Dear Friend,

I’m not going to sugarcoat it: Last week was a tough one. 

Week six of the 2023 session saw the passage of a near-total ban on abortion in the state of Florida – which Gov. Ron DeSantis then cowardly signed behind closed doors and in the dark of night. 

We fought like hell to stop it: Democrats in the Florida House filed more than 50 amendments to delay, derail or dilute a law that should be known as the “Forced Pregnancy Act.” But now we turn our attention to helping women and pregnant people navigate a world where they have been stripped of their fundamental rights in Florida, and helping them find other ways to access safe and legal abortions. Please remember to support abortion funds. You can learn more here.

And we still have some big battles ahead in Tallahassee. Republican leaders in the House and Senate are still forcing bills through the process that would ban more books, endanger LGBTQ+ community, disempower public-sector workers, strip rights from renters and attack academic freedom in colleges and universities. 

All of this is being done in pathetic service of a governor who is desperate to “out-Trump” Trump (even though, as I told CNN’s Jim Acosta this weekend, you can’t out-Trump Trump until you’ve been indicted and led an insurrection). 

We’re going to keep everything we can to delay, amend or destroy as much of this dystopian agenda as we can during the final three weeks of session. 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.

Onward,

Rep. Anna V. Eskamani

Behind closed doors, DeSantis bans abortion

Waiting until almost midnight and hiding behind closed doors, Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a near-total ban on abortion on Wednesday that will deny critical healthcare and bodily autonomy to women and pregnant people in Florida – as well as across the entire southeastern United States, where Florida had been one of the few remaining states to turn to for a safe and legal abortion. 

This is among the most extreme anti-abortion laws our country has ever seen: It bans abortions after just six weeks – before many women even know they are pregnant. And while DeSantis will claim that his abortion ban includes exceptions for victims of rape, incest and human trafficking, the reality is that they require people to go jump through so many onerous and invasive hoops that they may as well not exist at all. And even if they do navigate those hurdles, they won’t be able to find abortion providers who will be forced to leave the state because of this ban.

Democrats in the Florida House fought like hell to protect reproductive freedom. We filed more than 50 amendments – Republicans rejected every single one of them.

Nine Republican members of the House crossed party lines to vote against this bill (Senate Bill 300). Click here to see how every House member voted. Two Republican senators also voted against it. Click here to see how every senator voted. 

Before this bill passed, I tried to give it an accurate name: “The Forced Pregnancy Act.” Republicans rejected that, too. But they know that’s what this really is – and they know that the vast majority of voters, both here in Florida and across the country, oppose abortion bans. That’s why DeSantis went into hiding when he signed it. 

But we will make sure that everyone knows exactly who is responsible for this extremist attack on women and pregnant people. 

You can watch my debate against the DeSantis abortion ban here: 

Legislature makes it easier to execute people

Another bill sent to the governor last week will make it easier for juries to impose the death sentence on people. 

The legislation (Senate Bill 450) would repeal a Florida law that requires juries to unanimously agree before recommending a sentence of death and instead allow juries to recommend death sentences if at least 8 of 12 jurors agree. 

The bill passed the Florida House on an 80-30 vote and the Senate on a 29-10 vote. I voted no. Click here to see how every House member voted and click here to see how every senator voted. This bill now goes to Gov. Ron DeSantis, who is expected to sign it into law.

The House also passed another bill that would institute death penalties for people convicted of sexual assault on a young child. This will almost certainly face an immediate challenge under the U.S. Constitution. 

The House passed the bill on a 95-14 vote, though it has not yet passed the Senate. I voted no. Click here to see how every House member voted. 

The Senate passes a bill to cancel pride parades and drag shows

The Florida Senate passed a bill that tries to demonize drag shows, by forbidding parents from allowing their children to attend drag events and threatening penalties on restaurants and other venues that host them. 

The bigoted bill has been broadened to target local governments that allow pride parades in public spaces, too. 

The Senate passed Senate Bill 1438 on a 28-10 vote. It has not yet passed the House. Click here to see how every senator voted.

Republican lawmaker goes on unhinged transphobic tirade; calls trans people ‘mutants living among us’ and ‘demons and imps’

The cancel drag queens bill is part of a package of bills moving this session, pushed primarily by Gov. Ron DeSantis and some other far-right legislators that are meant to enflame hostility against LGBTQ+ Floridians. 

And everybody in Florida got a crystal clear view of this last week, when Rep. Webster Barnaby (R-Deltona) went on an absolutely unhinged and utterly disgusting rant against transgender Floridians during a hearing on House Bill 1521 – another hateful bill that would criminalize trans folks who use the bathrooms that correspond with their gender identity. 

After a group of brave trans folks testified about the dangers of the bill, Barnaby disgustingly likened them to “mutants living among us.”

“The Lord rebuke you, Satan, and all your demons and all of your imps who come parade before us,” Barnaby said in his transphobic tirade. “That’s right: I called you demons and imps who come and parade before us and pretend that you are part of this world.”

But for as disgusting as Barnaby’s behavior was, it’s even worse that Republican leaders in the Florida House refused to condemn it. 

We’re a step closer to permanently cutting taxes on diapers and incontinence products

In better news, the Florida House unveiled a $1.4 billion package of proposed tax cuts last week that is geared primarily to helping everyday Floridians. 

I serve as the ranking member of the House Ways & Means Committee, which is in charge of tax policy, and one of my missions over the past four years has been to persuade my colleagues to stop cutting taxes for big corporations and instead focus our resources on tax cuts that save money for real people. 

And it’s working! I’m proud to say that this tax package includes my idea to permanently eliminate sales taxes on both baby diapers and adult incontinence products. It also avoids any major corporate tax cuts, despite lobbying by giant corporations like Bud Light manufacturer Anheuser-Busch. 

I don’t like everything in this tax package (House Bill 7063). But it is so much better than the types of tax packages that Gov. Ron DeSantis and the Florida Legislature were passing when I first got to Tallahassee, where the vast majority of tax savings always flowed to the very biggest businesses. 

And even some of the tax breaks I don’t personally agree with in this tax package have at least included some of my policy recommendations – like caps on the amount any one taxpayer can claim and sunset requirements that will ensure these breaks don’t become permanent “silent spending” baked directly into our tax code. 

We know there are lots of lobbyists out there trying to stuff more special-interest tax breaks into this bill. We’ll be watching – and we’ll call it out wherever we see it.

Ron DeSantis wants to hide where he travels and who he meets with

Committees in both the House and Senate advanced some terrible, anti-transparency bills last week that would allow Gov. Ron DeSantis to hide where he travels and who he meets with.

The bills (House Bill 1495 and Senate Bill 1616) would exempt everything from travel records to Governor’s Mansion visitor logs from Florida’s public-records law. And this exemption would apply to all records past, present and future. 

What a coincidence that these bills are surfacing just as DeSantis is about to launch his campaign for president.

Attacks on workers, tenants and academic freedom keep moving forward 

Unfortunately, some really bad bills keep moving forward.

The House State Affairs Committee passed House Bill 1445, the union-busting bill that tries to break the collective bargaining power of most public-sector workers – including teachers, nurses, 911 dispatchers, utility line workers and so many more. The Legislature has repeatedly killed this bill in the past, but now Gov. Ron DeSantis is demanding it to appease some of the billionaire donors he’s hoping will finance his campaign for president.

The House Judiciary Committee last week approved House Bill 1417, which would undo all the protections renters have gained from local governments in recent years – such as local laws requiring landlords to give tenants more notice before raising the rent or forbidding apartments from discriminating against renters on housing assistance. This is a huge priority of the Florida Apartment Association, a lobbying group for corporate landlords like Camden and Concord Rents.

And the Senate Education Appropriations Committee approved Senate Bill 266, which is Gov. DeSantis’ attempt to impose more political control on our state’s universities and colleges. Among other things, the Senate version of the bill would undermine important academic freedom protections for professors. 

The House version of the bill (House Bill 999) goes even further, even trying to eliminate women’s and gender studies programs. But both of these pieces of legislation are unconstitutional trash.

All three of these will be some of the biggest fights in the final three weeks of session. 

In support of a free Iran

As the first Iranian-American elected to any office in Florida, I’m proud to sponsor a memorial this session expressing solidarity with the brave women and other demonstrators in Iran who are defying the authoritarian regime and calling for a free and democratically elected government. 

My resolution (House Memorial 531), which also calls on Congress to stand in support of the fight for freedom in Iran, unanimously passed the House State Affairs Committee last week. I’m grateful to all my colleagues, Republican and Democrat, for supporting it.

The House and Senate leaders might cut funding for Bright Futures scholarships 

There is a bill moving quickly through the Legislature this spring that could cut millions from the state education fund that pays for Bright Futures scholarships – all so that we can give more money to big retail chains like Publix, Walmart, 7-Eleven and Circle K. 

The bills (House Bill 715 and Senate Bill 1488) would force the Florida Lottery to pay higher commissions to stores that sell lottery tickets. The Lottery typically pays stores 5 percent for every ticket they sell; these bills would raise that commission to 6 percent. 

Profits from the Lottery go into the state’s Educational Enhancement Trust Fund – which pays for Bright Futures scholarships and other important educational needs. Nonpartisan economists who have studied this legislation say it will cut transfers to the education trust fund by at least $37 million a year – and potentially much more than that. 

And yet, not a single supporter in the House and Senate have said how they will they avoid these education funding cuts. 

The House version of this bill was approved last week by the House State Administration & Technology Appropriations Subcommittee. 

And it’s up for another hearing Monday afternoon in the House Commerce Committee.

The week in pictures

We’re still squeezing in as many meetings, events and rallies as we can, even as we’re spending more and more time on the House floor as we get closer to the end of session. Here’s a look at some of what we were up to last week: