TALLAHASSEE — Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a measure Friday that will overhaul the state's child support laws after three vetoes of similar bills and a decade of emotional arguments on the issue.
The measure (SB 1416) includes the elimination of so-called permanent support.
DeSantis' approval came a year after he rejected a similar bill that sought to eliminate permanent alimony and establish a formula for alimony amounts based on the length of the marriage.
The approval sparked an outcry from members of the First Wives Advocacy Group, a coalition of mostly older women who receive permanent alimony payments and say their lives would be turned upside down without the payments.
“On behalf of the thousands of women our group represents, we are deeply disappointed in the governor’s decision to sign the child support reform bill. We believe that by signing him, he has put older women in a situation that will lead to financial devastation. The so-called “family values” party has just contributed to the erosion of the institution of marriage in Florida,” Jan Killilea, a 63-year-old Boca Raton woman who founded the group a decade ago, told The News Service of Florida in a text message on Friday.
The years-long effort to eliminate permanent alimony has been a highly contentious issue. It sparked tearful statements from members of the First Wives group. But it also sparked impassioned appeals from ex-spouses who said they were forced to work long past the age at which they planned to retire because they had to pay alimony.
Michael Buhler, president of Florida Family Fairness, a group that advocates for the elimination of permanent alimony, praised the bill's passage.
“Florida Family Fairness is pleased that the Florida Legislature and Governor DeSantis have passed a bill that ends permanent alimony and codifies into law the right to retirement for existing alimony payers,” Buhler said in a statement. “Anything that provides clarity and ends permanent alimony is a win for Florida families.”
Along with DeSantis' veto of the 2022 version, former Gov. Rick Scott twice vetoed similar bills. The issue sparked a near-riot outside Scott's office in 2016.
This year, however, the proposal faced relatively little public opposition and received the blessing of Florida Family Fairness and the Family Law Section of the Florida Bar, which have fought bitterly on the issue in the past.
In addition to abolishing permanent maintenance, the measure establishes a process for former spouses paying maintenance to request changes to maintenance arrangements if they wish to retire.
It will allow judges to reduce or eliminate alimony, support or alimony payments after considering a range of factors such as “the age and health” of the person making payments; the normal retirement age for that person's occupation; “the economic impact” that a reduction in maintenance would have on the recipient of the payments; and the “motivation for retirement and likelihood of returning to work” for the person making the payments.
Supporters said it would codify into law a court decision in a 1992 divorce case that would guide judges in retirement decisions.
But as with previous versions, opponents remained concerned that the bill would apply to existing permanent support agreements, which many ex-spouses accept in exchange for giving up other assets as part of a divorce agreement.
“He (DeSantis) just impoverished all of Florida's older women and I know that at least 3,000 women across the state of Florida are switching to the Democrats and we will fight him forever,” Camille Fiveash, a Milton Republican on permanent support, he said in a telephone interview on Friday.
When DeSantis vetoed the 2022 version, he cited concerns about the bill allowing ex-spouses to modify existing support agreements. In a veto letter dated June 24, 2022, he wrote that if the bill “became law as the Legislature intended and was given retroactive effect, it would unconstitutionally interfere with well-understood rights under certain pre-existing marital agreements.”
But Senate bill sponsor Joe Gruters, R-Sarasota, sought to reassure lawmakers that the 2023 version would not have unconstitutional effects on existing child support arrangements. This year's proposal “was consistent with current case law,” Gruters told a Senate committee in April, citing the court ruling.
“So what you can do now in the context of jurisprudence is we now codify all of these laws and make them the rule of law. So we're basically just solidifying this. So from a retroactive perspective, no, because if something was modifiable before, it is still modifiable. If it’s a non-modifiable agreement, you still can’t change that agreement,” he said.
The bill, which will come into force on Saturday, also limits the so-called rehabilitation maintenance to five years. Under the plan, people married for less than three years are not eligible for alimony payments, and those married for 20 years or longer are eligible for payments for up to 75 percent of the length of the marriage.
The new law will also allow alimony payers to request modifications if “a supportive relationship exists or existed with their ex-spouses” in the previous year. Critics argued the provision was vague and could apply to temporary roommates who help alimony recipients cover living expenses for short periods of time.
Fiveash, a 63-year-old with serious medical conditions, said she could not afford another legal battle over child support.
“I'm afraid they may take you to court again, and I don't have the money for a lawyer. I literally live on the small portion I receive as support. I work part time because I suffer from all sorts of ailments. And now I’m left without anything, absolutely without anything,” she said.
Health insurance, Fiveash added, “will probably be the first thing to go” if its payments are reduced or eliminated altogether.
“This is a death sentence for me,” she said.
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