Dear Friend,
The second week of Florida’s 2024 Legislative Session is in the books.
It was a week of highs and lows and somewhere-in-the-middles.
We saw the election and swearing-in of state Rep. Tom Keen (D-Orlando), the new representative for House District 35, which covers parts of eastern Orange and Osceola counties.
But we also saw some really ugly bills start to advance through the Legislature – including another extremist attack on abortion access to a $300 million tax giveaway to the timeshare industry to yet another attempt to weaken our state’s child-labor laws.
And the Legislature has finally begun at least nibbling around the edges of our property insurance crisis – but there is much more we can, and should do.
I just got back into Tallahassee for the third week of session and if you scroll down you’ll get an update on all the activity from Week 2.
Florida’s legislative session runs for nine weeks – 60 days, to be exact. But some of the most important opportunities for action happening in the first half, when legislative committees are still meeting and making changes to bills. So please stay engaged, and keep up-to-date by following us on our social-media channels like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube.
Onward,
Rep. Anna V. Eskamani
A big win for all Floridians
First off, congratulations to the newest member of the Florida House of Representatives: Democratic state Rep. Tom Keen, who won a crucial special election on Tuesday for House District 35, which covers parts of east Orange and Osceola counties, and was sworn in to office in Tallahassee the very next day.
This is a huge victory for all Floridians. Rep. Keen won in part because he campaigned on the issues Floridians truly care about – including addressing our state’s property insurance crisis. And in fact, one of the committees he’s been assigned to is the House Insurance & Banking Subcommittee.
It’s also the latest sign that Floridians are tired of political leaders who wage divisive, intentionally inflammatory culture wars while also handing out taxpayer-funded favors to all their corporate donors. And it’s yet another sign of momentum for Florida Democrats, following last year’s huge victory for Jacksonville Mayor Donna Deegan.
Nibbling around the edges of the property insurance crisis
Speaking of the insurance crisis, we’re starting to see a few bills move that at least attempt to nibble around the edges of the problem:
- Senate Bill 1106 would allow Florida’s public property insurance company – Citizens Property Insurance Corp. – to sell coverage to Floridians who own homes worth up to $1 million but who can’t find affordable policies on the private market. Citizens is currently prevented by state law from issuing policies for homes worth more than $700,000 in most parts of Florida. SB 1106 bill passed the Senate Banking & Insurance Committee by a 10-0 vote.
- House Bill 625 would allow Citizens to sell policies to condo buildings, even if most of the units in the building are rented out on platforms like Airbnb. Citizens currently can’t write policies covering condos where more than half of the units are used for short-term rentals. HB 625 passed the House Insurance & Banking Subcommittee by a 16-0 vote.
- Senate Bill 7028 would put another $100 million into the state’s My Safe Florida Home Program, which gives grants to homeowners to pay for hurricane-hardening improvements. SB 7028 passed the Senate Banking and Insurance Committee by a 10-0 vote.
- House Bill 293 would require homeowners associations to adopt specifications for hurricane-protection products – like color and style rules for things like metal roofs, storm shutters and exterior generators. The bill would then ensure that individual home- and condo-owners living within the community can make those hurricane-protection upgrades, as long as they comply with the HOA’s rules. HB 293 passed the House Regulatory Reform & Economic Development Subcommittee by a 13-0 vote.
But we’re going to have to think a lot bigger and do much more this session, if we’re really going to people who are just getting crushed by our property insurance crisis. To that point, I just signed on as a cosponsor to House Bill 1213 – a bipartisan bill that would create a full public option for Floridians in need of affordable hurricane insurance.
Another extremist attack on abortion access
The same Republican lawmakers who sponsored Florida’s six-week abortion ban last year are now trying to drive abortion providers out of business.
They’re doing it through House Bill 651, which passed the House Civil Justice Subcommittee last week by a 12-5 vote.
This bill would allow someone to file a wrongful-death lawsuit on behalf of an embryo or fetus. It’s yet another extremist piece of legislation from Tallahassee Republicans that’s meant to scare doctors out of providing abortions – by putting them at risk of being sued by the person who impregnated the abortion-seeker.
Pride Day at the Capitol & attacks on the LGBTQ+ community
This week also saw more than 300+ Floridians come together for Pride Day at the Capitol! It was such a beautiful and powerful showing of everyday people fighting for equality and pushing back against attacks on the LGBTQ+ community,
Florida Republican lawmakers have filed over 20 anti-LGBTQ bills filed this legislative session. Two of the most egregious bills introduced, Don’t Say Gay or Trans at Work (HB 599/SB 1382) and the Trans Erasure Bill (HB 1233 & HB 1639), are fueled by a sinister belief that transgender people do not exist and that government should be weaponized to exclude them from public life. And just this past week we saw HB 901, a bill that would ban pride flags from government spaces, pass its first committee hearing.
Instead of continuing culture war attacks in service to DeSantis’s failed agenda of division, censorship, and government control, lawmakers should focus on the real problems Floridians are facing. Here’s my speech at our press conference to kick off Pride Day at the Capitol.
The Senate passes a big-but-incomplete healthcare plan
The Florida Senate unanimously passed its “Live Healthy” healthcare plan – a big package of changes that are meant to increase the number of healthcare providers in Florida.
The package (Senate Bill 7016 is the main piece) would do a bunch of positive things, such as expanding the number of medical residency slots for doctors-in-training and providing student-loan assistance to medical students who become mental-health providers in high-need areas like rural hospitals.
You can read more about what’s in the Senate package here in this Tampa Bay Times story: Florida Senate bill puts millions of dollars toward mental, maternal health.
Unfortunately, Republican leaders in Tallahassee still refuse to take the most significant step they could: Expanding Medicaid health insurance to roughly 800,000 Floridians who could qualify under the Affordable Care Act.
Florida is one of just 10 states in the country that still refuses to expand Medicaid eligibility, which is why our state has one of the highest rates of uninsured people in the nation.
This also means we’re effectively denying health insurance to hundreds of thousands of children – a problem that is rapidly getting worse. Make sure you read this report from WMFE: More Florida kids are losing health insurance.
Second Week on the House Floor
This week we saw several bills on the House Floor. One that I wanted to bring your attention to is HB187. For those who don’t know, in 2016 the definition that had been drafted for use by monitors of Europe’s Fundamental Rights Agency was adopted by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance as a legally non-binding “Working Definition of Antisemitism”. This was the first prominent attempt to provide a unifying definition of antisemitism. As advocates began to ask governments to “adopt” the definition into policy, many experts, scholars, Jewish leaders and civil rights organizations raised concerns. Imprecision that might have been acceptable in the context of data collection or training would be problematic in the context of punitive action.
ADL National has also noted in the past the value of the IHRA definition as an educational guide, but emphasizes that it is not legally binding, does not have “charging authority” and should not supplant existing laws and standards.
HB187 would insert the IHRA definition into Florida Statute. No new penalties are created, but we have heard from organizations and individuals across the political spectrum sharing feedback, not just because IHRA was never meant to be legally binding, but because anti-semitism along with other forms of hate is on the rise, and our community (rightfully so) is demanding action in addressing anti-semitism along with other forms of hate and bigotry.
To that point, many argue that the IHRA definition is too broad and could stifle legitimate criticism of the Israeli government or its policies by labeling such speech as anti-semitic.
So knowing this tension — members of the Democratic Caucus started talking about this bill with many stakeholders, including Jewish, Muslim, Arab, and Palestinian voices. Due to these robust, thoughtful and impactful conversations amendments are being crafted to help clarify that any examples of antisemitism must be taken into context and just like the IHRA working definition reads: “criticism of Israel similar to that leveled against any other country cannot be regarded as antisemitic.”
Unfortunately due to timing, these amendments were not included in the House Bill, so myself and two other lawmakers voted no on the bill. But the Florida Senate will be working to make these thoughtful amendments and when the bill returns to the House, we will be able vote yes.
My final point: the most impactful and serious way to hit back at antisemitism is to stand behind the U.S. National Strategy to Counter Antisemitism. Its launch in May 2023 was the most ambitious, far reaching action in U.S. history. It is the key to build the kind of civic unity and resolve to tackle antisemitism through concrete, coordinated action to stop the spread and the normalization of antisemitism. The U.S. National Strategy to Counter Antisemitism is the north star and the State of Florida should adopt it. If you haven’t heard about this strategy or read it, I 100% encourage you to do so.
Bill would allow black bears to be shot
A proposal allowing people to shoot bears if they feel threatened is moving forward in the Florida legislature.
Black bears are notoriously shy and secretive and fearful of humans. If they regularly find food near houses and areas of human activity, they can lose their fear of humans. It is 100% our responsibility to prevent bear interactions and we have paved over their habitat which is why more humans are interacting with bears too.
Giving ourselves permission to shoot black bears is bad and dangerous policy. You can see one outlandish defense of this policy here.
Corporate favors of the construction industry
The push to weaken our state’s child-labor laws – how is this a thing?! – continues in the Florida Legislature.
The Senate Education Pre-K–12 Committee passed Senate Bill 460 last week by a 9-2 vote. Among other things, that bill would allow homebuilders like Lennar Corp. to use 16- and 17-year-old teenagers on residential construction sites. This idea was literally written by lobbyists for the construction industry, according to an investigation by Orlando Weekly.
Amazingly, at the very same time, some lawmakers want to let construction companies slash wages, too.
That’s what would happen under House Bill 705, which would allow construction companies building public-works projects funded by local taxpayers to ignore local “Living Wage” laws or ordinances that require them to hire local workers or source from small businesses. HB 705 passed the House Local Administration, Federal Affairs and Special Districts Subcommittee last week by a 10-5 vote.
Meanwhile, Floridians continue to show opposition towards efforts to weaken Florida’s child labor laws too.
Anti-competitive bills would block competition to corporate beef and poultry producers
Some of my Republican colleagues in Tallahassee seem to have decided they don’t like the free market anymore.
I say that because both the House and Senate are advancing bills that would ban the sale of lab-grown meat in Florida.
Lab-grown meat is an alternative source of protein cultivated in labs from animal cells. A number of start-up companies are investing in the technology because it has the potential to have an enormous positive impact on the world – both in addressing our climate-change crisis, since giant industrial livestock operations are major net emitters of greenhouse gasses, and in helping reduce the number of animals we kill for human consumption.
Lab-grown meat is still just an emerging industry. In fact, there isn’t a single restaurant or store in Florida selling it yet.
But it’s a potential threat to big beef and poultry producers. So some lawmakers and meat industry lobbyists want to shut down lab-grown meat before it can become a source of competition.
And that’s just what the Legislature would do under both House Bill 435, which passed the House Agriculture, Conservation & Resiliency Subcommittee last week by 10-4 vote vote, and Senate Bill 1084, which passed the Senate Agriculture Committee last week by a 4-1 vote.
A backdoor attempt to privatize public power companies
Here’s a dangerous bill to keep an eye on: House Bill 1277, which is designed to pressure communities like Orlando into privatizing publicly-owned power companies like OUC.
This bill would make it harder for publicly owned electric and water companies – which are technically called “municipal utilities” – to transfer revenue they generate to their city’s general fund, where the money can be used to pay for important public services like parks and police and to keep property taxes low. The bill would also make it more difficult for publicly owned power companies to service customers outside of their city limits, even if they can do so reliably and affordably.
I suspect this is a big priority for the giant corporate power companies – like Florida Power & Light – which would love to take over all the public utilities in Florida.
HB 1277 passed the House Energy, Communications & Cybersecurity Subcommittee last week by a 13-2 vote.
Tax breaks: The good, the bad and the ugly
We’re starting to see a bunch of tax breaks start to move.
Some of them seem pretty good: Like Senate Bill 1440, which would allow cities and counties to cut property taxes on accessory dwelling units and passed the Senate Community Affairs Committee by an 8-0 vote.
But others are special-interest giveaways: Like Senate Bill 886, which would be a nearly $300 million a year tax break for timeshare developers and owners, and House Bill 769, a property tax break for the biomethane industry. SB 886 passed the Senate Regulated Industries Subcommittee by a 6-0 vote, while HB 769 passed the House Energy, Communications & Cybersecurity Subcommittee by a 14-0 vote.
Then there is Senate Joint Resolution 1560, which — if approved by voters — would basically give the Florida Legislature unlimited power to cut property taxes on agricultural equipment. SJR 1560 passed the Senate Agriculture Committee by a 5-0 vote.
As the ranking member on the House Ways & Means Committee – the committee in charge of writing tax policy – these are all issues I’ll be keeping a close eye on this session.
More attacks on local freedoms and home rule
We’re seeing even more infringement on local freedoms and home rule again this session.
For example, the Senate Commerce and Tourism Committee voted 4-0 to pass Senate Bill 1126, which would expand a state law that stops cities and counties from doing anything about pollution from single-use plastics, like plastic bags or plastic bottles, or from Styrofoam food containers, like cups or hamburger clamshells.
The House Local Administration, Federal Affairs & Special Districts Subcommittee voted 11-4 to pass House Bill 601, which prevents local governments from independently investigating or disciplining police officers who engage in misconduct. The bill would also effectively eliminate local civilian review boards, which are supposed to provide some level of community oversight over police departments.
Meanwhile, that same House committee also voted 14-0 for House Bill 57, which would impose 12-year term limits on every county commissioner in Florida.
A bill banning teenagers from social media heads to the full House
A pair of top priorities for House leadership are about to pass the House.
House Bill 1, which would ban anyone under the age of 16 in Florida from having social media accounts, and House Bill 3, which would require pornography verify the ages of all users and prohibit anyone under the age of 18 from viewing, both passed the House Judiciary Committee last week.
In their last committee stop, HB 1 passed by a 17-5 vote. HB 3 passed by a 21-0 vote.
Both bills head next to the full House of Representatives, where we will be taking them on Tuesday afternoon. You can learn more here and see that amendments we’ve filed too.
More bills: Private-school vouchers, free speech, migrant farmworkers and police brutality
Here are a few other bills that moved forward last week that are worth keeping an eye on:
- The House PreK-12 Education Appropriations Subcommittee voted 11-0 to pass House Bill 1403, which would set some guardrails about how families receiving publicly funded private-school or home-schooling vouchers can spend the money.
- The House Civil Justice Subcommittee voted 12-4 to pass House Bill 757, an anti-free speech bill that’s designed to scare whistleblowers from speaking out while making it easier to sue newspapers and TV stations for defamation.
- The Senate Community Affairs Committee voted 8-0 for Senate Bill 1082, which would help agricultural companies to build housing on their land for migrant farmworkers.
- The Senate Criminal Justice Committee voted 6-1 for Senate bill 1092. This is a really dangerous bill that could protect rogue police officers who shoot or brutalize someone even if the police officer is doing something that they know is illegal.
Punishing needy families for no reason
In case you missed it, Gov. Ron DeSantis has decided to stop needy families in Florida from receiving an extra $120 to help feed their kids this summer.
Florida is one of 15 states in the country that is refusing to participate in Summer EBT. This is a bipartisan program that Congress approved in December 2022 for families with children who receive free or reduced-price school lunches, to provide them with grocery-store debit cards while school is out for the summer.
You can read more in this Miami Herald story: Floridians could have gotten $120 to help feed their kids. The state wasn’t interested.
DeSantis is still trying to ban sociology
The Ron DeSantis-appointed Board of Education, which oversees Florida’s community colleges, approved rules last week that prohibit state colleges from spending money on diversity, equity and inclusion efforts – and ban sociology courses from core curriculum.
The DeSantis-appointed Board of Governors, which oversees Florida’s universities, will vote on similar rules for state universities at a public hearing on Wednesday.
This part of the continuing fallout from Senate Bill 266, a piece of legislation that passed during the 2023 session that is meant to politicize higher education and undermine academic freedom across all of Florida higher education.
Judge blocks JetBlue-Spirit merger
Great news for those of us who oppose corporate consolidation and monopoly economic control: A federal judge blocked JetBlue Airways’ attempt to buy Spirit Airlines. The judge ruled that the merger, which would have combined two direct competitors and created the nation’s fifth-largest airline, would lead to fewer choices and higher prices for consumers.
I’m grateful to the Biden administration for opposing the merger. To quote President Biden: “Capitalism without competition isn’t capitalism – it’s exploitation.”
You can read more in the New York Times: Judge Blocks JetBlue From Acquiring Spirit Airlines.
The week in pictures
