The chaotic theme of the Florida alimony revision could see a political comeback based on a roster of senior lobbyists engaged to wage the 2020 legislature wars of divorce.
Florida Family Fairness, a group behind efforts to free the state from “permanent” child support payments, has hired two of the state’s most influential lobbying firms — The Southern Group and Ballard Partners — to help make the changes Child support payments during the meeting, which starts in January.
On the flip side, the Florida Bar’s Family Law Department has hired Smith, Bryan & Myers to defend or optimize the status quo. You have the help of prominent lobbyist Michael Corcoran, who signed up this week to represent the Florida Chapter of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers.
Lobbyist recruitment takes place before any bills are tabled, but it could wire the end of a brief legislative grace period on the matter that led to a near-question outside of the then government three years ago. Rick Scott’s office about a planned maintenance upgrade.
Scott, now a US Senator, twice vetoed controversial child support proposals. In his second veto in 2016, Scott blamed an even more controversial custody component that was included in this year’s version.
The proposal would have created a formula based on the length of the marriage and the joint income of both spouses that judges could use in setting alimony payments. After years of controversy on the issue, alimony revision advocates and the Florida Bar’s Family Law Division backed the proposal that would also have abolished permanent alimony while allowing judges some discretion to deviate from the formula.
However, the plan became one of the most controversial topics of the 2016 session when it was added a child sharing component that would have required judges to start with the “premise” that children should spend their time evenly between the Parents should split up.
In 2013, Scott vetoed a different version, arguing that alimony changes could have been applied retrospectively.
But with Governor Ron DeSantis replacing Scott in January and a new political committee pushing for change, critics of the current maintenance laws are again pushing to revise a system they believe is unfair and out of date.
Although lawmakers in the House and Senate have not tabled maintenance bills, the House Civil Justice Subcommittee heard from both sides of the issue during a workshop Thursday.
There are four types of child support available under applicable Florida law: “Bridge Payments,” which provide up to two years of payments for the transition from marriage to single parent; “Rehabilitative”, which provides support to a former spouse who is receiving an education or schooling; “Permanent”, which allows ex-spouses to receive support for a period of time; and “indefinite”, which ends when one spouse dies or when the party receiving payments remarries.
Alan Elkins, a Boca Raton family law attorney and secretary of the Florida Family Fairness Political Committee, said he had been “in the trenches representing equal numbers of men and women” for four decades.
“We’re not against child support,” Elkins, a regular alimony payer, said he “has been paying for a 21-year marriage for 19 years.”
Proponents of change have a “philosophical” problem with livelihoods, Elkins said, because “it creates a culture of dependency” and discourages ex-spouses from looking for a job.
Most maintenance agreements can be changed, but a judicial change can be costly, Elkins said.
The uncertainty about how judges will decide on alimony payments is also problematic, he said. For example, different referees can make very different arrangements even within the same circuit.
“That is unreasonable. There is no consistency. It’s not fair, ”he said.
Elkins wants lawmakers to use a model based on what some other states have done. This would involve a formula based on the difference between the income of the spouses and the length of the marriage.
But Andrea Reid, a family law attorney also from Boca Raton, said the 2010 and 2011 revisions to Florida alimony laws were so significant and so far-reaching that no further revision was necessary.
Florida judges have “very specific guidelines” that take into account the spouse’s needs and the spouse’s ability to pay in order to calculate alimony, Reid said.
“What they are not is a mathematical equation,” she added, saying that each case should be considered individually.
“We believe the law works,” said Reid, a member of the legislative committee for the family law division.
Constant maintenance payments or “life imprisonment” are “absolutely positively changeable and are constantly being made,” she said.
But because the term “permanent maintenance” has a bad rap, Reid said the family law department supports a name change.
House Civil Justice Chairman Bob Rommel, R-Naples, asked panelists why the last attempt at alimony change in 2016 was denied.
“Well, sir, I would prefer not to judge why that bill was killed,” said Elkins.
Philip Wartenberg, a family law attorney, said the family law department “reluctantly” approved the revised maintenance guidelines in the 2016 measure, but opposed the child custody component in the measure.
“But really, the section was never full of the idea of a formulaic maintenance approach,” he said.
Rommel said he understood “that this is an extremely sensitive issue for all sides”.
“When something changes, there is always a bit of heartburn on both sides. Just like the vetoed bill passed, it was probably fair enough that we had a bipartisan agreement there and everyone was a little uncomfortable, ”he said.
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