The 2019 60-day Legislative Session will begin on March 5, 2019 and is expected to end on May 3, 2019.
Committee weeks will be held leading up to the start of the regular session, and during the interim we will be crisscrossing the state meeting with legislators in their home districts. We will be advocating for criminal justice reform and increased civil liberties and civil rights protections for all Floridians, and ensuring that when it comes time to vote in November 2018 that Floridians support Second Chances by voting “Yes” on Amendment 4 which restores the eligibility to vote to returning citizens who have successfully served their time and paid their debt to society.
Over the next several months, the ACLU of Florida, along with partners in the Campaign for Criminal Justice Reform, will continue to build on the progress made during the 2018 Session by meeting with legislators and advocating across the state to advance our criminal justice reform efforts. We will continue to build legislative bipartisan support for reform, center our work on the needs of impacted communities, and educate and empower constituents to make their voices heard.
While we are encouraged with the progress we made and the groundwork that has been laid in our 2018 efforts to end mass incarceration in Florida, we know that there is still much work that needs to be done.
In addition, we will continue working with partners and Floridians across the state to prepare for future legislative attacks on immigrants’ rights and reproductive freedom. We hope that legislators will learn from the failure of many anti-immigrant and anti-women’s health bills this past session that Floridians do not support these measures. We are also working with other state ACLU affiliates to anticipate and prepare for bills that were filed in other states that threaten civil rights and liberties that may be introduced here in Florida in 2019.
Given the current political climate, it is an uphill battle to pass any significant proactive civil rights legislation. We were greatly encouraged by the number of cosponsors of the Competitive Workforce Act this past session (approximately 70), and we will continue to work diligently to gain increased bipartisan support to ensure that no one is discriminated against because of who they are and who they love.
We are so grateful for all you do to support civil rights and liberties for all Floridians – we could not do this work without you.
Key Anti-Civil Liberties Bills of 2018: How your representative voted
Immigrants’ Rights
HB 9, Banning Sanctuary Policies and Requiring ICE Enforcement – Passed the House, but was defeated in the Senate
- House Floor Votes: https://www.myfloridahouse.gov/Sections/Bills/floorvote.aspx?VoteId=17821&BillId=59819&SessionId=86&
Reproductive Health
HB 1429 – Banning Safest Second Trimester Abortion Procedure – Passed the House, but was defeated in the Senate