Proposed changes to alimony, child time-sharing will hurt families
The Family Law Section of The Florida Bar, collectively and as individual family law attorneys, is committed to advocating for laws that protect strong, healthy families and, above all else, put children’s needs first.
Each Florida legislative session, we vigilantly review legislation to ensure those protections are not eroded. Unfortunately, nearly ever session, there are attempts to make changes to statutes governing alimony and timesharing — an issue we, as family law attorneys, deal with every day.
This year, that threat has come in the form of Senate Bill 1922 and
House Bill 1559, and we must stand firmly opposed to them, as we believe these bills ultimately hurt Florida families by instituting an automatic presumption of 50-50 timesharing and drastically altering the current, effective system of alimony.
To begin, an automatic presumption of 50-50 timesharing, a major component of the bills, could, in fact, endanger children in many cases. We firmly believe this presumption would have the unintended effect of falsely rewarding parents who have historically and consistently acted contrary to, or even compromised, the child’s best interests. SB 1922 and HB 1559 even ignore families dealing with domestic violence or struggling with substance abuse and mental illness.
Today, we have laws in place that recognize the uniqueness of every child and every family circumstance, and this is taken into account when a timesharing plan is being developed. Our statutes already ensure that each child has frequent and continuing contact with both parents and encourages them to share the rights and responsibilities of being parents.
Additionally, the negative and far-reaching changes to alimony in SB 1922 and HB 1559, which, among other things, would do away with long-term alimony and generally discount the concept that marriage is an equal partnership, would also harm Florida families. It holds the potential to force vulnerable individuals, especially seniors, into needing assistance from the state, increases the need for the litigation of alimony cases and removes almost all discretion from Florida’s trial court judges, who deal with unique families every day.
Many who have been through divorce and are dealing with alimony are not seeking handouts or making outlandish requests or arguments, they are simply asking for fair consideration, which our current system already provides. In fact, the sweeping changes in SB 1922 and HB 1559 would only create problems that do not currently exist in our alimony system or have already been resolved through the courts with case law. This is a solution in search of a problem that doesn’t exist.
For these combined reasons, we ask lawmakers to preserve strong, healthy families, put children first, and stand against legislation that would institute a presumption of 50-50 timesharing and dramatically alter our state’s alimony laws. Respectfully, we urge our lawmakers to vote no on SB 1922 and HB 1559.