Scott scuttles Florida alimony overhaul – The Palm Beach Post
For the second time in three years, Florida Gov. Rick Scott has vetoed a controversial alimony proposal, this time blaming an even more-contentious child custody component included in the latest bill.
The proposal vetoed Friday would have created a formula, based on the length of marriage and the combined incomes of both spouses, for judges to use when setting alimony payments. After years of disagreement on the issue, alimony reform advocates and The Florida Bar’s Family Law Section supported the alimony proposal, which would have also eliminated permanent alimony while giving judges some discretion to veer from the formula.
But the plan became one of the most hotly contested issues of the 2016 legislative session when it was amended to include a child-sharing component that would have required judges to begin with a “premise” that children should split their time equally between parents.
The proposed time-sharing changes could potentially upend the state’s current policy of putting the needs of children first in favor of parents’ wishes when judges determine custody arrangements, Scott wrote in Friday’s veto letter.
The proposed revisions “have evoked passionate reactions from thousands of Floridians because divorce affects families in many different ways,” Scott wrote.
Men, women and a handful of children on both sides of the measure (SB 668) clashed outside of Scott’s office Tuesday, before representatives met with the governor’s policy director to make last-ditch pitches. Scott received nearly 10,000 messages urging him to sign the bill into law, more than three times the number of requests for a veto.
“As a husband, father and grandfather, I understand the importance of family and the sensitivity and passion that comes with the subject of family law. Family law issues are very personal, and nearly every family comes to the court with different circumstances and needs. As such, we must be judicious and carefully consider the long term and real life repercussions on Florida families,” he wrote.
But “the one constant” when a divorce involves a young child is “the needs of the child must come before all others” when judges determine parenting schedules, something now required by Florida law, Scott wrote.
“This bill has the potential to upend that policy in favor of putting the wants of a parent before the child’s best interest by creating a premise of equal time-sharing. Our judges must consider each family’s unique situation and abilities and put the best interests of the child above all else,” he concluded.
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