When Gov. Ron DeSantis signed an overhaul of the state’s child support law on June 30, Angla Maria Weinmüller emailed the governor from across the country in Vancouver, Washington, to let him know that he would cast her vote in the state’s Republican presidential primary lost in March.
Weinmüller raised five children in a 26-year marriage, and two years ago her husband left the family and moved to Melbourne.
“I knew I was in trouble when I saw on the news that he had signed it,” Weinmüller said.
SB 1416, a marriage dissolution measure, ended permanent alimony payments and allows a spouse to use child custody as a tool to reduce alimony payments.
Opponents say the measure will attract “dead” husbands and fathers to Florida as a haven for lower child support payments and as a place to use child custody for ever lower payments.
“I told him (DeSantis) I’m 64 years old. What should I do? Get a job with a minimum wage of $15? I take care of my 94 year old mother. If you can’t be trusted to take care of the vulnerable and those who need you, then you can’t be trusted to be president,” said Weinmüller, a registered Republican and, like DeSantis, a member of the Catholic Church.
The bill’s provisions were debated for a decade and were the subject of emotional protests at the Florida Capitol. The measure was voted down three times, twice by former Gov. Rick Scott — because of its impact on children of divorce — and once by DeSantis.
Questions and answers:DeSantis signed a bill to eliminate permanent alimony in Florida. What you need to know
Before the third veto:Disputed child support bill during third trip to Florida governor’s office; Critics point to the cash pipeline
The fourth time may have been the charm for the child support bill, but how will it affect DeSantis’ fate as president?
It is unclear.
What a difference a year can make
Since 2013, the First Wives advocacy group has been at the forefront of opposition to the measure, and now its members and allies in Florida, Washington, Texas and Nevada have said they will work to spread the word that DeSantis will protect seniors and Sacrificed children to become president.
Men pay alimony 90% of the time, and in recent years there have been efforts by legislatures in Alabama, Vermont, Massachusetts, New Jersey and elsewhere to change how alimony is awarded and how long it lasts.
DeSantis vetoed the previous marriage dissolution bill, SB 1796, in May 2022.
“This year’s bill is the same as last year. The only difference is that DeSantis is running for president,” Blake Taylor said.
Taylor is a former Floridian who moved to Texas after her husband filed for divorce.
She has 21,000 followers on Twitter, where she documents her legal battles with her ex-husband and organizes a Texas chapter of the First Wives Advocacy Group.
A retired court reporter who covered family law attorneys primarily in the Midwest, Taylor wants to explain the impact of the custody provisions in SB 1416 as DeSantis campaigns for president.
It sets out equal custody rights as a starting point and then allows a spouse to waive this 50 to 50 percent right to time with a child in exchange for lower child support payments.
“That makes him a deadbeat dad advocate,” Taylor said of cases in which a person’s financial interests outweigh the emotional investment in raising children. “Mr. “DeSantis has literally given children leverage over child support payments,” Taylor said.
A presidential campaign and a decades-long struggle
Jan Killilea founded the First Wives Advocacy Group.
She said the group is in contact with the governor’s office as DeSantis weighs the bill’s fate and expects it to be voted down for a fourth time.
Staff assured Killilea DeSantis that they had received the information sent by the group.
The governor’s office did not respond to a request for comment for this story or to allegations from First Wives members.
“But there are a lot of things, a lot of factors at play in his presidential campaign, including fundraising and lobbying,” Killea said. “I understand he’s doing really well with fundraising.”
DeSantis’ presidential campaign has raised $20 million in its six weeks of operation, while the super PAC backing him has $130 million in its bank account.
The recent effort to pass SB 1416 began four years ago with more than $46,000 raised through donations from the Florida Family Fairness Political Committee, organized by divorce attorney Marc Johnson.
The FFFC subsequently participated in at least six different political action committees.
Those committees funneled campaign contributions to at least 18 lawmakers, including Speakers Paul Renner and DeSantis, and donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to committees for Republican campaigns in the Florida House and Senate.
It remains to be seen whether such transactions will translate into a story that the First Wives will use to try to derail DeSantis’ presidential bid.
According to RealClear Politics, DeSantis trails former President Donald J. Trump by an average of 32 points in national polls.
The base in sight
The alimony bill appears to have long-term financial consequences for a key component of the GOP base — white Protestant women.
According to Divorce.com, a leading provider of online divorce services, white Protestant women overall are more likely to divorce than others.
Protestant women are 4% more likely to divorce than the general population and 2% more likely than Democrats.
While Florida has a divorce rate of 13%, the sixth highest in the country, white Protestants have a divorce rate of 19% and are overwhelmingly Republican in the election, by a wide margin.
Whether the numbers pose problems for DeSantis and Florida Republicans in hotly contested elections depends on a variety of factors, consultants and researchers said.
They ask: Are Republican women aware of what the 2023 Legislature has done?
Although the bill has a long history since 2013 – the subject of debate and emotional protests – including the storming of then-Governor Rick Scott’s office – few people are aware of it.
However, the opposition appears to remain organized, and as groups like Moms Against Drunk Driving and, more recently, Moms for Liberty have shown, mobilized adult women can organize successful grassroots campaigns.
Last week, Casey DeSantis made her first solo campaign trip to Iowa to launch her own group, “Mamas for DeSantis,” a grassroots effort to drum up support for his presidential campaign.
DeSantis floods the zone
Alimony reform as an issue has been lost in the fog of news generated by controversies DeSantis has provoked, such as a dispute with The Walt Disney Co., his opposition to diversity, equity and inclusion programs and his endorsement of six-week abortion Prohibition and policies that resulted in the removal of books from school library shelves.
“Alimony hasn’t gotten as much attention as a lot of other wedge issues,” Aubrey Jewett, a political scientist at the University of Central Florida, said of the challenge facing the First Wives plan.
“That might be the case if a competitor sees DeSantis as vulnerable and attacks him as part of a general war on women theme. Trump would be kind of interesting – given his history. Nikki Haley could potentially take advantage of that,” Jewett said.
Evan Power, the vice chairman of the Florida Republican Party, does not believe the new law will have any impact on DeSantis’ presidential ambitions or the GOP candidates in the 2024 election.
He said the measure was discussed extensively and reviewed over a decade of debate.
“As with all laws, some people have extremely strong opinions about it. But this bill appears to be a good compromise, the result of years of improvements and work,” Power said.
During the Fourth of July holiday, Judy Epstein, a retired nurse, was chatting with a neighbor in Las Vegas and the conversation turned to DeSantis.
Epstein is among a group of women who follow DeSantis. She supports his policies, such as the so-called “Don’t Say Gay” law that sparked the Disney dispute.
When asked if she planned to vote for DeSantis again, she talked about how he changed alimony for women age 60 and older.
“It’s a very precarious thing. It just seems like (divorced women) have been thrown out the door. Because the amount of money may not be enough to cover people’s bills and survival,” Epstein said.
Epstein was married for 13 years, divorced in Florida and now faces a five-year limit on his alimony payments.
James Call is a member of the USA TODAY NETWORK-Florida Capital Bureau. He can be reached at jcall@tallahassee.com. Follow him on Twitter: @CallTallahassee
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