March 17, 2016
By Robert Franklin, Esq, Member, National Board of Directors, National Parents Organization
If you need help in making your points to Governor Scott, here’s Terrence Power of Clearwater to summarize SB 668 (Tampa Bay Times, 3/9/16). Power, an ongoing victim of the existing system offers examples of its injustice and wrongheaded policy:
The bill eliminates the punitive "permanent alimony laws" for newly divorcing couples while providing safeguards for existing alimony recipients. It will provide a formula as to duration and amount of alimony for newly divorcing couples while also allowing judicial discretion to address "out of the norm" cases…
[T]he income and assets of a new spouse will no longer be fair game for divorce attorneys to go after. This is the reason why I, a permanent alimony payer, can never marry my fiancee of seven years. It would cost me $3,000 a month of her income.
But Power has nothing to gain by the bill’s enactment into law. SB 668 isn’t retroactive, a feature that led Scott to veto a similar bill two years ago.
Since the bill is not retroactive, I will again next month — and forever — continue to pay a healthy, educated adult alimony until one of us dies. My own story in the Tampa Bay Times back in 2013, titled "The divorce from hell," outlines the abuse that is commonplace in our family court system in Florida. Provisions in the new bill would end lengthy divorces that trap the parties at the hands of predatory litigating divorce attorneys.
Call or email Governor Scott today.