On Friday, Governor Ron DeSantis signed a bill overhauling the state's child support law after three vetoes of similar bills and more than a decade of emotional wrangling over the issue.
The measure (SB 1416) would eliminate so-called permanent alimony. DeSantis' approval came a year after he rejected a similar bill that would have eliminated permanent alimony and established a formula for the amount of alimony based on the length of the marriage.
The approval sparked an outcry among members of the First Wives Advocacy Group, a coalition of mostly older women who receive permanent alimony and say their lives would be turned upside down without the payments.
“On behalf of the thousands of women our group represents, we are very disappointed in the governor's decision to sign the alimony reform bill. We believe that by signing it, he has placed older women in a situation that will lead to financial ruin. The so-called party of 'family values' 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.
What the Florida Child Support Reform Act of 2023 will do
The years-long effort to end permanent alimony has been a highly contentious issue, drawing tearful testimony from members of the First Wives group, but also passionate pleas from former spouses who said they were forced to work long past the retirement age at which they intended to retire because of alimony payments.
Michael Buhler, chairman of Florida Family Fairness, a group that advocates for the abolition of permanent alimony, praised the passage of the bill.
“Florida Family Fairness is pleased that the Florida State Legislature and Governor DeSantis have passed legislation that ends permanent alimony and enshrines pension rights for existing alimony payers,” Buhler said in a statement. “Anything that provides clarity and ends permanent alimony is a win for Florida families.”
In addition to DeSantis' veto of the 2022 version, former Governor Rick Scott vetoed similar bills twice. The issue nearly sparked a brawl outside Scott's office in 2016.
This year, however, the proposal faced relatively little public opposition and received the blessing of the Florida Family Fairness and the Florida Bar's Family Law Section, which have clashed fiercely on the issue in the past.
In addition to abolishing permanent maintenance payments, this measure introduces a procedure through which former spouses who pay maintenance can request a modification of maintenance arrangements upon their retirement.
What judges can do with the new child support law signed by DeSantis
It will allow judges to reduce or stop maintenance or care payments after considering a range of factors, including the “age and health” of the payer, the usual retirement age in their profession, the “economic impact” that a reduction in maintenance would have on the payee, and the payer's “motivation for retirement and likelihood of returning to work”.
Supporters said it would enshrine in law a court ruling in a 1992 divorce case that guides judges in making retirement annuity decisions.
But as with previous versions, opponents feared the bill could also apply to existing indefinite alimony agreements, which many former spouses accept in exchange for giving up other assets as part of the divorce settlement.
“He (DeSantis) just impoverished all of Florida's older women, and I know at least 3,000 women across the state of Florida are switching to the Democrats, and we will campaign against him forever and ever,” Camille Fiveash, a Republican from Milton who receives permanent alimony, said in a phone interview Friday.
In vetoing the 2022 version, DeSantis cited concerns about the bill allowing former spouses to have existing alimony agreements modified. In a veto letter dated June 24, 2022, he wrote that if the bill “became law and took effect retroactively, as the Legislature intended, it would unconstitutionally impair existing rights under certain pre-existing prenuptial agreements.”
But Senate Legislator Joe Gruters (Republican of Sarasota) sought to reassure lawmakers that the 2023 version would not unconstitutionally affect existing child support agreements. 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 is, according to case law, we codify all of these laws and make them the law. So we're basically solidifying that. So from a retroactive perspective, that's not the case because if something could be changed before, it's still changeable. If it's an immutable agreement, you still can't change that agreement,” he said.
The law, which comes into force on Saturday, also sets a five-year cap on so-called rehabilitative maintenance. According to this, spouses who have been married for less than three years are not entitled to maintenance payments. Spouses who have been married for 20 years or more can receive maintenance payments of up to 75 percent of the duration of the marriage.
The new law will also allow alimony payers to request modifications if “a supportive relationship exists or has existed” with their ex-spouses in the past year. Critics argued the provision was vague and could apply to temporary roommates who help alimony recipients cover living expenses for a short period of time.
Fiveash, a 63-year-old with serious health problems, said she could not afford another legal battle over child support.
“I'm scared they might take me to court again and I don't have any money for a lawyer. I'm literally living off the little I get in child support. I work part-time because I have all kinds of ailments. And now I'm left with nothing, absolutely nothing,” she said.
Health insurance, Fiveash added, will “probably be the first thing to go” if its payments are reduced or eliminated.
“This is a death sentence for me,” she said
Comments are closed.