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The 1998 Legislative Session in Review
By Larry Helm Spalding
Legislative Staff Counsel, May 1998
The Conservative Agenda
The conservatives in the Florida Legislature this year pushed an agenda promoting morality and no new taxes. It was supposed to be the Year of the Child. Instead, they emasculated the tort system, turned their backs on the environment, engineered an assault on the state judiciary and were obsessed with the death penalty. Each house passed its own version of a voucher plan which would make state tax dollars available for both private and religious schools. Fortunately, the issue eventually died, but not until late on the last day of the session.
The legislative mantra, particularly for the House leadership, was profamily and fervently antiabortion. Christian conservatives successfully supported measures, such as the "Choose Life" specialty license plate and the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. They passed legislation that requires couples to take a fourhour marriage preparation course before they can wed. Divorcing couples with children will also be required to take a fourhour family stabilization class. They even required physicians to notify parents 48 hours before performing an abortion on their pregnant teen.
But days after the session ended when most public interest lobbyists were licking their wounds, Christian conservatives were not happy.
They said they are tired of being taken for granted by Republicans. They were stunned and angered by the defeat of the most important antiabortion bill of the year a proposed constitutional amendment to require parental consent prior to any medical treatment, including abortion, being performed on a minor.
Without changing the state constitution, organizations such as the ACLU and the Center for Reproductive Law & Policy expect to overturn the parental notice law in court, even if Governor Chiles allows the bill to become law. The Florida Supreme Court overturned a similar parental consent law 10 years ago, finding that it violated the right to privacy guaranteed in the state constitution. Charlene Carres, who is a member of the ACLU of Florida board of directors representing the Tallahassee Chapter, was lead counsel in that case.
The Death Penalty
About two weeks into the Regular Session, lawmakers sent the Governor legislation reaffirming electrocution as Florida's method of execution. The measure designates lethal injection as the backup method should a court ever rule the electric chair unconstitutional.
There were other death penalty measures all designed to hasten the process between trial and execution. Most bills gave little consideration to constitutional requirements, and one the Death Penalty Reform Act of 1998 would have abolished state habeas corpus (the right of an individual to question why he or she is being held in custody). Once regarded as legislation only three or four conservative extremists would endorse, this year's version of the Death Penalty Reform Act had seventy cosponsors in the House. Fortunately, we were able to kill the bill in the Senate.
The governor has already signed a compensation bill that would pay $500,000 each to Freddie Pitts and Wilbert Lee. The South Florida men spent twelve years on death row awaiting execution for a pair of murders another man admitted committing. They were pardoned in 1975. The ACLU has long supported compensation for Pitts and Lee who have filed a claims bill in the Legislature for the past twenty years.
Passage of the claims bill, which is woefully inadequate in terms of compensation, was more about politics than justice. The bill was passed by the conservatives, not because it was the right and just thing to do, but rather to exploit the division in the Democratic Party ranks resulting from the ouster of Rep. Willie Logan as minority leader. Members of the Black Caucus have discussed endorsing Jeb Bush in the governor's race and have stated they will actively campaign against House Democrats who voted for the ouster of the first AfricanAmerican to hold the position of minority leader. The passage of the Pitts and Lee claims bill was a partial payback.
The Assault on the State Judiciary
There was an unprecedented number of bills filed in 1998 designed to lessen the independence of the state judiciary. Most of the bills did not pass, but the bills reflect the rightwing's philosophy toward the courts. Their hatred of the federal judiciary is well known. Not so well known is their growing hatred of state judges particularly appointed state judges.
The bills sought term limits, recall petitions, popular election of appellate judges rather than merit retention, and drastic changes in the composition of the Judicial Nominating Commission by excluding The Florida Bar as a participant and replacing Bar appointees with those of the Attorney General.
The logic is simple. They believe that elected judges, who want to remain on the bench, will not find legislation such as restrictions on abortion, school prayer, and vouchers for religious schools unconstitutional if they must face the wrath of conservative Christian voters after they have written their opinions. They call it accountability. Others call it intimidation.
The 1999 Legislative Session
Conservatives expect to control both houses of the Legislature and the executive mansion in 1999. Should that happen, the religious rightwing, which was already influential in 1998, will demand that legislative members avidly pursue its extremist social agenda. It may not be possible to stop them.
The alliance of activists is formidable: organizations such as the Christian Coalition, Focus on the Family, the Concerned Women for America, the Liberty Counsel, the Family Research Council, the Florida Catholic Conference, the Southern Baptist Convention and the Home School Legal Defense Association have a clear agenda much of which civil libertarians oppose.
In the 1999 Regular Session of the Florida Legislature, residents are again likely to see a law proposed on school vouchers which would allow families to receive state tax dollars to send their children to religious schools or to pay for home schooling. Also likely are bills allowing prayers in public schools and further limitations on abortion. They will also seek to block any expansion of rights for homosexuals.
The sad truth is that too many members of the Florida Legislature are perfectly content to let TV preachers and religious fundamentalist politicians set the agenda for our state. Even more tragic there are too many moderate and liberal Florida voters who seem perfectly content to let that happen.
The ACLU is a nonpartisan organization. Nonetheless, the reality is that the Florida Legislature has taken a dramatic right turn and will continue in a rightward direction unless people who are concerned about reproductive freedom, separation of church and state, and freedom of speech make their voices heard.
Defending civil liberties in the 1998 Florida Legislature was difficult. Fortunately, it is people, like you, who support the Bill of Rights, that make the work of the ACLU in the halls of the Capitol worthwhile.
