2020 Scored Bills
To view scored bills for the 2019 legislative session, click here.
To view scored bills for the 2018 legislative session, click here.
To view scored bills for the 2017 legislative session, click here.
Attack on Florida Workers
An anti-union think tank funded by an out of state billionaire came up with this latest attempt to take more power away from working people. This bill would have hurt teachers, first responders and other public employees by putting employers between public service unions and their members and ban automatic union membership renewals. The bill passed the House but wasn’t taken up by the Senate.
Blocking Bans on Dangerous Chemicals
Year after year, the leadership of the Florida Legislature takes more and more control away from local communities. After failing to get preemption passed last year that would stop local communities from regulating drugs and cosmetics sales, this year the bill was rushed through. Why? Because Key West banned the sale of sunscreens containing chemicals harmful to coral reefs, a vital part of our coastal ecosystem and economy. The bill passed the House and Senate.
Burdensome Expansion of E-Verify
This bill harms Florida's economy, burdens employers, and places employment obstacles in the path of all workers by mandating use of the error-prone E-Verify program for all new hires, including all U.S. citizens. Experts predict this law will result in thousands of qualified U.S. Citizens wrongfully denied the right to work, with no mechanism to appeal. This bill forces business owners to participate in a massive government surveillance operation, and will lead to discrimination and pose privacy and security concerns. The bill passed both the House and Senate.
Climate Change Resiliency
State Sen. Jose Javier Rodriguez has worn rain boots with the message “#ActOnClimateChangeFL” on them for years now to shine a light on the critical need to take climate change seriously in Florida. His bill this year requires studies demonstrating public construction projects will be safe from flooding caused by sea level rise. The bill passed in both chambers which marks a positive shift in attitudes about climate change in our state.
College Cronyism and Corruption Act
Florida’s university presidents control some of the largest budgets in state government. Taxpayers have a right to have the application process for these key positions take place in the sunshine. This bill would have moved Florida’s university and college presidential search and hiring process into the shadows where cronyism and corruption thrive and jeopardize the high national rankings of our universities. The bill passed the House but wasn’t voted on in the Senate.
Dignity for Incarcerated Women Act
A woman was forced to deliver her own baby in solitary confinement in a Broward County jail cell last year. And she wasn’t the first. There have been other examples across the country of women in labor in jail cells whose cries for help and dignity went unanswered. This year, the Florida Legislature unanimously passed the Tammy Jackson Act, a measure limiting the use of solitary confinement for pregnant inmates.
Expanding Aquatic Preserves
This bill creates the Nature Coast Aquatic Preserve. Extending through Pasco, Hernando, and Citrus counties, the preserve will provide protections to the largest seagrass bed in the Gulf of Mexico. According to the Pew Charitable Trusts, the preserve is a win-win for both our environment and economy. The bill received near unanimous support in both the House and Senate.
Forced Parental Consent for Abortion Care
This legislation will require young people to obtain parental consent prior to receiving an abortion. Most young people already seek the counsel of their parent or guardian when it comes to a decision like this. If they don’t, there is usually a good reason. Studies have clearly shown these policies make our most at-risk young people less safe. That is why leading health and medical professionals oppose these laws. After failing to pass this blatantly unconstitutional law last year, anti-abortion legislators pushed it through this year in order to trigger a court challenge and potentially have the strong privacy protections in our state constitution reinterpreted to no longer apply to abortion.
Growth Mismanagement Bill
This bill undermines the authority of most county governments to manage growth within their borders, threatening residents with negative impacts to the envirionment, quality of life, property values and tax bills. The bill strips away the ability of county governments to ensure rural spaces aren’t overrun by development, even if voters have explicitly voiced their support for conservation. This bill is a costly handout to big developers at the expense of our natural areas.. It passed both chambers.
Growth Mismanagement Bill II
This legislation would have exposed taxpayers and local governments to unlimited financial liability from lawsuits filed by developers. Also, the ability of smart growth advocates and organizations to participate in local development challenges would have been curtailed. The result would be more urban sprawl, poorly designed, and unsustainable developments. The bill passed the House but wasn’t taken up in the Senate.
Health Care for Children
This bill will help Florida schools access millions more in additional federal dollars for school-based health services. Recent federal policy changes allow schools to receive matching federal dollars for school-based health services provided to all Medicaid-eligible children, but state legislative action was needed to trigger this funding. The bill passed both chambers of the legislature.
Holding Polluters Accountable
This bill increases the penalties by as much as fifty percent for violating numerous environmental laws in Florida. The bill also establishes that each day until violations are resolved, by order or judgment, can be considered a separate offense. This bill passed the House and Senate unanimously.
Holocaust, Ocoee Massacre Curriculum
This bill makes Florida the first state to require school districts statewide to implement Holocaust education at public schools, and designates a certain week as"Holocaust Education Week". It also requires African-American history school curriculums incorporate information about Florida's tragic 1920 Ocoee massacre into courses, and encourages other ways to recognize massacre victims. The bill passed both houses of the Legislature unanimously.
Increased Penalties for Bear Poaching
The Humane Society and Florida Conservation Voters supported this bill to increase the penalties for bear poaching. Minimum fines would increase from $500 to $750; hunting license suspensions would increase from one to three years and would extend to 47 other states. This bill received unanimous support in the House and Senate.
Ocean Conservation Act
The shark fin trade accounts for 100 million sharks being killed annually. The practice is driving shark populations all over the world to extinction and is recognized as a critical issue for ocean conservation. While this bill was watered down before final passage, it is still a meaningful step in the right direction. The bill passed with near unanimous support in both chambers.
Parental Bill of Wrongs
This was a bill pushed by the ultra-conservative groups Alliance Defending Freedom and Focus on the Family. Passage would have dissuaded or prohibited some minors from receiving the services they need, including preventative care, wellness exams, mental health care, and reproductive health care. Further, it would disrupt school sex education, STI prevention activities, and alcohol and drug abuse treatment. This bill passed the House but wasn’t voted on in the Senate.
School Bus Passenger Safety
A 2019 study found that every day in the U.S. more than 12,000 people pass a stopped school bus endangering students at bus stops across Florida. This bill will double fines for passing a school bus displaying a stop sign and could lead to a driver’s license being suspended after a second offense. The bill passed both chambers unanimously.
Silencing Florida Voters
In the last decade, Floridians have amended the state constitution to raise the minimum wage, stop gerrymandering, fund land and water conservation, legalize medical marijuana, and restore voting rights. This, in spite of Florida already having one of the most difficult citizen-led amendment processes in the country. Unfortunately, legislative leadership in both chambers, backed by corporate special interest lobbyists, don’t want voters to be able to amend their own constitution. This bill continues an ongoing effort to mire Florida’s citizen initiative process with enough red tape to silence the voters’ voice. This attack on direct democracy passed both chambers.
Silencing Florida Voters Part II
This proposed constitutional amendment would have put another obstacle in the way of citizens having a say in our democracy. This resolution was an attempt to require citizen initiative campaigns to gather a minimum number of signatures from all 25 of the state’s U.S. House districts to qualify for the ballot, a significant financial burden for grassroots funded campaigns. The joint resolution passed the House but wasn’t taken up in the Senate.
Term Limits on Local School Boards
This was yet another attempt by the Legislature to strip control from local communities. If passed, it would have put a constitutional amendment on the 2020 ballot in an attempt to impose a “one size fits all” system of eight year term limits on all local school boards in the state. Giving the state control over local elections would have set a dangerous precedent. This joint resolution passed the House but wasn’t voted on by the full Senate.
Unaccountable Voucher Schools
Diverting millions more in tax dollars to unaccountable private voucher schools, and allowing taxpayer supported private schools to discriminate, is bad public policy that harms students. It’s particularly bad policy when public school teachers are already reaching into their own pockets for everything from art supplies to hand soap. The bill passed the House but wasn’t voted on in the Senate.