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1998 Legislative News
By Larry Helm Spalding, Legislative Staff Counsel
February 1998
The prognosis for the 1998 Regular Session of the Florida Legislature, which convenes on March 3, is somewhat difficult to predict. This is, after all, an election year. And it is not just any election year. In 1996, Republicans gained control of both the Florida House and Senate. Most political observers believe that not only will the Republicans continue to control both houses after the November 1998 elections, but also that the margin between liberals/moderates and conservatives will grow even larger.
The critical battle, however, will be the governor's race. Should conservatives maintain a voting majority in both houses of the Legislature and a governor sympathetic to conservative social causes is elected, the civil liberties climate in Florida could see some drastic changes.
Add into the mix the proposed constitutional amendments presently being debated by the Florida Constitution Revision Commission and you have the makings for an extremely interesting year.
Abortion Rights
During the 1997 Regular Session, legislators enacted two antichoice measures: the Woman's RighttoKnow Act and the Ban on PartialBirth Abortions.
The antichoice forces will be back in 1998 with legislation which will require teenage girls to notify their parents before receiving an abortion, regulate abortion clinics more strenuously than other medical facilities, force women to wait 24 hours between seeing a doctor and receiving an abortion, create a manslaughter offense for vehicular homicide for the killing of an unborn quick child by any injury to the mother, restrict abortion coverage by employer private insurance companies, and create a "Choose Life" license plate.
PartialBirth Abortion
On May 23, 1997, Governor Lawton Chiles vetoed the socalled partialbirth abortion ban which had been enacted by the Legislature. One of the first orders of business for the Legislature in 1998 will likely be a vote to override the veto. The ACLU of Florida actively opposed the ban during the 1997 Regular Session.
To date, ten courts have halted similarly worded bans, enjoining them in whole or in part as unconstitutional because they reach an array of safe abortion procedures used in almost every second trimester abortion. Such bans, therefore, jeopardize women's health because, as courts have found, women would be forced into riskier procedures. That just shows why legislators should not try to tell doctors how to practice medicine.
Parental Choice in Education (Vouchers)
The major church/state battle will again be over school vouchers. The Religious Right is absolutely committed to the use of state and federal tax dollars to fund religious schools in Florida. Groups such as the Christian Coalition and the Florida Catholic Conference claim that "vouchers provide more parental choice" and "competition will make public schools improve." While it is true that public schools have problems that must be addressed, the ACLU believes that, aside from their unconstitutionality, vouchers will not solve those problems and would, instead, only exacerbate them.
The "Family Bill of Rights"
One of the Religious Rights' highest priorities for the 1998 Regular Session is the enactment of the "Family Bill of Rights Act." This very dangerous bill would substantially change the Child Protection System presently in place in Florida by including the additional requirement of a court order before removing a child from the custody of his or her parents for suspected child abuse, an increased standard of evidence in dependency hearings and the threat of criminal charges for Child Protection Investigators and law enforcement officers who remove children improperly. Testimony was offered to the Constitutional Revision Commission that 98% of all childabuse arrests in the State of Florida are false. The objective is to weaken radically the power of the state to investigate and prosecute child abuse cases.
The ACLU has stood firm with numerous child advocacy organizations to oppose the passage of the "Family Bill of Rights" Act.
Drug Testing
Bills have been introduced in the Florida Legislature which will permit drug testing without any showing of probable cause, or even suspicion, that drugs are being used by the individual to be tested. The bills will authorize random drug testing of middle school and high school students in the public school system. Another drug measure will make consent to drug testing a precondition to the receipt of welfare benefits.
