Senate panel delays bills on pot, voting

TALLAHASSEE Democrats in the Florida Senate got a brief opportunity to tackle two items that have for years been a goal for much of their party — decriminalizing marijuana and restoring the voting rights of ex-felons.

But the Senate Criminal Justice Committee on Monday “temporarily postponed” those bills.

Technically, they could return later in the legislative session. But as committees hold their final meetings this week with only three weeks left in the session, the bills are all but dead.

The hearings were the swan song of state Sen. Randolph Bracy, D-Orlando, who was chosen to run the committee this session by the Senate’s Republican leadership.

“I guess it’s not popular right now, but we’ve got to think about policy for 20 million people and 100 million guests and what our world’s going to look like,” said state Sen. Dennis Baxley, R-Ocala, of the marijuana decriminalization bill. “I’m sorry. I’m just the dad that tells you things you don’t want to hear.”

Proponents argued that the bill, filed by state Sen. Jeff Clemens, D-Lake Worth, was needed because several counties, including all of South Florida, have already passed decriminalization measures, leading to varied levels of enforcement across the state.

“There are some communities that have passed local ordinances, like a $100 ticket down in Miami, whereas in other places you get the full brunt of the law,” said Ethel Rowland, President and CEO of Florida Cannabis Action Network.

A pair of bills that would have restructured the restoration of voting rights to ex-felons in Florida were also postponed without a vote. Florida has some of the harshest laws in the nation when it comes to exfelons’ ability to get the right to vote returned to them. In most states, it’s automatically returned after felons complete probation and parole. In Florida, a commission comprised of the governor and his cabinet has to return the right to vote to ex-felons, and the commission rarely decides to do so.

“We are an outlier in the state of Florida," Clemens said. "1.5 million people can't vote, which represents 30 percent of people who can't vote" nationwide because they’ve lost the right to vote over their criminal records.

Baxley was against automatic restoration of voter rights in any case. State Sen. Rob Bradley, R-Fleming Island, feared that the bills were unconstitutional because the state constitution lays out the criteria for restoring voting rights. He supported a constitutional amendment that would put the idea before Florida voters.

The committee unanimously passed a proposal by Clemens to reduce the mandatory minimum sentencing laws faced by nonviolent marijuana and cocaine traffickers. That bill still hasn’t had a committee hearing in the House.

One bill that has cleared every House committee effectively died when Bracy elected not to hear it. That bill would have made it a third-degree felony to vandalize a veteran’s memorial.

“I don’t support measures that create new penalties. So it wasn’t necessarily directed toward this particular bill, it’s kind of an overall policy position,” Bracy said. “I support veterans and I believe we need to protect their memory and what they’ve done for this country.”

Veterans and war re-enactors held a news conference and march earlier in the day to voice opposition to Bracy’s failure to hear the bill.