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.