Your Florida Legislative Session Update: Week 8

Dear Friend,

Just one week left in Florida’s 2021 Legislative Session! Like every Monday, we’re sending you an email review of what we’ve been up to in Tallahassee. (Click here for last week’s review).

Also, if you’re not doing so already, please consider keeping up to date with us through our social media accounts, including Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. You can also watch Committee Meetings and Floor Sessions live on the Florida Channel.

Onward together,

Rep. Anna V. Eskamani

UPDATED COVID19 GUIDE

Up first, as always: The latest version of our COVID-19 Guide (español), along with our Unemployment Issues blog post and our guidance for renters. If you are facing issues with your unemployment claim, please fill out our DEO escalation form here.

As of today, Florida’s Work Search Requirement within the Unemployment System has been re-implemented. We are still waiting for guidance from the Department of Economic Opportunity of what this means for Floridians, and suspect we’ll hear an announcement either today or tomorrow.

If you are at least one month behind in rent and live in Orange County you may be eligible for the County’s Rental Assistance Program. Note that if you live in the City of Orlando, you will have to wait till their rental assistance program is available and are not eligible for Orange County’s program. Click here for Orange County’s Program, click here for Orlando’s program.

Not in Orange County or Orlando? Visit the website of your local governments to see what programs they might have available to you.

The Small Business Administration has also made available several new programs to support small businesses. This includes the Shuttered Venue Operators Grant and Restaurant Revitalization Fund (RRF). Click here for a list of all SBA Programs.

House Republicans Turn Their Backs on Help Unemployed Floridians

All of us know how awful Florida’s unemployment system is for workers. Designed by corporate lobbyists to pay as little as possible to as few people as possible, it is the most heartless, unfair and economically foolish unemployment system in the country. And we all saw first hand how it destroyed people’s lives during the pandemic when so many workers lost their jobs through no fault of their own.

We all also saw how politicians across Florida — from both parties — promised votes they would fix this system that is so brutally rigged against workers.

Well, we tried to do last week — and Republicans refused.

On Tuesday, I offered an amendment to HB 1463 that would have taken a *baby step* toward turning our unemployment system into an actual safety net for workers. It would have raised the weekly benefit amount — which hasn’t been increased in more than 20 years, and not once since Republicans took control of Tallahassee — by $100. The minimum weekly payment would have increased from $32 to $132 and the maximum would have climbed from $275 a week to $375 a week.

Our average benefit payments would have still been below the national average. But an extra $400 a month could be the difference between avoiding eviction or keeping the electricity on for a worker while they search for a new job. You can watch my presentation on this amendment here.

Republicans said no. In fact, not a single Republican member of the House voted for it. Here’s the vote sheet so you can see exactly which of our state lawmakers don’t think the workers of Florida deserve any help:

I also offered another amendment that would have changed the formula Florida uses to determine whether a worker is eligible for unemployment benefits at all.

Right now, Florida is still in a dwindling number of states that uses an outdated and unnecessary formula — a relic from the days before the world had computers — that ends up irrationally excluding many folks, particularly many part-time and seasonal workers across the tourism and agricultural industries. House Republicans voted that down, too.

Rep. Carlos Guilllermo Smith (D-Orlando) gave them one last chance to be on the side of workers. In addition to paying some of the lowest benefits in the country and excluding many workers entirely for no valid public policy reason, Florida also cuts off benefits faster than almost any state in the country. At the start of the pandemic, Florida provided just 12 weeks of unemployment — the worst in the nation. Most states provide workers 26 weeks of benefits, which helps them stay afloat, and helps the economy keep running, while they search for new work.

Rep. Smith offered an amendment that would provided workers with 22 weeks of benefit — again, still not as generous as many other states, but far better than the fictional safety net Florida offers now.

And again, not a single House Republican voted for it. Here’s the vote sheet:

It’s hard to overstate how completely Tallahassee Republicans have failed Florida workers this session — all in the name of pleasing their big business puppet masters, who oppose anything at all that might mean they have to pay an extra nickel of taxes. Some of these House members lied to their own constituents.

What’s especially outrageous is that the only meaningful unemployment help that Tallahassee Republicans have provided this session is to those same businesses. While they have refused to do a damn thing for workers so far, Tallahassee Republicans happily passed a $4 billion unemployment tax cut for businesses — the same businesses that already pay by far the lowest unemployment taxes in the country.

Oh, and Republicans paid for that business tax cut by raising taxes on consumers.

But there is still some hope. While the Florida House was turning its back on workers last week, the Florida Senate passed a bipartisan bill (SB 1906) that makes some of these changes. The bill, which passed 40-0, raises benefit payments, adds more weeks of payments and expands eligibility.

Now it’s up to the Florida House, which can take this bill up and pass it into law.

We have one week left.

The Reverse Robin Hood: In the Middle of the Night, Ron DeSantis Takes Money from Floridians and Gives it to Businesses

Tallahassee Republicans are already trying to hide from SB 50.

That’s the bill that raises taxes on consumers by more than $1 billion a year while at the very same time cutting taxes on businesses by more than $1 billion a year. (Here’s my debate against it on the House floor.)

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who desperately wants to run for president, tried to sneak this through by signing the bill just before midnight late one night last week.

He’s hoping nobody noticed and everyone will forget.

But we did. And we won’t.

Exposing the Disingenuous Truth Behind the Latest Abortion Ban

Republicans in the Florida Legislature are trying to pass yet another abortion ban this year — and they’re exploiting people with disabilities to do it.

HB 1221 would make it illegal for doctors to perform an abortion if the doctor knows — or *should* know — that the woman is seeking to end her pregnancy because of tests that it might lead to the birth of a disabled child. It’s a brazen attempt to scare doctors out of providing abortions and further shame and stigmatize women who choose to end their pregnancies.

The Republicans forcing this bill through the Legislature claim it’s about supporting people with disabilities. But we exposed this disingenuous lie last week on the floor of the Florida House, when I proposed an amendment that would have delayed the implementation of this abortion ban until we have fully funded the Agency for Persons with Disabilities and provided services to the thousands of families currently on waiting lists for services.

If Republicans truly cared about supporting Floridians with disabilities and reducing the rate of abortion, then this would be an actual way to do it. We’d be providing immediate and comprehensive support to families raising children with disabilities and we’d be easing the financial struggles that prompt many women to choose to end their pregnancies in the first place.

You can watch my presentation of this amendment starting at 1:43:20 of this video.

Of course, House Republicans voted it down. Because this latest abortion ban — like all the others before it — isn’t really about reducing the rate of abortions in Florida. It’s just another cynical attempt to use abortion as a culture war wedge issue.

You can watch my debate against the bill starting at 1:59:50 of this video.

White Supremacy as Public Policy

Flanked by some of the most aggressive sheriff’s in the state — and not a single Black person — Gov. Ron DeSantis signed HB 1 last week. That’s the unconstitutional attack on the right to protest that the governor is using to suck up to Donald Trump voters, who he’s hoping will support him in the 2024 presidential race.

Immediately after, I joined with some of my Democratic colleagues — all of us people of color — to denounce this bill for the racist, anti-Democratic and wannabe authoritarian garbage that is. You can watch my remarks here.

I also talked about “Hate Bill 1” with Joy Reid on MSNBC, where I explained how this is part of a broader agenda for Tallahassee Republicans — alongside suppressing voters, blocking citizen-led constitutional amendment campaigns, stripping power from cities and local government leaders, defunding public schools, and silencing universities — that is, ultimately, about turning white supremacy into public policy.

You can watch the full interview here.

More Giveaways to Unregulated Private Schools, But Teacher Raises and Pre-K Accountability, too

Tallahassee Republicans continued their attacks on public schools last week, as the House passed HB 7045 — a $200 million a year expansion of the state’s various private school voucher programs.

Republicans once again rejected Democratic attempts to require even the barest minimum of accountability standards to ensure that these private schools benefiting from public money are actually teaching the children who attend them.

Unlike public schools, private schools that take state scholarships do not have to report their students’ SAT or other test scores, hire certified, college-educated teachers or provide specific services to students with disabilities.

We also heard many concerns from parents of special needs kids with the changes being made in this bill. I voted no.

In better education news, House and Senate budget writers agreed to a $22.4 billion PreK-through-12 budget that includes $550 million to raise base teacher salaries.

Budget negotiators have also agree to give $1,000 bonuses to our teachers — thanks to the federal relief money provided through President Joe Biden’s American Rescue Plan.

We also passed a bipartisan bill through the Florida House that would improve early childhood education, which we all know is absolutely critical to setting our kids’ up for future success.

Among other things, HB 419 phases in new accountability standards for Florida’s pre-kindergarten system that will evaluate student learning gains and child-teacher interactions. Pre-kindergarten providers will be assigned a designation based on how well they meet these new standards — such as “proficient,” “highly proficient” or “excellent” — which will help families ensure they are choosing the best Pre-K providers for their children.

The bill passed the House by a 118-0 vote. Now we hope the Florida Senate will take it up before session ends on Friday.

Suppressing Voters in the Name of ‘Election Integrity’ While Turning a Blind Eye to Actual Election Fraud

One of the hardest fights in the final week of session will be over Republicans’ attempts to ram through a Georgia-stye voter suppression bill. SB 90 and HB 7041 will likely both be heard on the floors of the Senate and House this week.

My twin sister, Ida, reminded us all just how grotesque this legislation is:

Now, there was actually an election-fraud scandal in Florida last year.

But it was orchestrated by Republicans in Senate District 37, where authorities say a disgraced former GOP lawmaker-turned-lobbyist from Miami bribed someone to run as an independent candidate who a dark-money group then used to peel votes away from former Democratic Sen. Jose Javier Rodriguez. Rodriguez ended up losing to Republican Sen. Ileana Garcia by 32 votes. (In Central Florida, that same dark-money group used the candidacy of another mysterious independent candidate to hep Sen. Jason Brodeur win election, too.)

Of course, all the Tallahassee Republicans talking about “election integrity” don’t want to do a thing about that.

We Haven’t Left But We’re Coming Back

The session hasn’t ended yet, but we already know we’re coming back for a special session.

That’s because Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a new gambling compact with the Seminole Tribe of Florida that would legalize sports betting in Florida. So the Legislature will come back to Tallahaseee the week of May 17 to vote on the compact, as well as potentially consider legislation to allow new casinos in Florida.

Hoops There It Is — in the Florida House!

Last week was the third annual Hoops Day in Tallahassee — a day when folks working in and around the Florida Legislature get to show off their favorite hoops earrings!

This tradition was inspired by one of our interns during the 2019 legislative session, who shared with us that she had been told during a legislative intern orientation that hoop earrings were unprofessional.

We disagreed. Hoop earrings have been around for more than 4,000 years and have been important symbols of resistance, strength and personal identity across many minority groups. Hoops are a symbol of those values and can be proudly worn in any setting!