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1999 Florida Legislative Session in Review
By Larry Helm Spalding, ACLU Legislative Staff Counsel
June 1999
This was a historic year in Florida. For the first time since the Civil War, Republicans controlled both houses of the Legislature by comfortable margins and had the political benefit of a popular young governor in the Executive Office. Additionally, the state is in the midst of a booming economy, and is flush with dollars from the recent tobacco settlement. It all combined to present an opportunity to dramatically improve the welfare of the citizens of our state.
So how did they do? Although everyone agrees big business was this session's winner, evaluating how the Legislature fared with its social agenda is not as clear. The Florida Times-Union, arguably the state's most conservative newspaper, for example, wrote that the Christian Coalition and its allies should be pleased with its accomplishments during the session (vouchers, parental notice, and the Choose Life license plate). Other state newspapers opined that lawmakers had handled the more volatile social issues gingerly, or not at all, and had all but ignored the social conservatives by merely tossing them a few bones.
The Social Agenda
Of the ten bills which ranked high on the Religious Right's agenda, three passed both houses and were sent to the Governor, while seven failed to gain the Legislature's approval.
School Vouchers: The ACLU's biggest loss was the most hotly contested of Bush's bills. School vouchers passed in both the House and the Senate virtually along party lines. Democrats vehemently opposed the program, which provides state tax dollars in the form of "opportunity scholarships" (school vouchers) for students to attend private or religious schools. Republican proponents said vouchers are the best way to ensure that all children have the same educational opportunities. The ACLU said vouchers impede efforts to improve the public schools and violate the principle of separation of church and state.
Many educators and civil libertarians fear this legislation is designed to be the initial step toward a program advocated by groups such as Floridians for School Choice and the Florida Catholic Conference, by which vouchers will be available to every Florida school child in K12 to attend any public, private, religious school - or even to be home-schooled - at taxpayer expense.
The ACLU was part of a broad coalition which opposed the legislation during the 1999 Regular Session. Some of the coalition members included the Florida PTA, the NAACP, Americans United for Separation of Church & State, People for the American Way, NEA/FTP, the American Jewish Congress, and the League of Women Voters. Many of these same coalition members will participate in the litigation which the ACLU plans to file this summer challenging the constitutionality of "opportunity scholarships" which can be paid to religious schools.
School Prayer: If the enactment of the nation's largest school voucher program was the major disappointment, defeat of a school prayer bill was one of the high points. Here too the ACLU worked closely with a coalition of groups which were opposed to officially sponsored prayers in the public schools. Among other things, the ACLU argued that its case, Adler v. Duval County School District, then pending in the United States Court of Appeals, would resolve the issue whether student-initiated prayer is constitutional in Florida. On May 12, almost two weeks after the Legislature adjourned sine die, the Eleventh Circuit struck down the Duval County School District's guidelines which had given impetus to the state legislation.
Partial-Birth Abortion: Legislation to ban socalled partialbirth abortions died a quiet death. Much of the credit goes to Charlene Carres, a member of the ACLU board of directors and a tireless advocate for women's issues in Florida.
Judicial Nominating Commissions: Legislation pushed by the Christian Coalition to slash the tenure of many sitting judges was scrapped, even though it would have given Gov. Bush greater power over judicial appointments. The bill would also have eliminated race and gender considerations in the appointment process.
Parental Notice : Religious conservatives did not go away emptyhanded. The Legislature approved a bill requiring doctors to notify parents before performing abortions on minors. Opponents argued that it would subject girls to violence at the hands of parents, or force them into backalley abortions. The bill allows minors to petition a judge for a waiver of notification.
"Choose Life" License Plate: Lawmakers also approved a new specialty license plate featuring the antiabortion slogan "Choose Life."
The Ten Commandments: Another measure pushed by the Religious Right failed to garner much enthusiasm this session. Sen. John Grant's bill to permit the posting of the Ten Commandments in public buildings died quietly in committee.
Pledge of Allegiance: Another bill the ACLU opposed, but which was enacted by the Legislature, makes participation in patriotic programs mandatory and permits a student to be excused from reciting the pledge of allegiance only with the written consent of a parent or guardian. The law on this subject is well established. Government in this case school districts cannot coerce students "by word or act" to affirm their loyalty. This has been the law of the land as enunciated by the United States Supreme Court for more than half a century.
Government Contracts/Religious Organizations: The Religious Right wants to privatize as many government programs as possible. It also wishes to create a public/private partnership with sectarian organizations. The ACLU does not oppose all programs operated by religious organizations with government funds. The ACLU does oppose these contracts when a major component of a religious organization's program involves proselytizing clients at taxpayer expense. Fortunately, this particular bill died in committee.
Drug Testing/Public School Students: There were several bills which would expand random drug testing in government agencies. Each failed. Nonetheless, the most outrageous bill was one which would permit random urine testing, without suspicion or evidence of drug use, for all middle and high school students in the public school system. Fortunately, this bill too died in committee.
At the beginning of the session, the ACLU worried about all ten of these bills. Proponents certainly had the numbers in both houses to enact each of the bills had they chosen to do so. There are several reasons why that did not happen. Perhaps the critical reason is that pushing the Religious Right's agenda was easy for the Republicans when they were out of power and knew their irresponsible votes would be overridden. But the Republicans learned this session what Democrats found out long ago: Keeping a governing coalition intact can be a difficult balancing act. This session it was the business-oriented Republicans who won the day within the Republican Caucus. Nonetheless, the social-conservative influence remains strong within the Caucus. Their potential for political mischief in future sessions should not to be underestimated.
Conclusion
The ACLU tracked over one hundred bills during the past session. The most time consuming was the school voucher bill. Voucher advocates often had as many as fifteen lobbyists working the bill at one time. Our coalition tried to match them, but we certainly did not have the financial resources of the proponents.
School vouchers is a critical issue which will be with us for a long time. Should the ACLU and its coalition partners have this version declared unconstitutional by the courts, then the proponents likely will be back next year to propose an amendment to the state constitution. If we should not prevail, they will be back to expand the program to include a far greater number of students. School Choice may well be the issue of the next decade.
If you would like more information on which bills the ACLU tracked during the 1999 Regular Session, and our position on those bills, you can access the ACLU of Florida web site which is located at http://www.aclufl.org.
1999 was an interesting session. 2000 will be even more so with a presidential race, perhaps one involving the Governor's brother, on the horizon. The 2000 state elections are also the first time that a large number of legislators will be barred from seeking reelection because of term limits. It will be Gov. Bush's second session. The Governor was generally given high marks for his handling of the 1999 Regular Session. He made some mistakes, but will undoubtedly learn from them before he undertakes his sophomore year in the Executive Office.
Finally, I wish to thank each of you, particularly those of you who are members of the ACLU Legislative Network, who responded so diligently to our legislative alerts throughout the session. You are a major reason for our successes this session. It could have indeed been much worse.
