Florida Legislature Aligns with Men’s Rights Hate Group Initiatives – Block Women’s Inputs and Study
On Tuesday January 29, 2016 the Florida Senate Judiciary Committee pushed through Sen. Tom Lee’s (R-Brandon) highly criticized SB250 Family Law “reform” bill which would make Florida the first state in the U.S. to force a presumptive parental 50/50 time-splitting of children and infants unless a wed, unwed and even never-wed parent can contest the public policy shift through costly litigation.
Lee’s bill and its companion Republican-sponsored family law/alimony overhaul bills (SB668, HB553 and HB455) are receiving outcry from top Florida Family Law judges and domestic violence experts in addition to Florida’s heavy-weight women’s groups including the Florida League of Women Voters, FLNOW and UniteWomen.org along with Hispanic caucuses, Jewish Women’s organizations and the Florida Breast Feeding Coalition (FBC) of nurse practitioners and clinical experts. Many of whom say that women stakeholders are being systematically excluded.
http://contextflorida.com/archives/12357/jud
The Senate Judiciary Committee allowed very little testimony or debate on Lee’s controversial bill language indicating that it would be given more time in subsequent committees. Sen. Kelli Stargel (R-Polk and sponsor of similar reform bill SB668 which includes 50/50, alimony and child support reduction measures) collaborated with Lee on a courtesy amendment to his bill. This further empowered the Committee Chair Senator Miguel Diaz de la Portilla (R) to limit opposing public testimony to less than 30 seconds. After the Judiciary hearing, there was a fast-track legislative maneuver that removed all of the following committee reference and SB250 is now going directly to Senate Rules – its final committee before hitting the Senate floor for full vote.
Representatives of women’s groups that were present at the committee hearing stated, “Guess they don’t really want the terrible provisions in this bill and the other Family Law reform bills to be vetted in public nor Florida’s primary women stakeholders to have serious input into them.” Ms. Jesse Gordon, ARNP and President of the FBC, demanded of the Committee and Senator Lee: “Show us the evidence to back the Public Policy shift in these bills!”
Several women testifiers cut-off during the hearing and interviewed afterwards noted: “These are clearly greased-skid bills directly aimed at undermining the well being of all of Florida’s mothers and children in favor of economically wealthier men. We are also very concerned about the ramifications that such an unsubstantiated public policy shift will have on Florida DCF’s ability to protect our children from unfit homes and parents. All of these unsubstantiated, improperly vetted bills are backed by groups that openly promote hatred towards women, mothers and minorities. They will have far reaching consequences if Gov. Scott does not veto each and every one of them!”
House Rules Chair Rep. Ritch Workman (R-Brevard shown with bill sponsor Sen. Kelli Stargel below at an FLR PAC fundraising event), is a strong supporter of the Family Law Reform (FLR) /Florida Alimony Reform (FAR) group and a long-time backer of their bills. Rep. Workman states that the proposed formulas for alimony in the overhaul bills are “child support-esque” and claims that Gov. Scott “wants me to bring him a bill”.
Well recognized Palm Beach divorce attorney Mr. Thomas Sasser, who has spearheaded the Florida Bar Family Law Section (FLS) Legislative Committee’s efforts and the FLS Executive Committee’s close collaboration with Rep. Workman and the Family Law Reform group; on the record states that: “It’s a complete rethinking of the way we do alimony.” And, “It’s designed in concept to allow a judge with specific written findings to deviate outside the findings, just like the child-support statute.” Opponents counter that this ‘concept’ of judicial deviation only upon ‘specific written findings’ when weighed against the limited factors in the bills, can only be realized with expensive litigation requiring the kind of attorney fees and third-party expert testimony that most women and mothers will never be able to afford.
http://www.palmbeachpost.com/news/news/lawyers-silence-golden-to-tiger-woods-in-divorce-c/nL9bY/
Unlike Florida’s child support guidelines which were developed by an appointed task force of independent experts including academia appointed by Gov. Jeb Bush; the current overhaul bills’ “child support-esque” alimony guidelines and combined child support caps have been widely criticized by legal experts as “unstudied” and “pulled out of the sky”. Esteemed jurists such as Ret. Judge Robert Evans and Ret. Judge Robert Doyel who have long participated in Florida Supreme Court child support study groups and domestic violence task forces, have joined the chorus urging Gov. Scott to reject the unstudied legislation and enlist a more rational, neutral Task Force approach. Gov. Rick Scott has not to date responded to formal requests sent to him by Florida’s largest women’s organizations, judicial experts or groups representing minorities -- all urging him to appoint a neutral, bipartisan Task Force to properly socio-economically study and vet the contentious Family Law/50-50/Alimony overhaul proposals.
Opponents highlight that the FLS legislative liaisons advocating for the legitimacy of the reforms (Mr. Nelson Diaz and Mr. Philip Wartenberg) have repeatedly testified in Committees that the FLS has ‘worked long and closely with Rep. Workman, the bill sponsors and with the “Family Law Reform" group stakeholders in drafting the bills’. Critics point to the fact that women stakeholders, however, have been conspicuously excluded and repeatedly denied a “seat at the table” not only by the legislature and but also admittedly by the FLS. They further note that women stakeholders constitute 50% of those impacted by the proposed overhaul, not including their children. When urged to support the rational formation of a neutral expert Task Force to properly study and remediate the socio-economic impact of the overhaul legislation on Florida’s women and children; Wartenberg for the FLS stated to the House Civil Justice Committee on HB455 last November that a Task Force would: “take too much time”.
Women’s advocates further point to and decry what many view to be open hate, racism and violence publically and widely promoted against women, mothers and minorities on the coordinated, high traffic social media sites of the legislation’s controversial Family Law Reform group network: Family Law Reform Inc., their registered fictitious name Florida Alimony Reform, and the First Husbands Advocacy Group under its coordinated umbrella.
According to one alarmed women’s advocate who asked that their name be withheld while pointing to an article published in the Palm Beach Post: “The FLS leadership and bill drafters as well as several bill sponsors include men who themselves economically appear to benefit from this legislation not only personally but in their practice. For example, the FLS legislative subcommittee chairman who has been instrumental in drafting and promoting these bills while collaborating with the “men’s rights” reform group is an exclusive Palm Beach attorney who represents wealthy men like Tiger Wood’s, NASCARs Jeff Gordon and that Palm Beach millionaire that murdered his fifth wife he was divorcing. In light of the extreme hate against women, mothers and homemakers spewed by this “men’s right” reform group; their powerful, personally-conflicted bill sponsors; and the Florida Bar FLS’ exclusionary alignment with them – all moms and women in Florida should be frightened to death by what is going on!”
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Note to Media and Concerned Women's and Children's Organizations– the MRA publically viewable facebook sites in this article may have been recently ‘sanitized’ and ‘cleaned up’ this week prior to the Florida House HB455 Family Law bill Judicial Committee hearing. Nevertheless, Domestic Violence and Child Protective Advocates across the state of Florida have extensive archives of recent and historical hate speech images as well as associations with Florida legislators, legally obtained substantiating documentation and hard FACTs.
