2019 Scored Bills

According to the ACLU of Florida: "this legislation will force all local law enforcement to blindly carry out unlawful and unreliable “detainer” requests issued by federal immigration agents against Florida residents, including U.S. Citizens and lawful permanent residents, regardless of whether the individual has committed any crime. Legislators chose to undermine the right to due process and equal treatment for Floridians by passing this bill, which will create a statewide environment of fear among immigrant communities and result in more immigrant parents being torn away from their children." The bill passed on a party line vote in the House and Senate.

Up until now, Floridians have been able to use the citizen initiative process as a check on the power of entrenched special interest groups that control the state legislature. In the last decade alone, Floridians have amended the constitution to stop gerrymandering, fund land and water conservation, legalize medical marijuana, and restore voting rights. In response, powerful special interests strongly pushed for HB 5, which may make it nearly impossible for citizens to get proposed amendments to Florida’s constitution on the ballot. Florida already has one of the most difficult amendment processes in the country. The bill was rushed through in the waning hours and passed on a party line vote in the House and Senate.

Big Tobacco is back. HB 1299 takes away local governments’ authority to regulate cigarettes and other tobacco products. The bill goes one step further and eliminates existing local rules as well. As the Florida Phoenix reported, “For instance, Tallahassee prohibits tobacco companies from offering samples within two blocks of playgrounds, schools, colleges and fraternity houses. Orlando bans tobacco advertising on transit benches or shelters. Jacksonville prohibits tobacco signs at athletic fields.” By eliminating these rules, Big Tobacco is better able to push its toxic and deadly product. The bill passed on party lines in the House.

This bill makes a number of changes to Florida’s justice system in an effort to make it more fair and cost-effective. Broader and bolder reform is still needed, but HB 7125 makes several positive changes, including provisions to make it easier for formerly incarcerated Floridians to re-enter society, removing occupational licensing restrictions on returning citizens, and increases the threshold for what constitutes a felony theft (a standard Florida hasn’t updated since 1986.) The bill passed unanimously in the House and near-unanimously in the Senate.

In response to the Florida Legislature’s chronic underfunding of traditional public schools, many counties have passed voter-approved measures to increase local property taxes to pay for important programs like art, music, and vocational training. HB 7123, a long list of good and bad changes to Florida’s tax code, notably requires local school districts to share revenue from any future school funding referendum with charter schools. The bill passed on a mostly party line vote in the House and Senate.

This bill expands the so-called “school guardian” program, to allow the arming of public school teachers. Adding guns into a school environment puts Florida’s students and public school staff in danger. Floridians deserve real solutions to address the epidemic of gun violence in our state, including universal background checks and a ban on assault weapons. The bill passed on a party line vote in the House and Senate.

This bill removes an important rule requiring new hospitals receive a “Certificate of Need” (CON) from the state of Florida in order for a new hospital to be built or for an existing hospital to add new services. The CON system has helped ensure new hospitals don’t end up concentrating in specialty services and procedures, which are more financially lucrative, while effectively pushing low income patients elsewhere. While hospital monopolies have abused the CON system, rules could have been put in place to require new hospitals meet certain standards, such as charity care and care for Medicare and Medicaid patients, but these were not included in the final bill. The health care landscape in Florida could become more unfair and inequitable as a result. The bill passed on party lines in the House and Senate.

There has been a longstanding consensus, backed by the Centers For Disease Control, that providing clean needles to addicts can prevent the spread of diseases like HIV. In 2016, the legislature authorized a pilot needle exchange program in Miami-Dade County. SB 366 now authorizes these locally-led needle exchange programs statewide, and counties can now voluntarily create them. The bill passed with near-unanimous support in the House and unanimous support in the Senate.

Proposed new charter schools have had to receive approval by the elected school board in a community in which they wished to establish a new school. This process is in line with the Florida Constitution, which states that school boards, “shall operate, control and supervise all free public schools within the school district.” However, this bill creates a new process that allows charter school operators to go around elected school boards and be approved by a local college or university. This is yet another attack on local public schools. The bill passed on a mostly party line vote in the House.

After nearly 65 percent of Florida voters passed Amendment 4 to restore the right to vote to 1.4 million individuals with prior felony convictions – legislative leadership pushed this anti-voting rights bill through, denying voting rights to hundreds of thousands of Floridians. By making restoration of voting rights contingent upon full payment of all civil financial obligations after completion of one’s criminal sentence including probation and parole, the legislature enacted what is in essence a poll tax and conditioned an individual’s right to vote on their ability to pay. The bill passed on a party line vote in the House and Senate.