Dear Friend,

Last week marked the halfway point of the 2023 legislative session. 

The House and Senate each passed different versions of a $113 billion budget, and the two chambers will spend the next few weeks negotiating a final spending plan. There are some good things in the budget (like full funding for arts and culture programs) and some not-so-good things, like funding for the Governor’s trafficking of asylum seekers. 

We’re going to keep fighting to make it better for everyday Floridians, like expanded access to healthcare for the 900,000-plus Floridians who are about to be kicked off Medicaid.

Some of the governor’s worst bills are about to come to a head, too. The Senate just passed DeSantis’ six-week abortion ban and we could be fighting it on the floor of the Florida House as early as this week. And now DeSantis and Tallahassee Republicans have launched yet another effort to disrupt elections and make it harder to vote – particularly for young people and communities of color. 

You can read more about those issues and more in our Week 5 recap below. Remember that you can watch hearings and floor sessions live on the Florida Channel. And be sure to follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube for extra updates in real-time as our legislative reviews will be detailed but they’ll never capture every moment of session.

We need to keep pushing back. Call your representatives and senators and urge them to oppose these terrible bills. Tell your friends and family members about what’s happening and help them get involved. And make sure you – and everyone you know – are registered to vote. 

Because in the end, voting is how we put an end to the chaos caused by Tallahassee. 

Onward,

Rep. Eskamani

House and Senate pass $113 billion budgets

Our own constitutional responsibility as State Lawmakers is to pass a balanced budget, and right now we are in the middle of that process. As mentioned earlier, there are some good things in the budget and some not-so-good things in the budget. Arts and culture funding is on a strong path; see below for the current allocations between the House and Senate. 

We also see increase for state employee salaries, funding going towards water restoration and resiliency projects, along with Florida Forever, and additional funding for APD that will remove over 1,000 Floridians from the waitlist (though the waitlist has 22,000 people on it). We see no increases for the mental health allocation for our public schools, and a new FEFP formula that we are still analyzing to understand its full impact. Read more here, and see some of the disagreement between both chambers here too.

We tried to make one change on the House floor. Rep. Dotie Joseph (D-North Miami) sponsored an amendment to take $12 million that House leaders put into the budget for Ron DeSantis’ ridiculous and inhumane migrant-kidnapping program and use that money instead for Hurricane Ian and Nicole recovery programs 

This is $12 million that DeSantis wants to waste on politically motivated photo ops that do nothing but feed hostility toward immigrant communities – all so he can pretend to be tough on Fox News. 

Meanwhile, Floridians all across the state are still struggling to rebuild after the devastation of last year’s hurricanes. We should be helping them instead of demonizing immigrants. 

Unfortunately, Republicans rejected this amendment. You can watch my debate on this amendment below:

A last-second voter-suppression bill 

Less than 24 hours after revealing it to the public, the Florida Senate began moving a 98-page election bill last week that is yet another attempt by Tallahassee Republicans to disrupt elections and suppress voter turnout. 

Senate Bill 7050 would prevent first-time voters from voting by mail. It would make it harder for groups to register voters by imposing burdensome restrictions that serve no purpose other than to make voter registration more difficult. It tries to interfere with Souls-to-the-Polls early-voting drives, which are especially popular with Black voters. It makes voter-registration forms more confusing and attempts to scare some people out of voting at all. 

It would even allow the governor and members of the Legislature to hide the identities of their campaign contributors from the public for longer periods of time. 

The voter-suppression bill passed the Senate Ethics and Elections Committee by a 6-3 vote. It’s clearly on the fast track in Tallahassee. 

The Senate passes a near-total abortion ban 

Florida is one step closer to passing a near-total ban on abortions. 

The Florida Senate last week approved a six-week abortion ban on a 26-13 vote. Two Republicans joined Democrats in opposing it: Sens. Alexis Calatayud (R-Miami) and Corey Simon (R-Tallahassee).

Click here to see how every senator voted. 

This bill (Senate Bill 300) will be devastating to abortion access – not just in Florida but throughout the southeastern United States where so many other states have already made abortions all-but-impossible to accept. But Gov. Ron DeSantis has made banning abortion one of his top priorities this session, because he needs to prove he is extreme enough for far-right Trump voters in the Republican presidential primary. 

The fight now turns to the Florida House. It could happen as early as this week. 

I discussed this dangerous abortion ban during a gaggle with reporters after a day in session last week. Watch my comments below:

An extremist judge in Texas just made the worst anti-abortion ruling since Dobbs

In case you need a reminder that our healthcare rights are under attack by extremist Republicans across the country: Even as Ron DeSantis tries to ban abortions in Florida, a federal judge in Texas just issued a ruling that seeks to restrict access to one of the two drugs typically used to induce a medicated abortion. 

The decision could impact 40 million women nationwide, making it the most consequential legal ruling since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.

The judge ruled that the Food and Drug Administration’s initial authorization of the abortion pill Mifepristone was improper and has suspended the pill’s FDA approval. The ruling will take effect in 7 days if not stayed by the 5th circuit or SCOTUS.

Read my full statement on the ruling here.

Senators sign off on Ron DeSantis’ New College takeover

The Florida Legislature continues to consent to each and every one of Gov. Ron DeSantis’ power grabs, no matter how corrupt they may be. 

The latest example came last week when the Senate’s Education Postsecondary Committee approved the slate of far-right ideologues and economic grifters that the DeSantis recently put in charge of New College of Florida – the same group of appointees who have already handed lucrative jobs to two former lawmakers and the wife of a current lawmaker. 

Also, let’s not forget that New College of Florida is a *public* university. Yet DeSantis repeated again last week that he wants to force New College to become “a little Hillsdale” – a reference to Hillsdale College, a *private* far-right religious school in Michigan. 

DeSantis vows more performative attacks on Disney

Working families across Florida are struggling to afford their property insurance or their rent, schools can’t find enough teachers and universities are losing students to other states – yet Ron DeSantis continues to spend all this time trying to fight with Disney. 

The latest chapter in this sad, dumb story came this week when DeSantis – who is angry because Disney outsmarted him and his effort to put the company under his thumb – said that he’s going to look at raising tolls and taxes on tourists.

That’s right. DeSantis is willing to damage the tourism industry all because he is determined to punish Disney. 

If Ron DeSantis really wants to be tough on Disney, there’s an easy way he can do it: Support combined reporting, which would close the corporate tax loopholes that Disney and other giant corporations use to dodge Florida taxes. 

Sen. Geraldine Thompson (D-Orlando) and I already have bills to require corporations to use combined reporting (House Bill 769 and Senate Bill 1144). We would welcome the governor’s support if he ever decides to actually be serious about corporate accountability.

Let’s demand corporate tax transparency

Unlike the governor, some of us really are committed to corporate accountability and tax fairness. That’s why I and 18 other lawmakers sent a letter to the Florida Department of Revenue seeking important data about corporate taxes in Florida. 

These data will reveal more details about how many of the world’s largest corporations are avoiding taxes entirely in Florida – and how many of them are doing so by using the loopholes that combined reporting would close. 

You can read the letter – and see the data we’re asking for – here. 

Now pride parades are under attack, too

The Florida Senate gave preliminary approval last week to Senate Bill 1438, the bill that tries to cancel drag shows by threatening punishment on businesses that host drag events with children present. 

Republican lawmakers love to claim they support “parent’s rights” when it comes to banning books about Black history or with LGTBQ+ characters. But now they want to deny parents the right to choose whether their children can drag events – all because some Republican lawmakers want to deny LGBTQ+ people exist at all.

Making this bill even worse, the Senate rewrote on the Senate floor to try and prevent drag performers from participating in public events like Pride parades.

We expect this bill to pass the full Senate this week and then come to the House. 

DeSantis signs dangerous gun-violence legislation

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ entire focus this session has been on racking far-right policy that might play well with Trump voters in a Republican presidential primary. And most Republican lawmakers are completely unresponsive to anybody but their right-wing supporters because they represent badly gerrymandered political districts that protect them from any real electoral competition. 

The result is an extremist agenda in Tallahassee – banning abortions, forcing LGBTQ+ folks back into the closet, giving money away the the super rich and big corporations – all of this is deeply unpopular with most Florida voters. 

Maybe that’s why Ron DeSantis went into hiding again last week when – one week after yet another school mass shooting, this time in Tennessee – to sign a dangerous gun bill that will allow people in Florida to carry concealed guns without a permit or safety training. 

ICYMI: Why 900,000 Floridians are about to lose Medicaid & what you need to know

Almost a quarter of Florida residents — some 5.5 million people — pay for medical treatment through Medicaid, a federal government program for low-income families. But close to a million of those could be thrown off the program over the coming year as the state has begun the first purge of its Medicaid rolls since the start of the pandemic in 2020.

We recently prepared a Q&A about why this is happening, how to find out if you’re impacted and where to go for more information. 

Read our Q&A here.

Team Anna: Always hustlin’

Team Anna is always hustlin’, even when we’re in session and navigating committee hearings and marathon floor sessions. Here are some of the groups we meet with, rallies we joined and events we attended this past week.