Dear Friend,

We just wrapped up Week Four of the 2024 Legislative Session, which means we’re almost at the half-wak mark. 

There are so many bills in play right now that it’s sometimes hard to keep up. This week alone, we saw bills move forward that would raise property insurance rates for some Floridians, weaken gun laws, drive up the cost of healthcare for transgender Floridians, protect memorials to supporters of slavery and give a $200 million tax break to the timeshare industry, among so many others. 

Oh, and the Florida House of Representatives passed a bill weaken Florida’s already-soft child-labor laws while the Florida Senate agreed to a dangerous plan to call a national constitutional convention. 

It’s…a lot. But we’ve got updates on all those bills – and a whole bunch more – in this week’s update. If you’ve got strong feelings on any of them, please make sure your legislators hear about them. Phone calls, emails and visits from constituents can still make a difference at this point in the process. 

As always, I urge you to follow our various social-media channels – Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube – where we provide legislative updates in real-time. Bills are moving very quickly – and the pace will only get faster in the second half of session. 

Onward,

Rep. Anna V. Eskamani

The Florida House votes to let weaken the state’s child-labor laws

I never thought in 2024 that I would have to vote on a bill designed to weaken Florida’s already-modest child-labor laws. 

And yet that’s what happened last week, as Republican leaders in the Florida House of Representatives rammed through a bill that would let employers work high school kids for more than 8 hours a day on a school night or more than 40 hours during a school week.

Every Democrat on the floor – and one Republican, too! – voted against House Bill 49, but it still passed the House by an 80-35 vote. Click here to see how all members voted.

I asked some tough questions of the bill sponsor – questions she admitted that she couldn’t answer about her own talking points. Click here to watch the full exchange. 

Democrats offered several amendments meant to add some protections for children who might be exploited by an employer. But Republicans rejected every one. 

I also proposed an amendment to remove Florida’s anti-abortion parental consent requirement for abortions; if a person is mature enough to be put to work the same hours as their parents then they are mature enough to decide whether to become a parent themselves. Republicans blocked that one, too. 

Fortunately, the Senate version of this legislation (Senate Bill 1596), which passed the Senate Commerce and Tourism Committee last week, is much narrower than the House version of the bill. 

Of course, we shouldn’t be weakening our child-labor laws at all. This is a consequence of all the anti-immigrant demagoguery and attacks we’ve seen out of our governor and Legislature over the last few years – which has driven off workers for the agriculture, construction and tourism industries. And it’s being driven by Big Businesses and billionaires who would rather exploit more cheap teenage labor than raise pay and offer better benefits in order to attract more adult workers. 

An update on insurance legislation

It appears increasingly likely that Republican leaders are planning to make property insurance even more expensive for some Floridians – while doing nothing at all to make insurance cheaper for anyone else. 

For example, the House Insurance & Banking Committee last week passed House Bill 1503, which would kick some apartments and condos out of state-run Citizens Property Insurance and force them to take much more expensive insurance provided by surplus lines insurers – insurance companies whose rates aren’t regulated by the state. 

At the same time, the Senate Banking and Insurance Committee passed Senate Bill 1716, which would force some second homeowners to give up their Citizens insurance and swallow higher-priced surplus lines insurance instead. 

Senate agrees to dangerous constitutional convention plan

The Florida Senate passed a pair of resolutions last week calling on Congress to convene a national constitutional convention at which states could propose new amendments to the U.S. Constitution. 

This is a really dangerous idea. These resolutions (House Resolution 693 and House Resolution 703), which had already passed the House, are ostensibly limited to passing amendments that would impose term limits and a balanced budget requirements on Congress. And while those ideas may sound good, the reality is that they cause far more problems than they solve.

But more importantly, there are literally no rules around how a so-called “Article V Convention” would work. So while Republicans in Tallahassee say they just want term limits and a balanced budget, the reality is they could propose any amendment at all once a convention is convened – like an amendment to eliminate all income taxes on corporations or impose a nationwide abortion ban. 

The campaign to call an Article V convention is being led by the corporate-funded conservative group ALEC. But other groups, like Common Cause, are running counter-campaigns to get states to rescind their resolutions. 

The House and Senate roll out state budgets

The House and Senate formally introduced their proposed state budgets last week. 

The House budget totals $115.5 billion and the Senate’s budget is at $115.9 billion. Right now, there are some big differences in spending areas such as healthcare programs and prison construction. 

Both chambers will pass their budgets this coming week and will then spend the next few weeks negotiating a final spending plan before session ends in early March. 

Read more about the early differences in the House and Senate budgets here: 2024 Session: Florida Legislature rolling back state spending in ‘austere’ budget plans (Tallahassee Democrat)

Bad tax breaks are starting to surface

With the budgets starting to come into focus, we’re also starting to see a bunch of tax breaks surface – including some pretty gross ones. 

For instance, last week the House Ways & Means Committee approved House Bill 471, which would give a nearly $200 million a year tax break to timeshare companies and timeshare owners. That would result in a $200 million a year cut for police, parks and schools – and almost all of those cuts would occur here in central Florida, where there are a lot more timeshares than anywhere else in the state. I voted not. 

The committee also passed House Bill 609, which would stop cities and counties from raising local business taxes, which are paid by companies. The bill sponsor claimed that, if cities and counties need more money to pay for things like firefighters, they could simply raise property taxes instead….Except the House Local Administration, Federal Affairs & Special Districts Subcommittee simultaneously passed House Bill 1195, which would make it harder for cities and counties to raise property taxes, too. 

This all just one big attempt to starve local communities of funding, eliminate their independence, and make them totally reliant on – and subservient to – Republican leaders in Tallahassee.  

But the most dangerous idea of all is in House Bill 1371, which would set the stage for eliminating all property taxes in Florida – and jacking up the state sales tax to an even higher level instead. This idea, which shows back up in Republican-led state legislatures every few years, is both unfair and irresponsible. 

Florida already has the most regressive state tax structure in the country – the bottom 20 percent of households have to spend nearly five times as much on state taxes as the top 1 percent do, according to the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy. And Florida is *already* the most heavily dependent state in the country on sales taxes.

I voted no on this reckless idea, too. Click here to watch my debate on it.  

House committees move forward with bills to loosen gun-safety laws

The House moved several dangerous bills weakening the state’s gun-safety laws last week.

The most significant is probably House Bill 1223, which would lower the age to buy a gun in Florida from 21 to 18. This would undo one of the major reforms that the Legislature passed in 2018 after the tragic mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in parkland.

HB 1223 passed the House Criminal Justice Subcommittee by an 11-5 vote; fortunately Senate President Kathleen Passidomo says this idea is going nowhere in the Florida Senate. 

That same House subcommittee also passed House Bill 17, which would allow people to buy guns before they have completed a background check and House Bill 831, which would make it harder for local communities to regulate gun ranges. 

Meanwhile, the House Civil Justice Subcommittee passed House Bill 1615, which would repeal a law that prohibits the sale of guns or ammunition, or public displays of guns, during certain states of emergency. 

More attacks on women, Black and brown communities, transgender Floridians and immigrants

Unfortunately, we’re seeing another round of ugly and cruel culture war bills move this session – bills that seek to attack, demonize and suppress marginalized groups, like women, Black Floridians, transgender Floridians, and immigrants. 

One of the committees I serve on – the House State Affairs Committee – passed House Bill 395, which would stop local communities from taking down public monuments to Confederate generals and other supporters of slavery. 

Republicans on the committee rejected a bunch of amendments, including one that would have allowed communities to remove monuments to people who actually enslaved people. I personally offered an amendment that would have allowed communities to remove these monuments if a majority of voters approve in a referendum. But Republicans rejected them all. 

That very same day, another committee I serve on – the House Postsecondary Education & Workforce Subcommittee – passed House Bill 1291, which tries to double down on the already-unconstitutional “Stop WOKE Act” by censoring what professors and instructors can say about racism or sexism in education-prep programs. 

Meanwhile, the House Insurance & Banking Subcommittee passed House Bill 1639, which would force health insurance companies to charge higher prices for policies that cover gender-affirming care – while also forcing those plans to cover so called “de-transitioning” procedures, which are dangerous and based on debunked science. 

The same bill would also forbid transgender Floridians from listing their gender on their driver license – instead forcing them to list the sex they were assigned at birth. 

This bill came through one of my committees earlier in session. Click here to watch my debate from that hearing against HB 1639. 

That’s still not all. The House Local Administration, Federal Affairs & Special Districts Subcommittee passed House Bill 1451, which would forbid cities and counties from recognizing community IDs issued to undocumented immigrants. This idea is not only dangerous and self-defeating; it will also scare even more immigrants out of Florida…which will probably lead to corporate lobbyists and Florida lawmakers working together to force even more children into the workforce. 

There really is no bottom to all this pettiness, which ultimately comes from our governor. In fact, the House Regulatory Reform & Economic Development Subcommittee passed a bill for one of the governor’s agencies – House Bill 1335 – that would even eliminate mentorship programs for women and minorities who want to become harbor pilots at our seaports. 

Bills would help the oil, gas and utility industries

We’re also seeing a lot of favors for the oil-and-gas industries this session, too. 

For instance, committees in both the House and Senate passed bills that, among other things, weakens oversight of natural gas pipelines and other fossil and dirty fuel infrastructure (House Bill 1645 and Senate Bill 1624). House and Senate committees also passed bill that could criminalize protests at places like gas pipelines (House Bill 275 and Senate Bill 340). 

At the same time, the House Energy, Communications & Cybersecurity Subcommittee also passed House Bill 683, which would let power companies make their customers pay higher rates to fund investments in biomethane. 

And the House Local Administration, Federal Affairs & Special Districts Subcommittee also passed House Bill 1277, a bill that is meant to pressure cities that own their own electric companies – like OUC here in Orlando – into selling out to corporate power companies like Florida Power & Light. 

Blurring the line between church and state in Florida schools

The full House of Representatives passed House Bill 1403, which will smooth and speed up the reimbursement process for families of children with special needs who are receiving private- or home-schooling vouchers. 

I voted against last year’s massive expansion of vouchers, which are a tool used by right-wing billionaires and far-right extremists to both privatize public schools and eliminate any separation of church and state. But I voted for HB 1403, because I don’t want the families who are already receiving these vouchers to suffer – especially not families of kids with disabilities. 

Speaking of eliminating the separation of church and state, House Education & Employment Committee passed House Bill 931, which would allow religious chaplains to serve as counselors in public schools. 

Other bills of note: From criminalizing homelessness to legalizing tiny homes

A few other notable bills that moved forward last week:

• Senate Bill 1530, which would effectively criminalize homeless by preventing cities and counties from letting anyone sleep on public property 
• House Bill 87, which would allow people to shoot black bears to death if they feel like they, another person or their home is threatened
• House Bill 1471, a bill doubling down on last year’s union-busting legislation 
• House Bill 557, a bill that would clear the way for more tiny homes to be built in Florida
• Senate Bill 1452, which would crack down on companies exploiting our veterans when they seek disability benefits from the VA. I’ve filed the same bill in the state House, though it has not received a hearing yet. 

Beyond the Capitol: Activists launch Medicaid campaign while DeSantis tries to erase transgender Floridians and kick kids off insurance

There were several important stories in Florida politics that happened last week outside the Legislature. 

First, with Republican leaders still blindly refusing to expand Medicaid health insurance under the Affordable Care Act, a coalition of grassroots activists and community organizers have decided to take the issue straight to Florida voters. The group Florida Decides Healthcare launched a petition campaign last week to put a proposed constitutional amendment on the 2026 ballot that would finally expand Medicaid in Florida. 

This is a potential game-changer for working-class and middle-income families who are struggling to afford healthcare. Medicaid expansion would extend public health insurance to nearly 1 million uninsured Floridians – and finally end our state’s shameful ranking as one of the third-worst state in the nation for healthcare access. 

Learn more and sign the petition here. 

On the other hand, the DeSantis administration continued targeting transgender Floridians. With no warning and no reason, the Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles announced last week that it will no longer issue updated driver licenses with the correct gender to a transgender person.

My office has been trying to clarity from the administration about how this new policy will work in practice. The DeSantis administration has refused to provide any answers so far, but we won’t stop pushing the until they do.

In the meantime, you can learn more about the announcement here: Trans people in Florida can no longer update their driver’s licenses (The 19th)

Lastly, in a move that is unnecessarily cruel even by our governor’s standards, the DeSantis administration this week sued the federal government – all because the DeSantis administration wants the power to deny affordable health insurance to children. 

Read more about the issue from the Florida Policy Institute and Georgetown University’s Center for Children and Families.  

 The Week in Photos