Commonly called "the shared parenting initiative," the Child Custody and Support Initiative, which will appear as Measure No. 3 on the election ballot next month, has provoked a remarkable amount of discussion around the state this year.

The discussion has tended not to be measured and dispassionate. Many of the voices have been quite heated; much of the discussion has been severely slanted.

North Dakota voters should reject the initiated measure for several good reasons, but afterward the discussion should resume. There are some relevant issues presented by the initiative that must be considered on their merit.

It's just that the initiative would make bad law.

The Tribune's editorial board has heard presentations commending the initiative and urging its defeat.

Board members listened to both sides saying that the interests of children of divorcing parents matter greatly - proponents of the proposal claim that to require divorcing parents to develop a shared parenting agreement and to accept 50-50 parenting (barring the provable unfitness of one of them) will benefit the children after the divorce is granted. Both parents are assumed to want to be equally involved in their children's lives.

The phrase "shared parenting" has a good feel to it. It feels so much better than "custody battle" and "embittered ex-spouses playing tug-of-war with the children."

The initiative's feel-good tag notwithstanding, there are flaws. There is a mechanical approach toward custody, a calculation of so much time the children must spend here, an equal period of time there. If the parents want the period to be a six-month bloc, what kind of life is that for the kids?

The discussion of the issues raised by the initiative has most often run aground when the debate is steered toward money.

The initiative's backers want the money paid by one spouse to the other to be strictly limited to covering the children's "basic needs," without saying explicitly what they are. The present system for calculating child support is cumbersome and doesn't uniformly work fairly, but it's better than a vague, possibly spartan notion of what a child really needs during the years growing up.

Opponents have raised a shrill outcry that the initiative's approach toward child support would cost the state $79 million in withheld federal funds, including Temporary Aid to Needy Families.

That may or may not be, but it misses the point. The focus should not be on whether the state rakes in money, but on how children and those who are raising them are to be supported - with fairness to the custodial and the noncustodial parents.

Fundamental issues need much more discussion, such as how justice is to be done to both genders in divorce, in custody and in the financial dealings between former spouses. Quite possibly, laws need to be changed. The legislative session will be a good opportunity for discussion.

The initiated measure does not adequately address the shortcomings of the present system. It should not pass.