Lawmakers could wrestle with alimony reform again this year, as the first bill on the subject — including a provision to end “permanent alimony” — was tabled on Friday.
Sen in the first term Gayle Harrella Stuart Republican, sponsors the 28-page measure (SB1596). As of now, there is no accompanying bill in the House of Representatives, and no committee has assigned its action.
efforts to A revision of maintenance law, above all by tightening the standards according to which maintenance is granted and changed, has failed in recent years.
But if alimony bills delay that session, it could spark yet another one of the most contentious political fights the Florida Statehouse has seen in recent memory.
Historically, the argument goes along these lines: the fEx-spouses who write the checks say permanent alimony or “always alimony” isn’t fair to them. Her exes counter that they shouldn’t be punished, for example after years of staying at home raising children only to find difficulty, if not impossibility, in getting back into the workforce.
2016 Reform Advocate shouted down Opponents of this year’s bill in the hall outside and in the then governor’s lobby. Rick ScottOffice of the Capitol.
In fact, family law bills have had trouble getting Scott’s signature despite years of lawmakers trying to change the way Florida courts award child support payments.
Scott had appeal filed another attempt in 2013 because he called it retrospective, thus “manipulating (altering) the established economic expectations of many Floridians who have experienced divorce.”
Among other things, Harrell’s action requires that someone “claiming child support establishes by clear and compelling evidence that the (ex-spousal) is able to pay child support” and that person “has the burden of proving a need for support.” .”
It also aims to protect ex-spouses’ Social Security pension benefits and would make it easier for retirees to pay less alimony. But there is also an “a rebuttable presumption in favor of granting alimony for a permanent marriage” with the end of the divorce.
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Background information on this article provided by Senior Editor Jim Rosika in Tallahassee.
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