South Florida Sun-Sentinel Palm Beach (Sunday)
Do’s, don’ts for dangerously locked-down Legislature
Fresh off a triumphant election in November, Florida Republicans are strutting around with more than the usual swagger, and why not?
They rolled over a weakened Democratic Party, adding five seats in the House and one in the Senate to pad their safe majorities. Then they used the COVID19 pandemic as a pretense to seal off the state Capitol from the public so they can push their agenda through with as little resistance as possible. They’re fast-tracking bills that would suppress votes, restrict abortion rights, expand school vouchers and trample on home rule. It’s dangerous stuff.
Democrats will protest loudly, but their small numbers make them powerless to actually stop this right-wing steamroller, which is why things will get scary in Tallahassee when the annual session of the Legislature begins Tuesday. Already geographically isolated from most who live under its rule, the state Capitol is now mostly impenetrable. It makes a mockery of Gov. Ron DeSantis’ empty claim that Florida is “open for business.”
Here are 10 do’s and don’ts for a Legislature in lockdown:
serious about climate change, the gravest threat to the planet. A good place to start is with SB 1362 and HB 993, filed by two Palm Beach County lawmakers, with goals for reducing greenhouse gas pollution, a major contributor to global warming. (Let’s see if either version, by Sen. Tina Polsky or Rep. Kelly Skidmore, even gets a hearing.) DeSantis proposes a $1 billion resiliency grant program for cities and counties. OK, it’s a start, but it’s puny and it should not be funded with borrowed money. Get serious, governor. Use cash and go after the causes of climate change, not just the consequences. Speaking of consequences, the 2020 election saw the loss of the Legislature’s most tenacious advocate for action on climate change, former Sen. Jose Javier Rodriguez of Miami. Others must fill the void.
the vote by forcing hundreds of thousands of voters to apply a second time for mail ballots for the 2022 election (SB 90) or restricting drop boxes at early voting sites. This power grab to discourage voting has Trump written all over it, and it’s happening all over the country. Republicans in Florida can’t have it both ways. They can’t brag about a trouble-free election and then lie about elections officials “gone rogue,” as Rep. Blaise Ingoglia, R-Spring Hill, did at a DeSantis campaign-style event last week in West Palm Beach.
right thing and reform Florida’s overly punitive sentencing laws that cruelly keep too many nonviolent offenders locked up for too long. Start by retroactively ending irrationally long mandatory prison terms for crimes such as firing a gun when no one was hurt under the “10-20-Life” law, which carries a minimum 20-year sentence (SB 328).
cities with more limits on their authority. There are too many, but these two awful ideas stand out: shifting control of seaports from cities and counties to the state (SB 426) and allowing homebased businesses to flourish
(HB 403). The guy next door could open a car repair shop or massage parlor and there’s nothing you or your city could do about it. In Tallahassee, this is called “pro-business.”
a favor and fully protect the state’s affordable housing program from raids to plug holes in the budget. The fund is needed now more than ever because of a housing shortage and constant COVID-related threats of evictions and foreclosures. Listen to the advice of the Sadowski Housing Coalition, protect our housing dollars, and pass a sensible law (SB 510) to prohibit future raids.
games with democracy (SJR 854). Follow the intent of voters and implement a new $15-an-hour minimum wage without new restrictions on groups of workers such as felons or people under 21. When millions of people in Florida vote for something, a handful of political insiders in Tallahassee should not have the power to rewrite it.
a stand for tax fairness for a change by requiring remote sellers to collect the 6% Florida sales tax on taxable online purchases. Even broadbased business support has failed to get this long-overdue proposal across the finish line. Florida is one of two states that does not collect the tax on online sales, and it costs the state and local governments an estimated $1.3 billion a year.
consider passing DeSantis’ reckless attack on our First Amendment rights that encourages extreme violence against protesters. The bill (HB 1, SB 484) may be the worst idea of this legislative session, but there’s a long way to go. This is an undisguised move to sanction violence against the Black Lives Matter movement. To remove Floridians’ free speech protections, at a time when they are locked out of their Capitol, is so terribly wrong.
Medicaid (SJR 276). Before the pandemic, an estimated 900,000 uninsured adults in Florida would have benefited from Medicaid expansion. Huge COVID-related job losses, combined with the pandemic’s disruptive effects on the daily lives of Floridians, have only made the need for a stronger health care safety net more urgent.
the public’s right to know. It’s enshrined in the Florida Constitution but under fierce attack as usual as legislators consider imposing secrecy over voters’ information (HB 155) and home addresses of lawmakers themselves (SB 1488), even though their constituents’ addresses remain public on property appraisers’ websites. More than 1,000 exemptions to Florida’s public records laws are, sadly, already on the books. We have far too much secrecy. Don’t lengthen the shadows over the Sunshine State.
Editorials are the opinion of the Sun Sentinel Editorial
Board and written by one of its members or a designee. The Editorial Board consists of Editorial Page Editor Rosemary O’Hara, Dan Sweeney, Steve Bousquet and Editor-in-Chief Julie Anderson.