Tallahassee session 2024: Red meat is on the table
Election-year sessions of the Florida Legislature typically find state lawmakers doing just enough to keep their constituents content while looking ahead to the demands of the upcoming elections. Unfortunately, this session is no different. The Legislature’s GOP super-majority is indeed looking ahead to the 2024 presidential campaign and looking past the needs of the state.
The priority, at least in the first days of the 90-day session, remains helping Gov. Ron DeSantis’ flagging bid for president and support whoever wins the Republican Party presidential nomination.
As expected, the Governor used his “State of the State” speech to showcase his stewardship of Florida’s finances and policy initiatives to both his constituents here and to a wider out-of-state audience. He’s now back in Iowa, where this weekend he will be joined on the campaign trail by about 50 Florida officials, including Cabinet members, state lawmakers and department heads.
Unlike last year, DeSantis hasn’t pressed lawmakers for new policy initiatives to excite the party’s national base. He didn’t have to. State lawmakers have already filed bills to bolster any far-right political bona-fides, beginning with resolutions calling for a balanced federal budget and congressional term limits, an old but enduring conservative initiative. Other bills up for consideration include restricting mail-in voting, equating accusations of discrimination against gay people as defamation and establishing “sex affidavits” for state driver’s licenses.
How far these bills will go is anyone’s guess. Some of the more controversial ones lack the full-throttled support of state House and Senate leadership. But, that’s not the point. It’s an election year and being on the record of favoring extreme initiatives seems just as good as actually enacting them.
‘Owning the libs’ won’t solve Florida problems
Still, how does scoring election year political points help Floridians?
Does anyone seriously think that the immediate passage of a resolution calling for a national constitutional convention to balance the federal budget or impose term limits on Congress make housing and rents more affordable? Will requiring biological sex affidavits for all Floridians getting new or renewed driver’s licenses help reduce the cost of auto insurance? Can Floridians believe that de-regulating public schools will actually result in more-educated students? Does anyone think Florida will be any safer by overturning existing law and allowing 18-year-olds to buy rifles?
The lawmakers’ constituents may never know. That’s because legislators will either prevent the most outlandish of the extreme measures from ever getting a committee hearing, or they will expedite the bills they want, rushing them through the process with quick votes of approval. Either way, Floridians will be robbed of any real discussion or debate on the legislation’s merits.
The good news is that many of the bills filed by lawmakers aren’t just for political show. Senate President Kathleen Passidomo has made healthcare her legislative priority in bills that would boost access to healthcare and healthcare innovations. House Speaker Paul Renner wants age-limit restrictions on social media sites to better protect minors.
The Florida House has started considering a bill that would change child labor laws, and lawmakers in both the House and Senate are addressing concerns over artificial intelligence, with bills like HB 757, which would permit lawsuits if content made or modified by artificial intelligence leads a viewer to believe something false about a person that’s “highly offensive,” and SB 850 that would require disclaimers on political advertisements that use AI content.
Of course, lawmakers will do what is constitutionally required and pass a budget. The Governor has already submitted a $114 billion spending plan that includes increases in teachers’ salaries, Everglades restoration funding and upgrades to Florida’s prisons. The budget includes a series of tax breaks, including a one-year exemption on property insurance taxes, fees and assessments.
If this session goes the way of previous ones, lawmakers will approve legislation with upcoming primary and presidential elections in mind. Given the national Republican Party’s zeal for far-right, ownthe-libs legislation, this year’s legislative focus won’t be solely on the needs of Florida.