Dear Friend,
Last week was the fifth and final week of Committee Meetings in preparation for the 2022 legislative session, which begins on January 11th. Lots of bills are beginning to move so it’s important for all us to pay attention — and fight back when needed. Scroll down to see what happened last week, along with new updates from this week.
Remember: Our Legislative Updates are thorough but will never be all encompassing. Be sure to keep up to date with us in real time via Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube. You can also watch Committee Meetings live at The Florida Channel.
Onward,
Rep. Anna V. Eskamani
REDISTRICTING UPDATE
Last week the Florida House released draft maps for both the State House and Congressional seats. As reported by the Miami Herald, the maps “were immediately criticized by elections experts for violating state redistricting rules and derided by Democrats as “a fully-baked cake” that lacked transparency.” Lines in Central Florida were dramatically changed. One of our constituents, Bryce Maschino, actually uploaded these State House maps into District Builder. Check it out via three links below:
- Current: https://app.districtbuilder.org/projects/5cc10941-afa5-45f6-8d43-db94053789d1
- H8005: https://app.districtbuilder.org/projects/fe7c2627-c4cd-4995-a489-58998c493c51
- H8007: https://app.districtbuilder.org/projects/fe7c2627-c4cd-4995-a489-58998c493c51
To see all of the maps, visit this website: https://www.floridaredistricting.gov/ and stay plugged into the process by following us online.
MAJOR PREEMPTION BILLS MOVES FORWARD
For years now, Republican leaders in Tallahassee have been stripping powers from our cities, counties and other local governments who have tried to step up in areas where the Florida Legislature has failed us – like ensuring fair wages and benefits for workers or ensuring clean drinking water.
This parade of “pre-emption” bills have been a gift to the state’s biggest corporations, who want to be able to exploit employees and pollute our environment without any fear of consequences.
And, unfortunately, this parade isn’t over. Last week, the Legislature began moving forward with yet another terrible idea aimed at defanging local governments: A bill that would allow businesses who claim that a local law has caused them money to sue the city or county that passed it.
With lobbyists for big-business front groups like Associated Industries of Florida cheering them on, the Senate Judiciary Committee approved SB 620 by a 7-4 vote. An identical bill has been filed in the House (HB 569), and legislative leaders have already signaled that they intend to push hard to pass this bill during the 2022 session.
I am a passionate defender of home rule. Florida has so many uniquely wonderful and diverse cities, towns and villages – and these communities should have the power to make decisions for themselves.
You can count on us to fight hard against this bad bill – and whatever other terrible preemption ideas that corporate lobbyists try to cram through the process this session.
FLORIDA POWER AND LIGHT & THE FIGHT TO PROTECT NET METERING
The “ghost candidate” scandal from last year’s elections – in which Republican strategists used sham candidates to siphon votes away from the Democratic candidates in three close Senate races – keeps growing.
The Orlando Sentinel reported last week that electric utility company Florida Power & Light paid more than $3 million to the consultants controlling the dark-money group that was used to advertise for the fake candidates.
So the state’s biggest electric company worked with Republican strategists to cheat in three Senate elections. And now FPL and other utility companies want favors in return.
Bills have already been filed in both the House and Senate that would end something called “net metering.” It’s a ploy by utility lobbyists to drive up the costs of rooftop solar panels – so that Floridians will instead continue buying their electricity from the utility companies (most of which still comes from burning fossil fuels and contributing to our global climate crisis). This policy would also destroy rooftop solar jobs in Florida.
We all need to be ready to fight to save net metering this session. Protecting our planet from climate change and allowing consumers to have chose in their energy production is more important that protecting utility company profit margins.
And cheaters shouldn’t win.
OUR COMMITTEE MEETINGS
This past week we had four committee meetings take place. You can watch each meeting via the links below:
NEW BILLS FILED & UPDATE ON CURRENT BILLS
Last week we filed filed legislation to empower citizens impacted by harmful particle emissions from farm operations like sugarcane burning, to file legal action against the producers. HB 6085/SB1102 repeal legislation passed in the 2021 Legislative Session under SB 88, which included a carveout specific to protecting the sugar industry, rather than the predominantly Black and Hispanic residents of Palm Beach County being harmed by sugarcane burning. As it stands, SB88 limits legal action for parties impacted by particle emissions to a ½ mile radius; HB6085/SB1102 repeals particle emissions from the list of damages limited to this arbitrary distance. Read more here.
We are also excited to announce momentum around HB6075, a repealer bill to allow counties like Orange to spend additional hotel bed tax revenue on mass transit and other public facilities, freeing up property tax revenue to go towards other essential needs like affordable housing. Not only do we have the support of the Orlando Sentinel, but Orange County Mayor Jerry Demings said last Friday he was uncertain if the $605-million expansion of the convention center will ever resume. This expansion is not necessary, and we should be spending tourism tax dollars on supporting local needs. As Scott Maxwell noted: “The center, after all, is already 7 million square feet, bigger than the convention centers in New York, Los Angeles, Dallas, Philadelphia and Miami … combined.”
In other news — last weekend we joined Make Us Visible leaders and AAPI advocates to amplify support for HB281/SB490, legislation that would require the teaching of Asian American and Pacific Islander history in Florida public schools. Last week we also confirmed our first Republican co-sponsor! Read more here.
Last week the family of Miya Marcano was at the Florida state capitol to help make sure the young college student did not die in vain. Family members are pushing lawmakers to pass a bill in her name, Miya’s Law, to help better protect renters like her. Read more here.
Community safety is really important to us, which is why we were heartbroken to learn about another school shooting, this time in Michigan. We honor those who are no longer with us through action, and are committed to building a world, country, and state free of gun violence.
In the world of economic policy: the Chair of the Republican Party of Florida files bill to erase every living wage ordinance in Florida. You can read more about the bill here.
SCOTUS ORAL ARGUMENTS
Abortion access has been systematically under attack by extreme politicians in this country and in Florida for decades, and abortion liberation has been undermined for years. Since 2010, anti-abortion state politicians have passed more than 450 abortion restrictions designed to push abortion out of reach. Last week oral arguments for and against Mississippi’s 15 week abortion ban were heard in the US Supreme Court.
However we feel about abortion access at different points in a pregnancy, a person’s health should drive important medical decisions – not political agendas. Every pregnancy and situation is different. We can’t know all of the factors that are involved in someone’s decision but we must respect and empower that person, ensure all options are available to them and made between a person, their family, their medical provider and their faith.
The Mississippi abortion ban, like all abortion bans, is about politics, power and control. Americans and Floridians deserve full access to reproductive health, not political interference or coercion. In this moment where it has become even more abundantly clear how fragile and limited access to abortion is, now is the time to work together to build the world where each one of us has the power, resources, and support to care for ourselves, our families, and our communities. That’s why I stood in solidarity with other lawmakers last week to support abortion access. Watch my remarks here.
UF ACADEMIC FREEDOM FIGHT CONTINUES
It looks like the fundraisers and political allies that Florid Gov. Ron DeSantis has put on the board that runs the University of Florida are so desperate to please the governor that they are attacking their own faculty.
Last week, University of Florida Board of Trustees Chairman – a Volusia County homebuilder and Republican donor who once took DeSantis to play a round of golf at the exclusive August National golf club in Georgia – attacked faculty members who have spoken out against attempts the university’s attempts to stop them from serving in expert witnesses in cases against the state.
The Chairman claimed a “small number” of faculty who have “used their position to advocate personal, political viewpoints to the exclusion of others” – even though close to 300 faculty members have signed an academic-freedom petition calling on university leaders to make common-sense changes such as allowing professors to serve as paid expert witnesses and ending efforts to terminate courses that deal with race or other sensitive topics.
Remember, this controversy began when university leaders tried to prevent some of its professors from testifying in a case against DeSantis’ authoritarian-like new restrictions on voting – all because they were worried that DeSantis might get upset and punish the state’s flagship university.
CRISIS WITH OUR MANATEES & UPDATE ON GOPHER TORTOISES
More than 1,000 manatees have died in Florida so far this year, the most of any year on record. While causes of death include watercraft collisions, cold stress and natural causes, conservationists say hundreds have died off as years of pollution and the effects of climate change have worsened algae blooms that kill off the crucial seagrass. So now, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) and Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) have approved a plan to feed malnourished manatees in the Indian River Lagoon on the state’s east coast. This is unprecedented, and wouldn’t be necessary if we held polluters accountable and listened to environmentalists ring these alarm bells more than a decade ago. Click here to read more.
We have another crisis on our hands when it comes to Gopher Tortoises and development. Essentially, developers have permission to relocate Gopher Tortoises to areas managed by third parties, but space is running out — so instead of trying to slow down development, FWC issued a temporary rule to ease restrictions on where Gopher Tortoises can be relocated, potentially putting the this keystone species at risk. Read those eased restrictions here.
Last wee we were proud to join the Sierra Club of Florida and dozens of local voices and statewide advocates in support of their grassroots initiative to urgently request that the Environmental Protection Division (EPD) updates to Orange County’s urban fertilizer ordinance include a strict, no-exemption, rainy season application blackout period. The current Orange County ordinance, with inconsistent rainy season rules, is impossible to enforce and therefore ineffective. See our full letter here!
LGBTQ+ ANTI-BULLYING RESOURCES REMOVED FROM DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION WEBSITE
This week we joined LGBTQ+ groups in blasting the Florida Department of Education for taking down the anti-bullying portal from its website. The portal included resources for LGBTQ+ students but now those have been removed. Read more here, and see one of our statements in response at the image below.
GOVERNOR DESANTIS WANTS TO START HIS OWN MILITA
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis introduced a budget proposal on Thursday that includes plans to establish a militia that would answer solely to him. Unlike the Florida National Guard, the Florida State Guard wouldn’t receive federal funding or embark on federal missions. Read more here — there are some serious red flags here.
UNACCOMPANIED MINORS AT RISK UNDER DESANTIS EXECUTIVE ORDER
Last month the Dream Center in Sarasota was forced to remove all of the nearly 60 unaccompanied children in its care. The reason? Governor DeSantis’s recent anti-immigrant executive order.
According to ABC Action News: “The federally-funded facility is one of more than a dozen that temporarily provide shelter for unaccompanied children who come into the state under the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR). The program assists undocumented people seeking asylum in the U.S. In the case of minors, children typically spend a few weeks in the care of an ORR shelter before they’re reunited with a sponsor, who is often a relative.
But while the Dream Center is fully funded by the federal government, it must have a state license since it houses children. However, weeks after submitting all the necessary paperwork for its annual license renewal, Florida’s Department of Children and Families (DCF) has yet to renew the Dream Center’s license or even tell anyone at Lutheran Services whether it plans to renew their license.”
The Governor’s September Executive Order (EO) was 100% politically motivated and designed to attack President Biden — but now it’s causing some serious harm to unaccompanied minors. We are actively working with the nonprofit community to push back against this EO and ensure the safety of these marginalized and vulnerable kids.
HIGH STAKES TESTNG AND SCHOOL FUNDING
As reported by the Orlando Sentinel: “Despite Gov. Ron DeSantis’ “big deal” plans to scrap high-stakes, end-of-the year testing, Florida public school students could still take comprehensive math and reading exams each spring for the next several years, just as they have done for the past two decades.
Sen. Manny Diaz, R-Hialeah, an influential voice in the Florida Legislature on education policy, recently filed a bill that does some of what DeSantis announced — but leaves big, end-of-the-year testing in place at least until 2025.” Read more here.
We also wanted to uplift this Washington Post story focused on how low paraprofessionals are paid in Florida. It’s so important that the upcoming legislative session include pay increases for educators and public workers.
FULL SAIL TAX BREAK
Every year, corporate lobbyists try to sneak tax breaks through the Legislature that save themselves – but cost the rest of us – millions of dollars.
The business now stands to save up to $1.3 million a year in property taxes – more than the salaries of 10 teachers combined – because of a tax break that Republican leaders slipped into the so-called “tax package” during the last week of the 2021 session.
Full Sail had help from Sen. Joe Gruters, the Republican senator from Sarasota County who also chairs the Republican Party of Florida. Full Sail’s leaders are major RPOF donors.
It’s yet another example of Republican leadership rewarding their corporate contributors with tax giveaways. And it’s a big reason why Florida struggles to pay for so many basic needs, from quality pre-kindergarten classes to health services for families with special-needs children.
We’ll continue to call out these terrible tax breaks – and the companies and politicians behind them – wherever we see them. And we’ll continue to fight for a fairer tax system that works for everyday Floridians, and not just those that can afford to make giant campaign contributions and hire armies of lobbyists.
LAST WEEK IN PHOTOS
