Dear Friend,
There are just two weeks to go in Florida’s 2021 Legislative Session! And like every Monday, we’re sending you an email review of what we’ve been up to in Tallahassee. (Click here for last week’s review).
Also, if you’re not doing so already, please consider keeping up to date with us through our social media accounts, including Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. You can also watch Committee Meetings and Floor Sessions live on the Florida Channel.
Onward together,
Rep. Anna V. Eskamani
UPDATED COVID19 GUIDE
Up first, as always: The latest version of our COVID-19 Guide (español), along with our Unemployment Issues blog post and our guidance for renters. If you are facing issues with your unemployment claim, please fill out our DEO escalation form here.
COVID-19 Vaccine News and Updates
All Florida residents are now eligible to receive any COVID-19 vaccine as prescribed by the Food and Drug Administration. The Pfizer vaccine is authorized for persons age 16 and up. The Moderna and Janssen (Johnson and Johnson) vaccines are authorized for persons age 18 and up but the Johnson and Johnson vaccine is temporarily unavailable due to CDC concerns. Note that all individuals under the age of 18 receiving a vaccine must be accompanied by a guardian and complete the COVID-19 vaccine screening and consent form. To download a copy of the form, click here.
Orange County officials say they expect demand for the shots to be high over the next three to four weeks, so you’re encouraged to pre-register at ocfl.net/vaccine.
In other news, YouTube removed video of a March 18 roundtable discussion with DeSantis and questionable health “experts” because the speakers had said face masks were unnecessary for children. Three of those experts, former Trump administration pandemic adviser Scott Atlas, Harvard Medical School professor Martin Kulldorff and Stanford University Professor Jay Bhattacharya, joined DeSantis again over video to blast the online video site on Monday for censorship.
This attack is part of a bigger war DeSantis and other Republicans are waging against social media giants, including Facebook and Twitter, contending they discriminate against conservatives. Ironically, when it comes to censoring opinions that are different than his own, the Governor immediately censors people and today at 10:00am DeSantis will be signing HB1 into law. Here’s a video of me making that point to a local media outlet too.
When it comes to unemployment benefits, Governor DeSantis stated last week that we don’t need to increase the measly $275 a week that families are supposed to survive off of. He added: “Our unemployment is what it is. It’s fine.”
I disagree — they’re not fine. And what was most telling about the Governor’s point is that he has always shifted blame for the unemployment system to his predecessor. This was a moment when it was clear to me that he actually does not care about the unemployment system and is fine with the way things are. Nevertheless, we’ll keep fighting for a system that supports you.
Last week we also saw new concerns around the Governor’s commitment (or lack thereof) to data transparency.
Weeks after Channel 9 first requested records providing a breakdown of COVID-19 vaccination numbers by ZIP code, Orange County finally turned over some of the data. We have been asking for this data via our legislative office too, and vaccination rates by zip code are posted publicly in Connecticut, Arizona, Texas, Virginia, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New York City, Los Angeles County, Chicago and Washington, D.C.
After Orange County released the records, the state turned around and cut off the county’s access to the Florida Department of Health database. “Orange County was advised that our access to the DOH database has been terminated as a result of our disclosing the requested information,” said Assistant County Attorney Sawsan Mohiuddin.
Gov. Ron DeSantis responded directly to Channel 9 on Friday about this DOH data cut off but could not answer the question, saying “only certain issues get to my desk.” That makes no sense, and speaks once more to the state’s efforts to censor COVID19 data.
A Message to Our Transgender Girls and Women
I was on the House floor last week, and I was angry.
The House was about to pass HB 1475, one of the worst political attacks on the LGBTQ+ community that we’ve seen in recent years. It would isolate and ostracize transgender girls by making it illegal for them to participate in girl’s sports at their school.
I was so fed up with hearing from my Republican colleagues who claimed this bill was somehow about “protecting” women’s sports. So I let them know it.
This was sick political exploitation of a marginalized community. This was a group of politicians — mostly white, mostly men, all cis gender — cynically choosing to harm transgender kids solely to rally their political base and further their own political careers.
You want to protect women’s sports? Then let’s address sexual assault or the gender gaps in everything from quality of facilities to pay to media coverage.
As I said on the House floor to all the cis gender supporters of this bill claiming it doesn’t further marginalize transgender, this is no different than white people who tell Black people that racism doesn’t exist.
You can watch my full debate here. The Senate hasn’t yet passed this ugly, callous and destructive piece of legislation, so we still have to fight it with everything we’ve got. Read more here.
But I want to end this section with a message to all transgender Floridians — but especially my transgender sisters: You are not alone. You matter. You should be able to live your dreams and be true to who you are in everything you do, including sports. And I promise to keep fighting like hell so you can.
Putting a Stop to Tax Breaks for Big Corporations
In more encouraging news, here’s more proof that grassroots pressure works: The House Ways & Means Committee rejected some awful corporate tax breaks last week!
For months, corporate lobbyists have been pressing lawmakers to adopt the same federal corporate tax breaks that former President Donald Trump and Congress passed last year as part of the CARES Act in March and the December COVID-19. Essentially, corporations wanted us to give them extra state tax breaks on top of the federal tax breaks they already got.
These included some truly awful and unnecessary giveaways — like the “three-martini lunch tax break” that Trump got Congress to pass for executives using their corporate accounts at high-end steak houses and luxury hotels. And if we’d adopted them here in Florida, it would have cost us more than $250 million last year.
And remember: That $250 million would have gone to only the very biggest businesses in the world: Companies Amazon and Apple and Disney and Publix. That’s because Florida’s corporate income tax is already so weak and loophole-ridden that only 1 percent of businesses have to pay any state income tax at all.
I wrote an explainer about this on Twitter — with a little help from “Schitt’s Creek.”
Luckily, the House Ways & Means Committee, where I serve as ranking Democrat, sided with everyday Floridians last week by passing HB 7059, which rejects these unnecessary giveaways that would have robbed a quarter of a billion dollars from vital services like public schools and healthcare. The Amazons and Disneys of the world will still get the federal tax breaks that Trump gave them, but they won’t get any extra money from us!
This is more proof that advocacy works! And we need to keep it up, because the Florida Senate is moving a their own tax packages. We’ll also be keeping an eye out for any amendments that try to sneak these tax breaks through at the last-minute.
A Tax Package That’s Not Great — But Not Nearly As Bad As It Could Have Been
The Florida House also introduced its annual “tax package” last week.
Just by way of background, every year the Legislature passes a tax package. And it usually includes sales tax holidays on back-to-school and hurricane-preparedness holidays — plus a whole bunch of special interest-driven giveaways to politically connected companies like Disney.
This year’s tax package follows the same playbook. But, honestly, it’s not nearly as egregious as it could have been.
There are definitely some things I don’t like — like a $10 million property tax break for a Norwegian company that built a salmon farm in Miami and a $2 million tax break meant to help a company called Palm Beach Aggregates that’s partially owned by sugar giant Florida Crystals.
I also don’t like that we don’t do anything to ensure that the savings from sales-tax holidays actually go to consumers — rather than stores that charge higher prices during these tax-free periods than they otherwise would.
But companies like Florida Power & Light, Hertz, Comcast and Zillow are all trying to get their own tax breaks this session, and none of those are in the bill. And I’m also appreciative of the fact that there was at least some effort to address parts of our economy hit hardest by the pandemic, like a sales-tax holiday for things like concert tickets, movie tickets and gym memberships.
I actually tried to add one tax break to the package: A sales-tax exemption for diapers. Diapers are such a big expense for all parents, and getting rid of the sales tax would save a little money for all of our moms and dads.
Sales tax is also a brutally regressive tax — lower-income folks have to spend a larger share of their money on sales tax than weather people — so exempting a basic household cost like diapers would help reduce that regressiveness, at least a bit.
Unfortunately, a diaper sales-tax exemption would cost more than $60 million a year — and Republican legislative leaders have decided that they don’t want to pay that price this year. But I promise that we’ll keep pushing this because I know that there are a lot of members on both sides of the aisle who want to see this happen.
You can watch my presentation on this amendment here.
Making Corporations Pay Their Fair Share
One last tax item this week, from you Ways & Means queen! 😉
I tried to make one other amendment to the tax package last week: Requiring corporations to pay their taxes via something called “combined reporting.”
It may sound complicated, but it’s not. What we’re talking about is switching from an outdated system that Florida currently uses, which allows big corporations to dodge taxes by shifting profits to tax-haven states like Delaware, to a new system that closes these loopholes.
I explained the concept to my fellow members on the Ways & Means Committee and we ended up having a really good discussion about it. In fact, the chairman of the committee even said he’s interesting in holding a workshop on combined reporting. That’s progress!
I hope you’ll take a moment to watch my explanation of combined reporting here — there’s even an “Eskamadness” reference!
Empowering Survivors of Sexual Assault
In another bit of good news, the Florida House last week passed HB 673 to support survivors of sexual assault.
The legislation, which I’m proud to co-sponsor, would empower sexual assault survivors by requiring the Florida Department of Law Enforcement to create a new statewide database — accessible to sexual assault survivors — that tracks the location and status of rape kits from collection to processing to storage. It’s known as “Gail’s Law,” for a survivor whose rape kit was left untested for more than 30 years.
Here’s my debate on the bill. It passed the House by an unanimous 118-0 vote, which is a testament to the hard work of the bill sponsor, Rep. Emily Slosberg (D-Boca Raton).
It now goes to the Florida Senate, where hopefully we’ll get this approved before session ends on April 30.
The Legislature is on the Attack — Against Working People
Republicans in the Florida Legislature are once again attacking working men and women by trying to undermine unions.
Democrats on the House State Affairs Committee did a great job last week of exposing the intent and hypocrisy behind HB 835 & HB 947, whose sole purpose is to make it harder for unions to negotiate for higher pay, more healthcare coverage and better working conditions for their members.
Among other things, the legislation would add unnecessary bureaucratic red tape by prohibiting some — but not all — public-sector unions from automatically deducting dues from paychecks.
The goal is to make it harder for unions to collect dues — and, of course, tilt the negotiating scales even further in favor of anti-union politicians and their big corporate campaign contributors.
In a cynical attempt to divide and conquer, Republicans would let police and firefighter unions continue automatically deducting dues.
We are stronger together — that’s why unions exist in the first place. Republicans and corporations know that, which is why they’re working so hard to split us apart.
This bill now heads to the House floor where those of use who actually care about improving lives for front-line workers will be waiting to go to battle against it.
DeSantis Gets his Disgraceful Anti-Protest Bill
I’m sorry to report that HB 1 — the anti-democratic, unconstitutional attack on the right to protest that’s a Republican retaliation against the Black Lives Matter movement — passed the Legislature last week.
Senate President Wilton Simpson was waiting to pass this terrible bill until he got a commitment from House Speaker Chris Sprowls and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis to pass a different terrible (SB 88). That bill would protect Big Sugar from facing any consequences for all the health problems caused when it does mass burning in its sugarcane fields.
Simpson apparently got his promise, because the Senate passed HB 1 last week by a 23-17 vote. One Republican, Sen. Jeff Brandes (R-St. Petersburg), joined every Senate Democrat in opposing it.
This bill now goes to the governor, who will sign it today because he cares more about pandering to white nationalists who might support his future presidential campaign than he does about actually improving the lives and safety of all Floridians.
This fight ain’t over.
In other news, there have been efforts in the Florida House for a few months now to craft a bipartisan law enforcement reform package. Over the course of one week, lawmakers have prepared a bill to prevent excessive use of force by police officers for consideration on the House floor. You can read more here. The legislation also creates the “Kaia Rolle Act,” which would prevent children younger than 7 from being arrested or charged with crimes that aren’t forcible felonies — we filed this bill last year, but with the age limit of 12 versus 7.
Piney Point: What Happens When We Privatize Environmental Protection
We’re learning more about the irresponsible management and oversight of the former Piney Point phosphate plant, where officials released millions of gallons of polluted process water into Tampa Bay earlier this month in order to avoid catastrophic failure and flood.
The Tampa Bay Times published a must-read report this weekend that reveals how Florida’s Republican leaders — and the “regulators” they put in charge of protecting our environment — ended up putting a group of New York investors looking to turn an easy profit in charge of one of the state’s biggest environmental risks.
And then they ignored red flags and continued to put off permanent solutions for years.
I encourage you to read the entire story. It shows just what happens when we privatize environmental protection and elevate easy profits for companies over public health. Piney Point is just one of 25 of tainted gypstacks around Florida and it’s long pastime hold the phosphate industry accountable for the mess it’s left behind.
On the other side of Florida, 649 manatees have been found dead off Indian River Lagoon from Jan. 1 and April 9, compared to 637 in all of 2020, according to the latest Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission data. Biologists believe many are starving from a lack of seagrass. Read more here.
Last week we thanked Representative Joy Goff-Marcil for helping to deliver jars of mucky Indian River Lagoon water to show other lawmakers how serious the situation is.
Update On Education Policy
As the Tampa Bay Times reports, the GOP-dominated Florida Legislature continued to drive its priority legislation on education issues toward adoption — but not without vocal opposition. Bills on vouchers, Bright Futures and budgets all advanced through their latest stops, some with added changes. You can read more here.
The latest budget offer from the House PreK-12 Appropriations Subcommittee doesn’t include the Governor’s request because lawmakers are saving American Rescue Plan funding considerations for the next phase of budget talks. However, Chair Randy Fine on Sunday appeared to suggest that teacher bonuses were unnecessary.
“We just thought there were other things that could be done with that money other than giving teachers bonuses,” Fine said. Read more here.
Scenes from Week 7
Here are a few more scenes from last week!
ANNA IN THE NEWS
Florida lawmakers to corporations: Give us your money, and shut your mouths | Commentary
DeSantis says $275 a week for unemployment is just fine. No increase needed
Florida Passes Bill Forcing Some Girls To Undergo Genital Inspections To Play Sports
DEO putting holds on unemployment benefits for those who have been incarcerated
Florida House votes to ban transgender females from girls’, women’s school sports
Bill heading to Governor DeSantis’ desk may cut affordable housing trust funds
Young Florida lawmakers use social media to reach constituents
House passes drinks-to-go bill, orders another round for the Senate
NCAA warns it will pull Florida championships if sports transgender bill is approved
Florida’s flawed unemployment website goes down again Thursday
UPCOMING EVENTS
Join us virtually at the Florida State Capitol for a deep dive into the final fights and goals for this session. From unemployment and small business relief to civil rights and local control, we will touch on it all. In these final days of Session, learn how you can keep up with the process and hold lawmakers accountable to the People’s Priorities! RSVP here.
