Dear Friend,

Today we honor the life and legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Known for his contributions to the American civil rights movement, Dr. King’s vision continues to live on today as we work towards his dream of a United States that is void of segregation and racism.

Leadership rises in moments of uncertainty and it is clear after Week 1 of the 2022 Legislative Session, just how much rests in the hands of our movement. Instead of addressing issues like economic equity, rising rent and property insurance rates, or a broken criminal legal system, the Governor and Republican leadership prioritized a dangerous 15 week abortion ban.

This bill was filed just last week and is already on its first committee agenda this Wednesday at 1pm. You can find the members of Professions & Public Health Subcommittee right here; call, email, & write these Representatives to ask them to say NO to any abortion ban for Florida. To testify in this committee in Tallahassee, please sign this form.

See my remarks from last week on the steps of the Old Capitol via this link too.

We’re taking to Twitter Spaces with Representative Michele Rayner on Tuesday at 8pm to unpack this legislation, what it would mean for Floridians, and how to mobilize against it. RSVP here to join us!

As Rene Bracy Sherman says, “Everyone loves someone who has had an abortion.” Our right to control our own bodies is at stake, and here at Team Anna, we know it’s time to fight like hell.

This email also includes our Week 1 Legislative Review, that you can read by scrolling below. We also include a brief COVID-19 review below, along with ways to get plugged into Team Anna’s work.

Onward,

Representative Anna V. Eskamani

COVID-19 UPDATE

Transmission Rates

According to the Miami Herald, Florida now has more than five million COVID-19 cases (this total does not necessarily include at-home COVID-19 tests). In the past seven days, the state has added 66 deaths and 58,406 cases per day on average, according to Herald calculations of CDC data.

However, new cases have been on a downward trend since the state reported 77,156 on January 8, Florida’s single-day increase record.

Testing & Vaccine Access

Orange County has three public testing locations that you can find here.

To help ensure Americans have tests on hand if a need arises, the Biden Administration is purchasing one billion at-home, rapid COVID-19 tests to give to Americans for free. A half-billion tests will be available for order on January 19th and will be mailed directly to American households. Read more here.

Also, under a new policy announced by the White House, individuals covered by a health insurance plan who purchase an over-the-counter COVID-19 diagnostic test that has been authorized, cleared or approved by the Food and Drug Administration will be able to have those test costs covered by their insurance. Read more here.

Still need to get vaccinated or get your booster? Click here to identify a vaccination location near you!

Unemployment Update

Our office continues to help Floridians who are facing economic insecurity, including issues with their unemployment claims.

Per guidance from the DEO, all claimants are now advised to submit issues and inquiries through the DEO Help Center available in English, Spanish, and Creole. This includes issues with locked accounts, payments on holds, and more. If you have already done this and are still facing issues, we invite you to contact our office via this link.

We have received several questions about unemployment being tax-free for the year of 2021. At this time, the unemployment income federal tax exemption from the American Rescue Plan does not include unemployment income for 2021. This means the only way to still take advantage of the benefit is if you were paid any 2020 unemployment money late, and the payment came to you in 2021 instead of 2020. In this case, you will claim it on your 2021 tax return in 2022, and label it as unemployment income from 2020. Read more here.

Rental, Mortgage Relief & DCF Delays

We are also receiving messages from Floridians who are facing issues with their rental assistance application. If you are facing an issue with OurFlorida we can contact the Department of Children and Families (DCF) and seek a status update on your application. If your application is through a local government we encourage you to contact your local City or County elected official(s).

The Homeowner Assistance Fund is a federally funded program that DEO has applied for, but the program is not currently operational. We are waiting for updates from both the federal government and DEO, and will share those specifics as soon as they have become available.

Finally, we know that many Floridians are experiencing delays with DCF. You are welcome to contact us directly if you need assistance.

WEEK 1 LEGISLATIVE SESSION UPDATE

REDISTRICTING UPDATE

The Florida Senate is moving quickly to redraw political maps – but it’s freezing most of the public out of the process.

The Senate Committee on Reapportionment last week approved maps redrawing the boundaries for state Senate and Congressional districts, choosing maps drawn behind closed doors by Senate staff with very little public input.

Ten years ago, Republican leaders in Tallahassee allowed Republican political consultants to secretly draw maps that favored the GOP. But Republican leaders are now using that disastrous process from a decade ago by keeping members of the public out of the process almost entirely.

Several concerns have already been raised about the Senate’s maps, including whether they are diluting the voting power of Florida’s fast-growing Latino population. Nonpartisan groups like the League of Women Voters of Florida also want the Senate to make public a data analysis that shows whether more minority districts could be drawn.

The full Senate could vote on its maps as early as this week. The House has already committed to accepting the Senate’s Senate maps, while the Senate will accept the House’s state House maps. Both chambers will have to agree to the new Congressional maps.

The House has yet to advance its own maps yet, though it will do so soon. This is a process that we all need to be watching very closely.

THE FIGHT TO PROTECT NET METERING

After consultants for Florida Power & Light (FPL) helped Republican Senate President Wilton Simpson stay in power by using sham “ghost candidates” to swing key Senate elections to Republicans, Simpson is now helping FPL lobbyists gut the rooftop solar industry.

On the very first day of session, the Senate Regulated Industries Committee advanced FPL’s top priority this session: SB 1024, which eliminate a policy known as “net metering” that makes it easier for homeowners to afford rooftop solar panels.

Net metering may sound complicated but it’s really not. All it means is that your utility company has to pay you for the extra electricity your solar panels produce. After all, that extra electricity goes into the grid and the utility company turns around and sells it to other customers.

But FPL hate it because the company make a bigger profit selling the power it produces from its own power plants – even though most of that power comes from burning fossil fuels, a leading cause of the climate-change crisis. And the monopoly utility does whatever it can to crush any potential competitors, like rooftop solar companies.

The bill passed by a 7-2 vote, with one Democratic senator joining the committee’s six Republican senators in support. I’m grateful to the two Democratic senators who voted against it – Sens. Linda Stewart and Lauren Book – and we’re ready to fight to save net metering in the Florida House.

We have also sent another letter to the Public Service Commission (PSC) demanding answers on FPL’s political spending, as recent reporting as tied FPL to the fake candidate scheme. We want to make sure that ratepayers are not funding these schemes.

FIGHTING AGAINST CORPORATE TAX BREAKS

It’s not getting much attention in public yet, but corporate lobbyists are already working had behind the scenes on *another* massive tax cut for the state’s biggest corporations.

The question, right now, is how big. For the last several weeks, state economists have been analyzing one proposal that lobbyists have pitched that could permanently Florida’s corporate income tax by hundreds of millions of dollars a year.

They haven’t put a final price tag on just how much this latest corporate giveaway would cost, but we’ll let you know as soon as they do.

Two important things to remember. First, 99 percent of Florida businesses don’t pay any corporate income tax at all. That means the savings from corporate tax cuts go *only* to the top 1 percent of businesses – the corporate giants like Disney and Florida Power & Light who are so big and make so much money that they can’t avoid the tax entirely (though they still exploit loopholes to pay far less than they should).

And second, Florida has already given these giant companies an enormous tax cut. Since 2018, the Florida Legislature has cut the corporate tax by more than $3.5 billion. That’s more than double the city of Orlando’s entire budget. And it’s money that could have been used to help everyday Floridians – addressing our affordable housing crisis, for instance – but was instead used to further pad the profits of Fortune 500 corporations.

It is far past time that Florida started investing Floridians instead of corporations This will be one of the biggest battles of this legislative session.

PRE-EMPTION & UNION BUSTING

Over the past few years, we have seen a terrible trend in Tallahassee of the Florida Legislature taking power away from local communities and robbing them of the ability to make decisions fo themselves. Urged on by corporate lobbyists, the Legislature keeps passing new “preemption” bills that have made it harder for our cities and counties to help workers, protect the environment and preserve local character.

This year, however, we’re seeing something even more damaging – an attempt to stop our local governments from doing almost anything at all.

HB 569 would allow business that claims to have lost profits because of a local ordinance or charter measure to sue the city or county that approved the local law, putting local governments at risk of having to pay out enormous amounts of money in damages and legal fees.

This bill would have disastrous consequences. It would chill cities and counties from taking action to solve real problems in their communities for fear of being sued. And it would allow a single, deep-pocketed big business to thwart the will of an entire community. Not surprisingly, corporate front groups like Associated Industries of Florida, the Florida Chamber of Commerce and Americans for Prosperity are leading the lobbying charge for this bill in Tallahassee.

I voted no on this bad bill, but it nonetheless passed the Civil Justice & Property Rights Subcommittee on a party-line vote. I’ll continue to fight against this session, because I am committed to home rule; the governments closest to the people know best.

Unfortunately, that wasn’t the only bad bill we heard in the Civil Justice & Property Rights Subcommittee last week. We also heard HB 313, which appears designed to rob workers and consumers of the ability to press businesses to make positive changes.

Specifically, the bill would make it easier for a business to sue someone claiming they have interfered in a contractual relationship – and it would put the target of the business’ lawsuit at risk of far greater financial damage. This is designed to chill people from taking collective action on causes they care about – such as by urging the owners of office buildings to cancel contracts with a janitorial company that exploits its workers or calling on advertisers to stop advertising on a show that advocates for hatred or violence.

This bill will be heard again this week and you can bet we’re going to be asking tough questions.

Since we’re talking about workers: A key Senate committee Thursday backed a proposal that would extend COVID-19 legal protections for hospitals, nursing homes and other health care providers. Meanwhile, the Supreme Court has ruled that the Biden administration’s vaccine mandate on health care workers will go into effect. Except Florida officials won’t do its part to enforce it. Read more here.

FIGHTING AGAINST ABORTION BANS

As we noted in the beginning of this update, Florida’s 15 week abortion ban is set to be heard this Wednesday. Below are details for you to take action.

If you can come to Tallahassee, sign up here to testify in person in the committee.

If you cannot come in person, please reach out to the below targets:

NUMBER: (850) 717-5119
Script: “Hello my name is ________. I am urging Representative Fernandez-Barquin to vote NO on HB 5, an abortion ban, on Wednesday. The people of Florida will remember. Abortion bans are unpopular with most Floridians, who respect the privacy of medical decision.”

NUMBER: (850) 717-5023
Script: “Hello my name is ________. I am urging Representative McClain to vote NO on HB 5, an abortion ban, on Wednesday. The people of Florida will remember. Abortion bans are unpopular with most Floridians, who respect the privacy of medical decision.”

NUMBER: (850) 717-5082
Script: “Hello my name is ________. I am urging Representative Snyder to vote NO on HB 5, an abortion ban, on Wednesday. The people of Florida will remember. Abortion bans are unpopular with most Floridians, who respect the privacy of medical decision.”

NUMBER: (850) 717-5071
Script: “Hello my name is ________. I am urging Representative Robinson to vote NO on HB 5, an abortion ban, on Wednesday. The people of Florida will remember. Abortion bans are unpopular with most Floridians, who respect the privacy of medical decision.”

NUMBER: (850) 717-5055
Script: “Hello my name is ________. I am urging Representative Tuck to vote NO on HB 5, an abortion ban, on Wednesday. The people of Florida will remember. Abortion bans are unpopular with most Floridians, who respect the privacy of medical decision.”

Thank you for helping us to protect abortion access in Florida!

EMERGENCY FUND FOR DESANTIS?

State Senators revived a proposal Wednesday to create a $1 billion fund that Gov. Ron DeSantis could use at his discretion when he declares emergencies. The Senate Appropriations Committee backed a pair of bills (SB 96 and SB 98), sponsored by Sen. Danny Burgess, R-Zephyrhills, to set up an “Emergency Preparedness and Response Fund” so the governor wouldn’t have to wait for the Joint Legislative Budget Commission to convene to approve spending.

The proposals are ready to go to the full Senate — this is a dangerous idea, and the legislature is supposed to be a check and balance to the executive branch, not passing out blank checks.

Speaking Governor DeSantis, he gave a Trump-like speech at the start of legislative session that you can read more about here.

EDUCATION TESTING UPDATE & DEPARTMENT CONTROVERSY

Gov. Ron DeSantis used the opening day of the 2022 legislative session to amplify his push to scale back on high-stakes testing in Florida schools. Four hours later, the Senate Education Committee advanced a measure that would take steps to implement the governor’s vision. But specifics of the bill don’t meet DeSantis’ goals — at least not yet.

According to the Tampa Bay Times, the bill, sponsored by Sen. Manny Diaz, a Hialeah Republican, would make adjustments to the 2022-23 school year by putting in place a computer-based “progress monitoring” tool and a new standardized test for English language arts and math.

It does not appear to reduce testing for students. When the governor first announced the proposal last year, he said the idea was to reduce testing in schools by 75 percent. As currently written, the legislation would add more testing. Read more here.

Also in education news: Gov. Ron DeSantis’ Education Department is under fire for trying to steer a multimillion-dollar contract to a company whose CEO has ties to the state’s education commissioner.

Records and interviews show that, before the Florida Department of Education asked for bids, it was already in advanced talks with the company to do the work, subverting a process designed to eliminate favoritism.

The company is MGT Consulting, led by former Republican lawmaker Trey Traviesa of Tampa, a longtime colleague of the state’s education commissioner, Richard Corcoran. Read more of this political corruption here.