Dear Friend,

It’s finally over.

This was the session from hell when it comes to the personal freedoms that Floridians hold so dear – like access to abortion, LGBTQ+ equality, immigrant rights and collective bargaining. 

We did see success with Florida’s state budget, including securing funding for important causes around Central Florida and establishing a permanent tax cut on children’s diapers and adult incontinence products. We also stopped new corporate tax giveaways from becoming law, and prevented what would have been the canceling of certain majors and minors in Florida’s universities and colleges.

Below, you’ll find a fuller recap of bills that passed during the final week. I hope you’ll find it helpful. We’ll have much more to say about some of these bills very soon during our legislative wrap up which you can learn more about here.

Now that session is over, we must bring our righteous fight for Florida families back to our districts and prepare for what will no doubt be another tough legislative session in 2024. 

Onward, 

Rep. Anna V. Eskamani

The last week whirlwind

The Florida Legislature’s session runs for 60 days – and most bills pass in the final few days. So the final week is always a whirlwind of bills bouncing between the House and Senate and then either dying or heading to the governor, who will decide whether to sign them into law or veto them. 

So this week’s recap is going to run through some of the bills that passed in those closing days.

A $117 billion state budget

Florida lawmakers on Friday finalized a $117 billion budget and an accompanying $1.3 billion tax package.

The budget and related bills include 5 percent across-the-board pay raises for state employees, with additional increases for certain workers. The plan also would place $10.9 billion into easily accessible reserves. Lawmakers approved putting a record $26.7 billion into the the Florida Education Finance Program, the main funding source for public schools. That represents an increase of $2.2 billion over the current year. The budget also bolstered a multi-year plan to boost teacher salaries, pumping an additional $252 million into the effort.

The budget also includes $350 million for what has been dubbed the Educational Enrollment Stabilization Program, which would help hedge against unanticipated financial impacts from the expansion of school vouchers. This was something that we fought hard for, as we do not want to see proration take place with the expansion of vouchers via HB1.

Also, the budget includes $19.03 million to cover $5,000 hiring and retention bonuses for correctional officers at 15 Department of Corrections facilities with high vacancy rates.

The state budget also provided $711 million through a bill to help expand workforce housing and approved $200 million to bring bicycle and hiking trails to a planned statewide wildlife corridor. $100 million is headed to the Rural and Family Lands Protection Program, which supports the purchase of conservation easements to shield agricultural land from development. The budget also would provide $574.6 million for Everglades restoration, $300 million to combat rising seas, $104.9 million to restore the Indian River Lagoon, $50 million for the state’s natural springs, and $12.8 million to fight algae blooms.

The University of Central Florida (UCF) is slated to get nearly $15 million from the state’s Public Education Capital Outlay (PECO) funds to help address nursing shortages in Florida. We also helped to secure $1 million in matching grant dollars for Homelessness Services Network, and in total secured more than $7 million in funding for local projects in House District 42.

When it comes to arts and culture funding, we were able to push the Senate to match the House in funding all programs at 85%. This was definitely a battle between both chambers as there were some points during the budget process where the Senate was not going to fund cultural grants at all! Fortunately the final outcome, as seen here, was a totality of about $59,000,000 in funding.

There is so much to talk about in the budget. Hopefully you can join us during our legislative session review where we can talk more about it!

The Tax Package

One of the last bills we passed this session was the “tax package” – an omnibus bill containing many different tax breaks and tax cuts. And I’m happy to say that this year’s tax package (House Bill 7063) will save money directly  for everyday Floridians and their families – including by permanently cutting taxes on children’s diapers and adult incontinence products.

As the ranking member on the House Ways & Means Committee, I’ve been pushing for years to reform Florida’s upside-down tax structure, which forces lower- and middle-income people to pay more while letting large corporations avoid their fair share. This year’s tax package is a step in that direction. We stopped some of the worst giveaways that corporate lobbyists were seeking this session, and we built a package that prioritizes tax cuts for workers and consumers over more tax breaks for businesses.

 We still have lots of work to do. We must close corporate tax loopholes that are exploited by the biggest business in the world, by passing a policy known as combined reporting. But this year’s people-focused tax package is a great start.

Ban on gender-affirming care

Senate Bill 254 will impose new restrictions on gender affirming care, including prohibiting it entirely for anyone under 18. 

We were able to get some changes made to the bill – including a provision allowing children already receiving gender-affirming care to continue to receive it. But this is still a horrifying bill that will have real-life consequences for our trans and non-gender-conforming community. 

Here’s my debate against this bill:

Anti-trans ‘bathroom bill’

Another one of the session’s transgender demagoguery bills, Senate Bill 1521 will prohibit transgender Floridians from using public bathrooms that correspond with their gender identity. 

Here’s my debate against this bill. 

An expansion of Don’t Say Gay and the DeSantis book bans

We all knew warned this would happen: House Bill 1069 expands last year’s homophobic Don’t Say Gay or Trans law, by forbidding teachers from instructing students about sexual orientation or gender identity all the way through eighth grade. 

The bill also makes it even easier for far-right extremists to get books banned from school libraries. It even forbids teachers from referring to students by their preferred pronouns. 

Here’s my debate against the bill:

 

Healthcare discrimination 

The Senate Bill 1580 will allow insurance companies, doctors and other medical providers to refuse to provide healthcare to patients if they have “moral” objections. 

This is a dangerous Pandora’s box: This legislation could protect a nurse who won’t fill a prescription for fertility drugs to a single woman, a doctor who won’t provide birth control or nursing home that refuses to continue a transgender patient’s hormonal drugs.   

Here’s my debate against the bill:

The worst attack yet on home rule

Senate Bill 170 will let deep-pocketed businesses block local laws they don’t like simply by suing the city or county that passes it. 

The legislation would force a city or county to immediately suspend enforcement of the ordinance if a business sues – and it could make the city or county pay the business’s legal fees, too. 

Here’s my debate against the bill:

DeSantis’ dumb came of ‘Whack-a-Mouse’ 

After Ron DeSantis got out-smarted by Disney again, the Legislature passed two more bills trying to punish Disney – all so DeSantis can claim he “won” this fight on the presidential campaign trail. 

Senate Bill 1604 will let the DeSantis’ appointees who now run the former Reedy Creek Improvement District retroactively undo a long-term development agreement Disney struck with Reedy Creek before DeSantis took it over. This bill is an unconstitutional effort to interfere with private contract rights, which means Florida taxpayers will spend even more money on this ridiculous stunt. 

But that’s not all. The Legislature also passed House Bill 1305, which gives DeSantis power to mess with the Walt Disney World monorail. 

This is another unconstitutional targeting of Disney, too. Because the bill doesn’t regulate all privately funded rail lines – it only regulates privately funded rail lines that happen to be in special districts that happen to have been created by a special act and that happen to have boundaries in two counties. 

So the Disney monorail is the only rail system that would be affected.

Here was my attempt to fix this bill: 

Suppression of academic freedom

Though it was not nearly as bad as the initial version proposed by Gov. Ron DeSantis and House Republican leadership, Senate Bill 266 will dangerously erode academic freedom on our college and university campuses. 

Among other things, the bill inserts conservative orthodoxy into general education courses, bans DEI, gives the governor’s political appointees more authority over hiring and firing university personnel, and weakens collective bargaining protections for faculty. 

Asian-American discrimination

Senate Bill 264 attempts to prevent people or organizations associated with the governments in countries like China, Iran and North Korea from buying farmland in Florida or property near military bases or critical infrastructure.

But the bill goes too far and will foster discrimination against Asian-Americans. 

Here’s my debate against it: 

Anti-immigrant attacks and demagoguery

Senate Bill 1718 is another ugly anti-immigrant bill that is both cruel and will cause a humanitarian crisis. 

Among other things, the bill tries to stop undocumented children from being reunited with relatives, forces hospitals to collect data on undocumented patients and even forbids someone from sitting for the Bar exam if they lack documentation – even if they earned a law degree in this state. 

As I said on the floor, this bill is anti-faith, anti-family, anti-health and anti-safety. Here’s my full debate against it: 

Phony corporate accountability 

Senate Bill 214 is an unnecessary piece of legislation that sponsors claim is needed to prevent credit card companies from building databases of gun and ammunition purchases – something they are not doing anyway. 

What’s sad is we all know that credit card companies engage in lots of predatory and abusive practices that hurt both consumers and small businesses. But unfortunately, Tallahassee Republicans only seem to be interested in corporate accountability when it intersects with one of their culture wars. 

Here’s my debate against the bill.

Secret travel and meetings for the governor

Florida Republicans spent so much of this session trying to prop up Ron DeSantis’ feeble presidential campaign. That included Senate Bill 1616, which allow the governor to hide his travel records and prevent the public from finding out when he meets with donors at the Governor’s Mansion.  

I tried to get this bill exempted to prevent any politician from hiding their travel and meeting records if they are running for president. But Republican lawmakers rejected my amendment, of course. 

Here’s my debate against the bill:  

A favor for billionaire baseball team owners

This session was full of anti-worker bills. That includes Senate Bill 892, which cuts minor league baseball players off from Florida’s minimum wage. 

Remember: Minor league baseball players are paid by Major League Baseball teams. So forcing minor leaguers to pay for lower pay helps exactly one group of people: Billionaire baseball team owners. 

Here’s my debate against the bill: 

Data privacy protections

In a session full of bad bills, this was a good one: Senate Bill 262 will set new guardrails on data privacy and regulations around how companies collect and monetize people’s personal data – especially when it involves children. 

I was proud to support this bill. Here’s my debate for it: 

Stronger tools to prevent human trafficking 

This was another good bill: Senate Bill 1690 tries to combat human trafficking by strengthening penalties for hotels that do not comply with anti-trafficking training and awareness programs and by ensuring annual inspections of adult safe houses. 

Here’s my debate for this bill: 

Prescription drug reform

And here’s a third good bill: Senate Bill 1550, which strengthens state regulations of pharmacy benefits managers – the middlemen standing between drug manufacturers and pharmacies who can drive up the cost of prescription drugs.

This legislation will hopefully lead to lower prices for patients and also a fairer playing field for independent pharmacists try to compete against giant corporations that own both PBMs and big retail pharmacy chains. 

Here’s my debate for this bill: 

Dream Defenders Arrested in Tallahassee

More than a dozen activists were arrested late Wednesday after occupying part of Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis‘ office to protest his extremist agenda, especially his support for a new anti-immigrant bill.

Protest organizers said 14 people were placed under arrest Wednesday evening. Earlier in the day, dozens of members of the Florida-based and youth-led Dream Defenders and allied groups including Florida Rising and Showing Up for Racial Justice had entered the lobby of DeSantis’ office in Tallahassee, where around a dozen people sat and locked hands in front of the reception desk.

After the 14 were arrested, we went to the Leon County Jail to make sure everyone was released safely — which they were at around 4:00am.

We’re Taking Abortion to the Ballot

We’re taking abortion rights to the ballot! Join us at 10:00am to learn more about efforts to codify abortion rights in Florida’s State Constitution!

Week 9 in pictures

We’re on the House floor pretty much around the clock during the final week, so there isn’t much time for meetings. But here are a few pictures from the final few days.