Bill to end permanent alimony moves in the Senate
Sen. Joe Gruters
With the understanding that it is a work in progress, the Senate Judiciary Committee January 24 moved a bill that would end permanent alimony in Florida.
Sen. Joe Gruters, R-Sarasota, said SB 1796 is all about “predictability” and “fairness.” It passed out of the committee on a 6-3 vote.
“I know we are continuing to work on this, we have had more meetings than you can possibly imagine, and although we still have some additional changes, I think we are getting a lot closer,” Gruters told the panel.
The measure, in its current form, eliminates permanent (lifetime) alimony, leaving bridge-the-gap, rehabilitative, and durational forms of alimony.
“This bill addresses two things, it removes permanent alimony for all divorces moving forward, but it does have retroactivity for those agreements that are modifiable,” said Gruters, adding the goal is to “come up with a way where people don’t become indentured servants forever.”
Philip S. Wartenberg, a 13th Circuit family law magistrate representing the Family Law Section, said while the section continues to work with Sen. Gruters, “continuing policy concerns” prevent the section from fully supporting the bill at this time.
Shannon Novey, representing the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, said her organization also appreciates the work that has been done to improve the bill, and it is an improvement from where it was at the end of the last session, but AAML also cannot support it in its present form.
“We especially appreciate the delinking of the provision from the alimony law from the parenting provisions that were present in that bill,” Novey said. “We could never support that as a matter of policy.”
Debate on the bill was limited by time constraints, but Gruters committed to keep working with all the stakeholders.
The bill still has stops in the Appropriations and Rules committees.
