Post by mhbruin on Jul 7, 2023 8:41:22 GMT -8
Gov DeathSentence Helps Old Men, and Screws Old Women
Gov. Ron DeSantis on Friday signed a measure that will overhaul the state’s alimony laws, after three vetoes of similar bills and a decade of emotional clashes over the issue.
The measure (SB 1416) includes doing away with what is known as permanent alimony. DeSantis’ approval came a year after he nixed a similar bill that sought to eliminate permanent alimony and set up a formula for alimony amounts based on the length of marriage.
The approval drew an outcry from members of the “First Wives Advocacy Group,” a coalition of mostly older women who receive permanent alimony and who assert that their lives will be upended without the payments.
“On behalf of the thousands of women who our group represents, we are very disappointed in the governor’s decision to sign the alimony-reform bill. We believe by signing it, he has put older women in a situation which will cause financial devastation. The so-called party of ‘family values’ has just contributed to erosion of the institution of marriage in Florida,” Jan Killilea, a 63-year-old Boca Raton woman who founded the group a decade ago, told The News Service of Florida in a text message Friday.
The years-long effort to do away with permanent alimony has been a highly contentious issue. It elicited tearful testimony from members of the First Wives group. But it also spurred impassioned pleas from ex-spouses who said they had been forced to work long past the age they wanted to retire because they were on the hook for alimony payments.
‘This is a death sentence for me’: Florida Republican women say they will switch parties after DeSantis approves alimony law
Gov. Ron DeSantis on Friday signed a measure that will overhaul the state’s alimony laws, after three vetoes of similar bills and a decade of emotional clashes over the issue.
The measure (SB 1416) includes doing away with what is known as permanent alimony. DeSantis’ approval came a year after he nixed a similar bill that sought to eliminate permanent alimony and set up a formula for alimony amounts based on the length of marriage.
The approval drew an outcry from members of the “First Wives Advocacy Group,” a coalition of mostly older women who receive permanent alimony and who assert that their lives will be upended without the payments.
“On behalf of the thousands of women who our group represents, we are very disappointed in the governor’s decision to sign the alimony-reform bill. We believe by signing it, he has put older women in a situation which will cause financial devastation. The so-called party of ‘family values’ has just contributed to erosion of the institution of marriage in Florida,” Jan Killilea, a 63-year-old Boca Raton woman who founded the group a decade ago, told The News Service of Florida in a text message Friday.
The years-long effort to do away with permanent alimony has been a highly contentious issue. It elicited tearful testimony from members of the First Wives group. But it also spurred impassioned pleas from ex-spouses who said they had been forced to work long past the age they wanted to retire because they were on the hook for alimony payments.
‘This is a death sentence for me’: Florida Republican women say they will switch parties after DeSantis approves alimony law