Dear Friend,
This Thursday night I returned from Tallahassee for what was our first week of Committee Meetings. Scroll down for an update of what went down in Tallahassee as we prepare for the 2022 Legislative Session.
This upcoming week is a busy one for Team Anna. Not only is Tuesday National Voter Registration Day but this Saturday will be our Orlando March for Abortion Access. Please consider joining us for these events, and keep updated via our volunteer network.
Remember: Our Legislative Updates are thorough, but will never be all encompassing. Be sure to keep up to date with us in real time via Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube.
Onward,
Rep. Anna V. Eskamani
REDISTRICTING UPDATE
Last week, the Florida Legislature began the process of redrawing the boundaries for our state’s legislative and Congressional districts.
Known as “redistricting,” this happens once every 10 years after each new Census – and it is incredibly important. The process is controlled by Republicans leaders in Tallahassee, and they have manipulated the boundaries in the past to give themselves big advantages in elections. This is one reason why, even though Florida has a roughly equal number of Democratic and Republican voters, about two-thirds of the seats in the Florida House are held by Republicans.
A decade ago Florida voters approved the “Fair Districts” constitutional amendments that are supposed to prevent the Legislature from drawing districts that favor one party or protect incumbents. But Tallahassee Republicans then worked in secret with political operatives to draw maps that did exactly that. Fortunately, the Florida Supreme Court stepped in and ruled that legislative leaders had blatantly broken the law.
Our current legislative leaders have promised to follow the Constitution this time around. They have also launched a new website that allows members of the public to explore the current maps and try drawing new boundaries themselves: www.floridaredistricting.gov. I encourage you to spend some time on the site trying it out yourself.
All of us need pay close attention to the redistricting process as it unfolds over the next few months. Unfortunately, now that Gov. Ron DeSantis has stacked the Florida Supreme Court with new conservative justices, we can’t count on the court hold the Legislature accountable this time.
It’s going to be up to us to do it instead.
FIGHTING TO PROTECT REPRODUCTIVE FREEDOM
This week House Bill 167 was filed by Republican Lawmaker Webster Barnaby. This bill would ban abortion at 6 weeks and put into place a legal mechanism to sue anyone who helps someone end a pregnancy in Florida after that time. It has very narrow exceptions, and is designed to ban all abortions in Florida since most people do not even realize they are pregnant until after 6 weeks.
It’s a Florida version of SB8 from Texas — it is disgusting, offensive, and we are ready to fight.
Last Monday we joined activists on the steps of the old Florida Capitol to rally against any and all abortion bans. You can watch my full remarks here.
I reminded those in attendance that abortion is healthcare, abortion is a private medical decision, abortion is personal — and there should be no politicians getting involved between a person and their doctor.
Be sure to join us as we fight back against this bill across the state on October 2nd. In addition to fighting back against abortion bans we also stood in solidarity with the Dignity Power in an effort to restore reproductive freedom by supporting Ava’s Law.
Protests erupted in Gainesville last August after Erica Thompson gave birth in an Alachua County Jail cell and lost her baby hours later at UF Health Shands Hospital. Her baby, Ava, is the namesake of this new proposal that would allow a person visibly pregnant and with non-violent offenses to be released back to their home with a ticket to appear in court at a later date after being booked in jail. Those who are in labor will receive emergency services and be transferred to a facility.
Finally, we filed legislation this week to eliminate the diaper tax in Florida and are hosting a diaper supply drive at our Orlando Office with local diaper banks.
STATE OF EDUCATION POLICY
During a House committee meeting Wednesday, Florida lawmakers continued looking for answers to why students went missing from the school system after the pandemic hit. Last fall there were 88,000 students missing from the classroom. The number was down to just shy of 19,000 students as of September first. Of the missing students, 2,432 were identified as truant, while the remaining 16,463 have not yet been tracked down. Read more here.
Meanwhile, the Chair of that same House Committee has also filed legislation to ban using critical race theory in training, policy or more in public schools, colleges and universities. The ban also extends to state agencies, county and municipal governments and private contractors working with the government. You can read more here. Important to stress that Critical Race Theory has NEVER been taught in our K-12 schools and is an academic theory– NOT a political ideology.
Another issue the legislature is expected to tackle this year is high stakes testing. Gov. Ron DeSantis announced last week that he wants to overhaul Florida’s standardized testing regimen in a way that drew praise from some chronic critics and pointed questions from Jeb Bush, the former Republican governor who pioneered the system DeSantis says he is dumping. The devil will be in the details, and we’re watching closely to see how this unravels via the legislature process.
ASYLUM SEEKERS AND AFGHAN REFUGEE UPDATE!
This week we stood in support with our Haitian-American colleagues to call on the Biden Administration to end Title 42 and ensure the safety and dignity of Haitian migrants seeking asylum in the United States.
It was reported on Friday that the last remaining Haitian migrants who were living in squalid conditions in makeshift encampments underneath a bridge in Del Rio, Texas, along the U.S.-Mexico border are no longer there. DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said that while migrants continue to be expelled under Title 42, some 12,400 individuals have been released or paroled into the United States and will have their cases heard by an immigration judge to determine whether they will be repatriated or permitted to remain in the United States. He did not say how many Haitians from the recent migrant surge have been released.
Just as we stand in support of our Afghan refugees we support Haitian asylum seekers searching for a better life for themselves and their families.
STATE OF FLORIDA’S CYBERSECURITY
Last year, the Florida Legislature budgeted $30 million to strengthen cybersecurity across state government – to prevent things like a recent data breach which hackers stole the personal information of nearly 60,000 unemployment insurance claimants.
Last week, we learned that the office in charge of cybersecurity still hasn’t spent a penny of that money.
That office is run by Jamie Grant, a former Republican state House member whom DeSantis made Florida’s chief information officer even though Grant had little experience or training in technology.
Grant told the House’s Government Operations Subcommittee that he hasn’t yet been able to come up with a plan for how to spend the money.
Grant told the committee that his office is severely under-staffed. About one-third of the office’s 185 positions are currently vacant, and it has lost two chief information security officers, a chief data officer, a chief operations officer and half of a new cybersecurity team just since Grant took over.
STATE OF FLORIDA PRISON SYSTEM
Like so many other public-sector workers, Florida’s corrections officers are badly underpaid – and that’s created a crisis in our prisons.
Nearly 50 prisons across the state are now critically understaffed – meaning more than 10 percent of staff positions are vacant – according to testimony last week from a deputy secretary at the Florida Department of Corrections to the House’s Criminal Justice and Public Safety Subcommittee. And 30 of those facilities have staff vacancy rates of more than 20 percent.
The correction department has already closed three prisons and dozens of other facilities, like dorms and work camps, due to the shortage of corrections officers. It’s now asking the Legislature for a budget increase that would allow to significantly raise pay across the board.
Severely understaffed prisons put both corrections officers and incarcerated people at greater risk of violence and abuse. We clearly need to pay our correction officers more. We’re never going to find enough people willing to take on such a difficult and stressful job when pay starts at $33,500 a year.
But this is also a reminder that we must continue to press forward with criminal legal system reforms that dismantle a system that unnecessarily incarcerates too many non-violent offenders – particularly low-income, Black and brown folks – and do more to help our returning citizens – doesn’t do enough to help returning citizens get back on their feet.
Workshops in Our Two Committees
Last week two of the committees I served on hosted workshops. In our Civil Justice & Property Rights Subcommittee we discussed the concept and implementation of sovereign immunity and then in Professions & Public Health Subcommittee we honed in on infant mortality and what steps the state can take to improve the health and well-being of new parents and their children. Remember, you can always watch live and re-watch committee meetings online at the Florida Channel.
CLEAN ENERGY & THE ENVIRONMENT
It’s Clean Energy Week, and we’re proud to have re-filed our 100% renewable energy goals legislation and continue to champion clean, renewable energy.
This week, it was also announced by the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) that $114 million will be used to help fund wastewater treatment efforts and improve water quality across the state. Funding is through the Wastewater Grant Program and around 46% of this year’s funding will go toward projects in the Indian River Lagoon (IRL). Nearly $37 million will go to Wekiwa Springs in Orange County, while just over $20 million will fund a project in Hillsborough County’s Gibsonton area.
When I got back to Orlando from Tallahassee I had the honor of attending the Orlando Fleet Electrification Workshop where more than 80 electric vehicles were on display and we got to hear from industry experts on the future of public transit becoming electrified.
PROPERTY INSURANCE IN FLORIDA
People across Florida are already struggling to pay expensive property insurance premiums — and the problem is getting worse.
Florida’s insurance commissioner told the Senate Banking and Insurance Committee last week his office is monitoring several insurance companies in Florida that are on the brink of insolvency, while predicting even more rate hikes and “a painful of time for our marketplace and for consumers.”
This is even though the Legislature last year passed SB 76, a bill that the insurance industry lobbied hard for that that prioritized insurance companies over consumers by giving homeowners less time to file claims and forcing state-run Citizens Property Insurance to charge even higher rates, among other changes.
Pro-industry lobbyists are already pushing for further changes, including forcing more Floridians to accept far more expensive coverage from private insurers rather than enrolling in Citizens.
Insurance is clearly a complicated issue, and it’s only getting more complicated as climate change produces more frequent and more powerful hurricanes. But whatever further changes we make during the 2022 session, I hope my colleagues in the Legislature will center our policy on helping consumers – rather than helping insurance companies.
AFFORDABLE HOUSING CRISIS
The affordable housing crisis in Florida continues to worsen and we have re-filed two bills specifically to assist with renters, while working with stakeholders to restore the affordable housing trust funds and develop new programs to support those living on the margins.
HEALTH CARE WORKERS
Amid nationwide challenges with nurse staffing during the COVID-19 pandemic, some Florida hospitals feel threatened by nursing temp agencies that recruit travel nurses for jobs out of state, oftentimes offering higher pay compared to Florida.
Hospital executives from two different committee meetings in the Florida House this week discussed challenges involving nurses leaving for travel nurse jobs in other states. And they cited overall staffing concerns even before the pandemic. Click here to read more.
However, National Nurses United, a nationwide union representing registered nurses, asserts that the hospital industry has failed to protect the health of nurses by overloading them with COVID patients. We know that this is a problem, and will be doing what we can to find solutions this session.
FLORIDA GOVERNOR ANNOUNCES NEW SURGEON GENERAL
Gov. Ron DeSantis appointed a new state surgeon general last week – with the governor choosing to make a fellow far-right Covid-denier the top public health official for our state.
Dr. Joseph Ladapo has written essays undermining public confidence in COVID-19 vaccines, opposing mask and vaccine requirements, and promoting failed treatments like hydroxychloroquine.
He was part of a fringe group of doctors who signed on to the so-called “Great Barrington Declaration” encouraging countries to allow the virus to spread more easily in order to achieve herd immunity – an idea so dangerous and inhumane that it was immediately panned by the brooder scientific community, with the leader of the World Health Organization calling the proposal “unethical.”
And even though he hasn’t yet been confirmed by the Florida Senate, Ladapo has already used his position to endorse dangerous DeSantis rules that pander to the far right at the expense of public health by trying to prevent our local school districts from requiring that students wear masks or quarantine if they are exposed to Covid.
For all this, taxpayers are going to pay Ladapo more than $500,000 a year – a $250,000 salary as surgeon general *plus* a $262,000 salary as a new faculty member at the University of Florida.
