature confirming in the text of the Act itself that the Act applies to parents with existing orders. That is the statute reflecting the ongoing obligation of the court to protect the child’s best interests.
5. Arizona Courts Have Applied Amendments to A.R.S. § 25-403.03 Immediately to All Pending Cases Since (at least) 2013
In 2013 the Arizona Legislature passed SB 1248, which amended A.R.S. § 25-403.03, the same domestic violence statute the Alec and Lydia Act amended in 2026. Those 2013 amendments changed the presumptions and standards governing parenting when domestic violence was alleged. Those amendments did not contain a savings clause or a grandfathering provision.
For nearly a decade after 2013 across thousands of trials in Arizona family courts no one argued that the 2013 amendments did not apply to pending cases based on filing dates. We are not aware of any court that refused to apply the amended statute on that argument. The 2013 amendments were applied immediately and universally to all pending cases heard after the date of enactment without distinction.
The Alec and Lydia Act amended the same statute in 2026 that was amended in 2013. Neither of those amendments needed a savings clause or a grandfathering provision. The courts in 2026 should follow the identical logic that governed the changes made in 2013. The 2026 amendments apply immediately to every case in front of an Arizona court after June 22, 2026.
6. The Implied Savings Clause Argument
Some suggest that if the legislature intended the Act to apply to pending cases it would have said so expressly. We disagree. That argument has it exactly backwards.
When a legislature passes a new law that changes the rules significantly and wants to protect people already in pending cases from having the new rules apply to them, it writes a savings clause. A savings clause says the old law is preserved for cases filed before a certain date. It is express. It is deliberate. Legislatures use savings clauses regularly and know exactly how to write them. It “saves” older cases from having new law applied to them.
The Alec and Lydia Act has four sections and no savings clause. Section 1 is the amended A.R.S. § 25-403.03. Section 2 amends A.R.S. § 25-404. Section 3 amends A.R.S. § 25-411 where A.R.S. § 25-411(L) expressly addresses existing orders. Section 4 is the short title, which simply names the law the Alec and Lydia Act in honor of Hope Hooton’s beloved children. The bill ends there. No savings clause. No grandfathering provision. Not one word suggesting that current cases should not be governed by the Alec and Lydia Act.
HB 2995, the Alec and Lydia Act, went through months of committee hearings, four public sessions, testimony from judges, attorneys, domestic violence experts, and families. It passed the House 55-0. It passed the Senate unanimously. It was carefully drafted. It was immediately signed by Governor Katie Hobbs and went into effect that day. The legislature knew how to write a savings clause. It chose not to. That choice is the legislature declaring that the Act applies to every parenting case that goes in front of an Arizona court after June 22, 2026.
7. Hays v. Gama, 205 Ariz. 99, 67 P.3d 695 (Ariz. 2003)
In Hays v. Gama, the Arizona Supreme Court addressed whether contempt sanctions that excluded a child's therapist records from evidence improperly interfered with the trial court's duty to consider the child's best interests in a custody determination. The Court vacated those sanctions and held: "We have repeatedly stressed that the child's best interest is paramount in custody determinations." Hays v. Gama, 205 Ariz. 99, 102, ¶ 18, 67 P.3d 695, 698 (2003). The Court further held that when custody of children is involved in a court proceeding, the trial court must hear all competent evidence, and that any sanction excluding evidence in a child custody dispute necessarily conflicts with the court's overriding obligation to protect the child's best interests. Hays v. Gama remains foundational to Arizona family law. (It is noted that Hays v. Gama has been limited by Johnson v. Provoyeur (2018 Arizona Court of Appeals) but not for the child safety issue we are arguing here.)
Competing Arguments
Garcia v. Browning, 214 Ariz. 250 (2007)
There have been some competing arguments against applying the Alec and Lydia Act after June 22, 2026 for pending cases based on filing dates prior to June 22, 2026. One of the arguments is based on a criminal case, Garcia v. Browning, 214 Ariz. 250, 151 P.3d 533 (2007). Garcia is easily distinguishable. Garcia is a criminal case. It addresses whether new amendments to a criminal statute apply to a criminal offense committed before the effective date of the amendments. The Arizona Supreme Court held that the new amendments did not apply to a criminal defendant and case heard after the amendments because in criminal law the date of the offense is the operative event for retroactivity analysis.
In criminal law the operative event is the date of the offense, when the defendant acted, when the law attached to their conduct. In family law there is no such thing as an operative event. Instead, the determination is governed by A.R.S. § 25-403(A), which has always required courts to apply current law. Garcia does not address A.R.S. § 25-403(A). It does not address parenting determinations. It does not address what law governs a family court’s ruling on the day of that ruling.
Garcia is simply the wrong case to argue in family law. It answers a different question in a different area of law. The question before a family court after June 22, 2026 is not what criminal law governed a past offense. The question before a family law court is what law governs this parenting determination that is in front of the court today. A.R.S. § 25-403(A) answers that question. The Alec and Lydia Act is that law.
The Retroactivity Argument For Cases Filed Prior to June 22, 2026
We are aware of at least one court that declined to apply the Alec and Lydia Act to a case filed before June 22, 2026, on a retroactivity argument. We respectfully disagree. Retroactivity is the wrong analysis for a child’s best interests determination.
A law is retroactive when it reaches back to do one of two things: punish conduct that was legal when it happened or take away a right the person already held, a “vested” right. If the new law does neither, it is not retroactive. The Alec and Lydia Act does neither.
Think criminal: you jaywalked when it was legal, and a new law later makes jaywalking illegal. You cannot be tried under the new law for jaywalking.
Think family law: a parent commits domestic violence. Domestic violence was never legal. It was always wrong and always contrary to a child’s best interests. The Alec and Lydia Act does not reach back and punish the abuser. This is not a new law that punishes prior conduct after the fact.
Think college degree: once your degree is conferred, it is yours. The school can raise the requirements for next year’s students but it cannot reach back and take your diploma. Your degree is a vested right: final and fixed.
Think family law: once you are in court with children, custody is never final. Custody is never a “vested” right. Parenting time and legal decision making are always subject to modification in the child’s best interests. Retroactivity only protects rights that have vested.
Retroactivity does not apply to a best interests analysis
This concept does not apply in family law with children. The court is not punishing a past act by the abusive parent and it is not taking away a vested right of the abusive parent. The court’s duty is to decide on any given day, what is in this child’s best interests. That is not retroactivity. That is every custody hearing that has ever been held in Arizona.
Courts should apply the Alec and Lydia Act and protect children. The Arizona legislature specifically amended the prior law because it was failing children. How can a court logically revert back to the same legal framework that allowed two children to be murdered? Why would a court choose to implement a prior amended law that favors the abusive parent over child safety?
We Are Learning
We hope this helps. We are uncertain exactly what any given court may decide for your family. But we do know this: we are a champion of the Alec and Lydia Act and we will always argue for courts to protect children. But what this law means for your specific family case, your orders, your children is a question that cannot be answered without knowing more about you and your case.
Whatever your situation, a conversation with Tali is where to start. You do not need to have it figured out before you call. You need your story. We can help and you are not alone.
