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SUMMARY OF FLORIDA LEGISLATURE 2004
By Larry Helm Spalding
ACLU Legislative Staff Counsel
The Budget
The Florida Legislature is required by the state constitution to pass only one bill each session: the appropriations act. If the first requirement of any civilized society is to create law and order, the second is to care for those who cannot care for themselves. The Florida Legislature is quite good at the first task, but has difficulty with the second. Compassionate conservatism got lost somewhere on the fourth floor of the Capitol in 2004. The losers were the poor, the old, the young, and the sick. None were spared.
Jeb Bush and lawmakers cut Medicaid payments to nursing homes by 5 percent. They ended pre-natal care for low-income pregnant women. They approved pilot projects to push patients with mental illness and AIDS into HMOs, which keep costs low by restricting medical services.
Legislators made a sham of the pre-kindergarten amendment recently passed by voters. House members passed the Senate program to educate the state's four-year olds. It would offer classes for just three hours a day. Instructors would not need to be certified teachers, nor would the plan limit the number of pre-kindergartners in a classroom.
Public school students aged 5-18 got the cut-rate treatment as well. Lawmakers spent 50 percent of the state budget on them, 10 percent less than 10 years ago. Meanwhile, it costs more, not less, to educate children today than it did in 1994 and more students, not fewer, attend Florida's schools.
The judicial system got no new judges again this year, although the Florida Supreme Court certified the need for 88 new judges in the trial and appellate courts of the state. The reason is that the Supreme Court opposed the creation of a new Sixth District Court of Appeal (with all of the new judges appointed by Jeb) based in Tampa that the House made a condition for the funding of new judgeships.
State workers got no pay raises.
But taxes did not increase. In fact, Jeb and company were able to cut taxes. Some would call tax cutting an obsession of the conservatives, but that is probably an understatement.
Citizen Initiatives
Making the citizen initiative process more difficult was high on the priority list of Jeb Bush, Senate President Jim King, and the influential Florida Chamber of Commerce. It failed.
There will be only one ?citizen initiative ' issue on the November 2 ballot: Should the deadline for filing paperwork for citizen initiatives be extended from three months before a general election to nine months? Click here for Myths and Realities of Florida's Ballot Initiative Process.
To the surprise of both opponents and proponents, two other resolutions died in the House, despite a deal with the Senate that guaranteed the amendments would be on the November 2 ballot.
Those joint resolutions would have asked voters to require a 60 percent approval rate for all amendments, whether proposed by citizens or lawmakers, and to grant the Florida Supreme Court broad discretion to keep citizen initiatives off the ballot. It was a done deal, but it failed. Thank Speaker Johnnie Byrd, not because he believes in protecting the rights to citizens to petition their government, but because he held the joint resolutions hostage while he negotiated for bills that might help his senatorial campaign. The tactic was not successful as the citizen initiative resolutions, along with dozens of other bills, died because there was a total communication breakdown between the House and Senate in the waning hours of the session.
One note of caution before popping the champagne corks, the Florida Chamber of Commerce now wants lawmakers to return for a special session to consider these constitutional issues sometime over summer. But political leaders are reluctant to issue a call during a presidential election year, and Senate President Jim King has had about all he wants of Johnnie Byrd. The Chamber will likely have to wait until the 2005 session to revive their ? citizen initiative reform ' campaign.
ACLU was part of a coalition called the Florida Initiative League, which included Common Cause, the Sierra Club, the League of Women Voters, and numerous other organizations, both liberal and conservative, which opposed restricting the rights of voters. We fully expected to fight these measures in November. Fortunately, that will not be necessary, but the issues are certainly not going away.
Parental Notification
Unfortunately, the Parental Notification joint resolution was enrolled shortly before the Florida Legislature adjourned sine die . The proposed constitutional amendment that will go before the voters on November 2 did not pass without a fight. ACLU was part of an opposition coalition headed by the executive director of the Florida Association of Planned Parenthood Affiliates (FAPPA) who worked tirelessly to defeat the measure. She almost pulled it off.
Next, the ACLU state legal panel, in consultation with our coalition partners, will determine if there is a viable legal challenge that can be presented to the Florida Supreme Court.
Finally, on the assumption that the proposed constitutional amendment will be on the November 2 ballot, the ACLU plans to join with its coalition partners to campaign aggressively against this dangerous and potentially fatal amendment. If adopted, this amendment will be the first ever to limit, rather than expand, the constitutional right to privacy for the citizens of Florida.
Reproductive Rights
Although the Florida Legislature did enact a parental notification joint resolution that asks voters on November 2 to approve an amendment authorizing the Legislature to pass a law requiring that parents be notified when a girl under the age of eighteen seeks an abortion, no other reproductive rights bills passed. One bill that failed to gain legislative approval would define the killing of a viable fetus as a separate criminal offense if a pregnant woman were murdered. Another bill that did not garner legislative approval would have imposed greater restrictions on abortion clinics.
Equal Rights
A bill relating to equal rights for men & women died in committee.
Legislation was enrolled to strengthen health and safety protections for immigrant farm workers.
Church/State
For the first time in recent memory, there was no school prayer bill considered by the Florida Legislature. There were, however, numerous bills dealing with faith-based issues. None of these bills passed in 2004. Much of the credit can be given to the coalition of organizations concerned about the separation of church & state.
A bill designed to expand the school voucher program to grant military dependents the option of attending a public, private, or religious school at taxpayer expense died in committee.
A bill to weaken Florida's current statute on living wills died in committee.
Finally, a voucher accountability bill, that the ACLU supported, died on the House calendar. As a result, private and religious schools will continue to take tens of millions of taxpayer dollars next year with little or no state oversight.
The lack of legislation means home-based schools will continue to take McKay vouchers, which are for disabled students; voucher students will not have to take standardized tests; and no one will legally be able take vouchers away from schools that misuse tax dollars.
Also, the groups responsible for doling out up to $88 million in corporate tax credit vouchers will continue to have no state fiscal monitoring besides an annual audit performed by accountants hired by the groups themselves.
Public Libraries/Obscenity/Internet Censorship
A bill requiring Internet filtering software on public library computers died on the Senate calendar. It is the third year that sponsors have been unable to pass this measure. ACLU participated in an opposition coalition led by the Florida Library Association.
Voting Rights
One of the biggest disappointments of the session for the ACLU was the inability to get even a committee hearing on any of the several bills addressing the disfranchisement of former felons. This failure to get the Florida Legislature to consider the issue has prompted the ACLU to utilize the citizen initiative process to get the question before the voters in November 2006.
The Florida Legislature did use funding from the Help America Vote Act (HAVA) to tweak the election process. Money was made available for the visually impaired to have at least one accessible voting machine on site. $3 million was appropriated for voter education, and another $11 million for a statewide voter registration system to ensure that voters are not turned away from the polls in error as happened by the thousands in 2000.
Legislation was enrolled which eliminates the need for a witness when a voter signs an absentee ballot.
The ACLU also lobbied, as part of a Voting Rights coalition, about our concerns over the use of electronic voting machines. The coalition urged the Legislature to require a paper trail for all such machines as the only means available to comply with the US Supreme Court decision in Bush v. Gore which mandates a uniform recount procedure. The Division of Elections in the Secretary of State's office argued against the need for a paper trail. The Division's position prevailed.
Criminal Justice
A major disappointment for the ACLU came with the failure to pass a bill that would have raised the age of eligibility for the death penalty to eighteen from the current sixteen. The bill died in House messages because Speaker Byrd refused to calendar the bill after it passed in the Senate. The ACLU worked as part of a coalition that included the Florida Catholic Conference, several advocacy groups for juveniles as well as groups that generally oppose capital punishment.
The budget implements a constitutional mandate that the state assume most of the financing of the state court system. It will be accomplished largely by raising filing and licensing fees. On a related issue, however, counties must now pay the costs of pretrial detention of juveniles.
A Jeb Bush priority, the creation of a statewide law enforcement drug database of everyone who obtains a legal prescription of certain controlled substances, was opposed by the ACLU and died on the House calendar.
A bill extending the period following sentencing during which a petition may be filed or considered by the court to order the testing of criminal DNA evidence was enrolled. ACLU supported the bill.
A bill was enrolled which requires mandatory sentencing after five misdemeanor convictions. ACLU opposed the bill. We believe that the criminal justice system is better served by individualized sentencing by an independent judiciary rather than through legislatively mandated periods of confinement that permit no deviation even when there are exigent circumstances.
The mandatory seatbelt bill died in Senate messages.
Trial judges will be barred from withholding adjudication of guilt in certain felony cases.
A bill designed to expand the use of electronic monitoring devices for individuals both under criminal sentence and awaiting trial died in House messages.
Sex offenders are now prohibited from living within 1,000 feet of a school bus stop.
The National Rife Association (NRA) successfully overcame opposition from law enforcement to persuade legislators to enact a law that prohibits police and government agencies (including the state Office of Homeland Security) from keeping comprehensive records of people who own firearms.
Finally, the Florida Legislature did a major rewrite of the Baker Act. The most significant change grants trial courts the authority to order mentally ill people to undergo outpatient treatment rather than committing them to a hospital for diagnosis and treatment.
Education/public schools
Several bills, opposed by the ACLU, mandating random drug testing of students died in committee.
Legislation, supported by the ACLU, designed to address the problem of harassment of gay and lesbian students in the public schools failed to receive any committee hearings.
A bill was enrolled that an American flag, made in the United States, must be displayed in every public school, community college and university classroom.
Access to courts
The Florida Legislature, at the urging of the National Rife Association (NRA), decided that the Second Amendment trumps environmental concerns about toxic lead by granting virtual immunity from liability caused by ground and surface water pollution at gun ranges.
Fast food restaurants can rest easy having been given immunity from lawsuits that allege eating the restaurant's food led to health problems or death caused by weight gain.
Summary
Many veteran observers of the political process at the Capitol describe Florida Legislature 2004 as the worse session in memory. The credit or blame for that appellation is universally given to Speaker Johnnie Byrd who ruled the House of Representatives with an iron hand and demonstrated a total inability to work with his counterpart in the Florida Senate, President Jim King. However one views the session, the simple truth is that not much significant legislation passed in 2004. For those of us in the ACLU, that is a good thing. We tend to oppose far more bills than we support.
Finally, the ACLU Legislative Office tracked over 100 bills during the regular session. If you would like to receive a copy of the final bill track summary (24 pages), I shall be glad to send you a copy as an email attachment or as an html link. Send your request to LarryACLU@aol.com .
