First Up: Alimony bill is back for 2023

There’s a rule in the Florida Legislature: If at first your bill dies, try, try again until you get term-limited out. For the umpteenth time in recent years, an alimony overhaul bill has been filed, this year by state Sen. Joe Gruters, a Sarasota Republican. Gruters (first elected to the Senate in 2018) carried last year’s bill that made it all the way to Gov. Ron DeSantis’ desk before being vetoed. 

That was the third veto of alimony-related legislation in the last decade; then-Gov. Rick Scott vetoed two previous attempts. The 23-page bill for 2023 (SB 1416) and its identical House companion would, among other things, delete a provision in state law for what’s called “permanent alimony.” It would require a reduction or termination of payments if an ex-spouse being paid enters a “supportive relationship.” 

It would also allow an end to or reduction in payments if the ex-spouse writing the checks retires. Most if not all of those provisions have been in previous bills. DeSantis’ objections last year were that if that bill “were to become law and be given retroactive effect as the Legislature intends, it would unconstitutionally impair vested rights under certain preexisting marital settlement agreements.” 

Compare that to what Scott wrote in his veto message 10 years ago, saying he could not “support this legislation because it applies retroactively and thus tampers with the settled economic expectations of many Floridians who have experienced divorce. The retroactive adjustment of alimony could result in unfair, unanticipated results.” But, as Gruters told Florida Politics, the latest bill has “no retroactivity.”

– Jim Rosica