Editorial Roundup: Florida
Palm Beach Post. January 24, 2024.
Editorial: Should state lawmakers stop enabling Gov. DeSantis’ culture- war antics? Yes.
Gov. Ron DeSantis returns to his day job, where the Florida Legislature is in session crafting new laws and spending priorities. The hope here is that he finds state lawmakers willing to assert their independence — more like the late Dempsey J. Barron than remaining the Governor’s doormat.
Barron, a conservative Democrat from the Panhandle who became a power in both the Florida Senate and state politics, understood the value of an independent Legislature. As senate president, he once ordered then-Gov. Reuben Askew to stay out of the upper chamber in words that remain unprintable for today’s newspapers. No one expects the likes of Barron from any current lawmaker but Florida deserves far more than having the Legislature act as an institutional rubber stamp.
The state is supposed to have three independent parts of government — the executive, judicial and legislative branches. In recent years, though, it’s been the Governor’s office calling the shots, with Republican lawmakers willingly going along, thanks to DeSantis’ appointment powers, his budget-veto pen and the belief he might become this year’s Republican Party presidential nominee.
Unfortunately, DeSantis shows no signs of moving beyond the extremist, culture war antics he still hopes will keep him in play for a future run at the presidency. The reality is that Republican lawmakers will remain lemming-like, following the lead of their party during the 2024 elections.
The challenges Floridians face aren’t partisan. Solutions, however, won’t come by staying the course. If our state is to move forward, the Legislature must re-assert its role in shaping Florida’s future.
Florida ‘one-man-rule’ a far cry from free state
Sky-high property insurance, unaffordable housing, an enduring drug addiction crisis and deteriorating water quality are just some of the issues the Republican-controlled Legislature has ignored while spending too much time trying to keep the Governor competitive in an unproductive bid for higher office. What failed to thrill audiences in Iowa also hasn’t worked in Florida.
Our state has paid a price for DeSantis’ ill-fated foray, and the Florida Legislature served as the Governor’s biggest enabler. New laws backed by DeSantis and promoted endlessly in his campaign ranged from expanded public funding for private schools and eliminating gun permits to new restrictions on third-party voter registration and the imposition of a six-week abortion ban.
The results? Several potentially costly lawsuits, from farming organizations hurt by the state’s ban limiting the transportation of immigrants, to conflict with one of the state’s largest employer, Walt Disney Parks and Resorts, for the state’s retaliation after the company supported its employees who opposed anti-gay laws. The tourism boycotts and reports of frightened and frustrated residents and workers fleeing Florida aren’t good for the state’s economy, much less its “free state” branding.
Now that DeSantis is back, state lawmakers should help him by devising policies free of the Governor’s extreme ambitions. Now is the time to dial back the divisive culture war and come up with remedies that will actually help the almost 22 million people living here.
The Governor and Republicans in the Legislature may not be willing to make the wholesale changes they should, like repealing abortion bans or expanding Medicaid. However, lawmakers could consider other ways to help homeowners with property insurance, curb outrageous spending on disingenuous election-security efforts and school-vouchers, and revising programs to more address “the Florida Shuffle” of addiction-care problems
Glimmers of hope exist. Senate President Kathleen Passidomo is at least trying to address affordable housing and accessibility to health care, with last year’s passage of The Live Local Act and the recent passage of SB 7016, respectively. The promise in the House comes not from its current leader, Paul Renner, but from his successor, Rep. Daniel Perez, R.-Miami, who promised that under his leadership the House would be more bipartisan and a more independent chamber.
Let’s face it. DeSantis’ presidential bid failed to convince many voters outside the state that the nation would be better off being more like Florida. Until state lawmakers get a grip on their roles and take the lead in making our state a better place to emulate, that reality won’t change.
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Tampa Bay Times. January 27, 2024.
Editorial: Florida police who use force should not go unnamed
Withholding names of victims and police officers leads to unaccountable government.
Florida voters passed the Marsy’s Law amendment in 2018 for one reason: to give crime victims a bigger voice in the justice system. They didn’t intend for authorities to withhold crime information. They didn’t intend to conceal the names of police officers who used deadly force. But that’s what Republican legislation in the House would do, and right-thinking lawmakers should reject it.
The Marsy’s Law amendment to the state constitution gives crime victims explicit rights, aimed at ensuring that victims aren’t forgotten as a defendant’s case cycles through the criminal justice system. Among them is the right to “prevent the disclosure of information or records that could be used to locate or harass the victim or the victim’s family.”
Yet some Florida law enforcement agencies used it as a pretext to always conceal victims’ names, not just addresses or other location-specific information. Some also went a step further, withholding the names of police officers involved in use-of-force incidents by arguing they were victims under Marsy’s Law, too. The abuses were so great that the Florida Supreme Court outlawed these practices in November, ruling the amendment “guarantees to no victim — police officer or otherwise — the categorical right to withhold his or her name from disclosure.”
But HB 1605, sponsored by Rep. Chuck Brannan, R-Macclenny, would keep secret the names of law enforcement, correctional and probation officers who use deadly force “in the course and scope of their employment or official duties.” It also broadens the amount of information in criminal cases that would be exempt from public record. A companion bill, HB 1607, also by Brannan, asserts that the restriction is “a public necessity” that “outweighs the public benefit” of disclosing those involved.
This is the same bogus argument Florida’s conservative high court flatly dismissed. As Justice John Couriel wrote in the Nov. 30, 2023, opinion: “It is one thing to identify a person and another altogether to locate or harass him or her.” Marsy’s Law protects against “the disclosure of information or records that could be used to locate or harass” a victim, the court held. “One’s name,” the court noted, “communicates nothing about where the individual can be found and bothered.”
The Supreme Court’s commonsense ruling was a well-deserved rebuke to police agencies that cynically abused the amendment for their own convenience. Throwing a cloak over policing only dampens public faith in the criminal justice process. After all, shouldn’t officers who use their ultimate authority — taking a life — be subject to more scrutiny, not less? This is why some experienced law enforcement leaders, such as Pinellas County’s Republican sheriff, Bob Gualtieri, have long criticized these restrictions under Marsy’s Law as an overreach.
Legislators should share Gualtieri’s regard for accountability and realize these bills move public confidence in the wrong direction.
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Orlando Sentinel. January 30, 2024.
Editorial: Last week, Florida’s defenders claimed big wins
For local environmentalists and growth-management advocates, last week was a tumble of triumphs:
The Orange County Commission’s wee-hours rejection of the latest attempt to plunk hundreds of h omes on former ranchland in the basin of the sensitive, imperiled Econlockhatchee River.
News that the state is closing in on the purchase and preservation of another ranch on the Seminole County portion of the Econ basin.
The official ribbon-cutting of the Wekiva Parkway, which closes the last gap in the high-speed beltway around the greater Orlando area — while protecting the Wekiva River basin in ways that few thought possible decades ago when it was first proposed.
And a three-pack of manatee-related wins: The rescue of a severely underweight calf in Tampa Bay; the release of a mother-daughter pair that were near death when they were found 18 months ago in Broward County and an annual celebration of the humble sea cow at Blue Springs.
Amidst all the good news, one ugly stain was spreading. A failure at a Sanford water treatment plant dumped 13 million gallons of partially treated sewage into the broad, shallow Lake Monroe. It will be some time before anyone knows how much damage has been done. But long-term impacts seem unavoidable for the St. Johns River, which flows through Lake Monroe on its way north.
It’s all part of the same story. The ardent defenders of Florida’s unique beauty can build buffers against the development that devours prairies, forests, scrub and even wetlands.
They can look for ways to protect wildlife against the fast cars, trucks and boats roaring through habitat that harbors some of Florida’s most beloved species such as manatees, cranes, bears and panthers.
They can do everything in their power to keep the pollution — the oil and gasoline that rinses off roads, the fertilizer meant to keep millions of lawns an unnatural emerald green, the undetectable chemicals seeping into the aquifer from industrial sites — from fouling Florida’s rivers, springs, lakes and shorelines.
But however valiantly they fight, this band of defenders can never really claim victory. They can only fight, on and on, not to lose.
And pray that promises will be kept. Because all it takes is one defeat to erase decades’ worth of victories.
Familiar battlegrounds
On the facing page, former Sentinel editor and Pulitzer Prize winner Jane Healy talks about the two Econ basin decisions with the authority of someone who chronicled this fight, and mourned the losses, for decades.
We aren’t going to attempt to steal her thunder (as if we could). But we will underscore the point that she makes so well: The Orange County Commission’s refusal to sign off on an 1,800-home development in the Econ River basin is the latest in a long string of attempts to develop the sensitive land that was once known as the Rybolt Ranch.
The developer behind the Sustanee project promised to take every measure to minimize the impact the construction of so many houses would cause. “We believe we’ve created a community that is far surpassing what came to you before, as well as maybe one of the most sustainable communities in the state of Florida,” Sean Froelich told commissioners. But the Econ River can only withstand so much before the fatal blow falls, before too many people push their way into land needed to buffer the river against contamination and protect its shy, wild inhabitants from the noise and danger of human activity.
Will the commission’s 4-3 vote be enough to derail the plans? It should be. We hope so.
Meanwhile, hope is swelling among those who have pleaded with state officials for years to purchase the Yarborough Ranch property, making it a part of the state’s wildlife conservation corridor and another buffer in the Econ basin. The ranch is on the list of properties that could be approved for Florida Forever funding in March. Purchasing it would ostensibly be intended to safeguard it into perpetuity.
But even those promises can be broken. Just ask those who have rallied to protect another chunk of conservation land — the beloved Split Oak preserve, a portion of which is now targeted for an extension of the Osceola Parkway. That would enable enough houses to populate a new city or even county.
And so the call to rally is resounding again.
Celebrate the defenders
In the face of such long odds, in the fight against the inevitable trail of destruction that humans leave in their wake, we have to acknowledge those who have kept the fight going for so long. People like Seminole Commissioner Lee Constantine and Audubon’s Charles Lee, who were on hand for the ribbon-cutting of the Wekiva Parkway after decades of arguing, pleading and shaming state transportation officials into constructing the last leg of the Orlando beltway with environmental safeguards, including underpasses that wildlife can use to safely cross its path without being crushed under the endless flow of car tires.
Like the people who pack commission chambers whenever a development threatens a sensitive space. And to the elected officials who listen to their pleas — and push back against the seeming inevitability of development one “no” vote at a time.
Like Wayne Hartley, who has spent more than half his life working to protect manatees. He was the first one to identify manatees by the white scar tissue that crossed their bodies, the missing limbs and tails from boat strikes. He gave hundreds of Florida’s manatees their names, and as our Patrick Connolly documented last week, he mourns each loss.
Like Katie Moncrief, perhaps the Wekiva River’s most ardent warrior, who laid down her sword for good at the age of 98 last week. Others will step forward to carry on the battle in her memory. But nobody can ever fill her shoes.
These defenders — all of them — are needed. They pressed state and local leaders to buy and preserve 10 million acres of conservation land; now they must fight to ensure that land isn’t sold or given away. They pushed for better protections for Florida’s sensitive springs; now they must insist that those plans are followed. They demanded tighter growth-management controls that minimize sprawl. Now they are pushing back against the Legislature’s erosion of those protections.
At times, they show up, stand up and argue when it’s clear their defeat has been predetermined. Yet they keep showing up.
They understand, these defenders, that Florida will always be worth fighting for. Again and again, as much as it takes.
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Miami Herald. January 30, 2024.
Editorial: Sneaky or innocent? Florida bill looks like a trick up anti-abortion lawmakers’ sleeve
In a vacuum, Florida House Bill 651 isn’t necessarily a bad idea.
If a pregnant woman has a miscarriage as a result of a car crash or a doctor’s neglectful or intentional actions, for example, should parents be allowed to sue the person who caused them so much pain? Common sense would say of course.
That is what the sponsors of the legislation say their intention is. Florida law already makes it a crime to cause the death of a fetus, so the bill would allow parents to ask the courts for civil damages for the death of an “unborn child ” caused by a wrongful act or negligence.
The problem is that HB 651 may be a Trojan horse.
Filed by the same lawmakers who sponsored Florida’s six-week abortion ban — achallenge to the law is being heard by the Florida Supreme Court — there is legitimate concern that its ultimate goal is to allow men recruited by anti-abortion groups to sue healthcare providers who perform abortions. A woman who gets an abortion would be immune from prosecution under the bill but the doctors and nurses who perform the procedure would not.
Would that mean that doctors and nurses who perform abortions could be liable for damages? No one knows for sure because the bill is so vague, but Florida’s already limited abortion access could become more out of reach if doctors are afraid of expensive litigation.
Sponsor Rep. Jenna Persons-Mulicka, R-Fort Myers, is adamant that her proposal is about helping grieving parents and that it “has nothing to do with abortion.” Indeed, the bill does not mention the word “abortion,” but, as we learned with previous laws the impact of legislation isn’t just measured by which words lawmakers include in it. Take the parental rights law critics call “Don’t say gay.” It didn’t ban classroom lessons about LGBTQ issues by outlawing the word “gay” but by banning discussions on “sexual orientation” and “gender identity.”
Persons-Mulicka’s legislation raises big questions not just because she sponsored the six-week ban but because it seems purposely murky. Ambiguous and vague laws often lead to their most radical and extreme interpretations.
HB 651 allows “the parents of an unborn child” to file wrongful death lawsuits, but it does not define what an “unborn child” is. Most states with similar laws only allow civil claims if the fetus was viable at the time of death — meaning it could survive outside the womb — which typically happens after 24 weeks. HB 651 would cover fetuses at any stage of development.
Since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022, abortion opponents have pushed to define life as beginning at conception and to grant fetuses more rights. Democrats fear that anti-abortion lawyers could use laws like HB 651 to try to further erode abortion access by arguing in court that a fetus at any stage of development has the same rights as any other person.
“I just don’t trust the intentions behind (the bill),” Rep. Ashley Gantt, D-Miami, told the Herald Editorial Board.
Another inconsistency in HB 651 is that it would keep a provision of Florida law that bans fathers of a “child born out of wedlock” from filing wrongful death claims unless he “has recognized a responsibility for the child’s support.” Under the bill, the father of an “unborn child,” on the other hand, would be allowed to pursue civil remedies — even if they took no responsibility for a pregnancy. Would this allow no-show, would-be fathers to become plaintiffs in lawsuits against abortion providers? In the fight over reproductive rights, nothing is too far-fetched.
Let’s take Persons-Mulicka at her word that this is not anti-abortion legislation. Simple fixes could clarify the legislation’s ambiguities while still providing legal recourse for grieving parents. Gantt tried to amend the bill during a House hearing, adding language to protect abortion providers from being sued, but Republicans rejected her proposal.
If HB 651 has truly “nothing to do with abortion,” then why leave that door open? The answer to that question is self-evident.
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South Florida Sun Sentinel. January 30, 2024.
Editorial: These good ideas in Tallahassee deserve to be heard
Several of the best bills pending in the Legislature this session would erase one of the worst features of Florida law. They target the provision that effectively prevents damage awards for the deaths of adult victims of medical negligence who leave behind no spouses or children older than 25.
There’s no logic to sustain what many call the “free kill” law, which was made to order for the medical and insurance industries.
The value of a life should not depend on a line drawn arbitrarily around someone else’s age.
This wouldn’t matter if American society had adequate other ways to hold people accountable for lethal mistakes. But Florida, as elsewhere, leaves it to courts and lawyers to place blame for wrongful deaths and measure justice in terms of money. It’s far from perfect, but it’s all there is.
Florida law, however, accords no practical value — zero — to adult victims of medical negligence who die without spouses or survivors older than 25. It does this by barring awards for noneconomic damages. So it’s not worth a lawyer’s time to take the case.
Among several bills to repeal “free kill,” the one furthest along (SB 248) has been corrupted with a devious amendment that would impose inadequate caps on all medical malpractice claims. Its sponsor is a pro-business Republican from Jacksonville, Sen. Clay Yarborough.
The Senate Judiciary Committee, which Yarborough chairs, approved this bad bill despite tearful testimony from opponents who had lost kinfolk to alleged malpractice. The senator described it as a necessary compromise, one we think he bought into it too easily.
It is unreasonable to cap the value of a life at $500,000, no matter how many physicians and hospital personnel may have negligently caused the death.
That was a victory for medical and insurance lobbies, which never tire of complaining that Florida has some of the country’s highest medical malpractice insurance premiums. Whether lax regulation might be to blame rarely enters the discussion.
The result of repealing “free kill” with that amendment attached might well be the fewer medical malpractice claims, with a cynical twist to a good bill.
Better bills to do away with “free kill” in Florida are HB 129, a bipartisan measure whose prime sponsors are Reps. Johanna López, D-Orlando, and Mike Beltran, R-Riverview; and SB 442 by Sen Lauren Book, D-Davie. None has been heard yet so they’re still free of cynical amendments. Many more good bills can be found on a legislative agenda dominated by bad ones. Here are some of the most important.
Abortion, contraception. SB 1450 by Sen. Lori Berman, D-Boynton Beach, and HB 1457 by Rep. Fentrice Driskell, D-Tampa, declare abortion to be a right protected by Florida’s constitutional privacy provision. They would effectively overturn the 15-week and six-week bans now being litigated at the Florida Supreme Court, where Attorney General Ashley Moody pretends that the privacy clause protects only information, not conduct. For the court to agree with her would also imperil contraceptive devices and practices. SB 1446 by Sen. Rosalind Osgood, D-Fort Lauderdale, and HB 933 by Rep. Gallop Franklin II, D-Tallahassee, address that threat by declaring contraception to be legal.
Death with dignity. SB 1642 by Sen. Victor Torres Jr., D-Kissimmee, and HB 561 by Rep. Daryl Campbell, D-Fort Lauderdale, would allow physicians to prescribe life-ending medications to residents over 18 who have terminal illnesses. Ten states and the District of Columbia have similar laws. These bills come with stringent provisions to ensure that the patient is qualified as a Florida resident, competent to make the decision and does so willingly. No committee has heard either of them.
Legal fees. SB 170, by Sen. Tina Polsky, D-Boca Raton, makes it harder for the attorney general to hire outside lawyers to defend the state. The bill calls for justified findings of necessity, written proposals and annual reports to the Legislature. Gov. Ron DeSantis has faced at least 15 lawsuits over his policies, laws he has signed and the suspension of two elected Democratic state attorneys. The Tampa Bay Times calculated in 2022 that he had already spent at least $16.7 million on private law firms closely to Republican politics.” The current state budget sets aside nearly $16 million for legal costs of his culture wars. DeSantis’ hurtful policies have only divided Floridians and made some lawyers richer.
Slavery. HB 1521, by Reps. Christopher Benjamin, D-Miami Gardens and Beltran, and SB 344, by Sen. Shevrin Jones, D-Miami Gardens, overturn a notorious passage in Florida school standards by forbidding them to “indicate or imply that an enslaved person benefited from slavery or the enslavement experience in any way.” As written, the DeSantis administration standards put a deceptive gloss on slavery by saying that some slaves learned useful trades.
Sovereign immunity. SB 472 by Sen. Jason Brodeur, R-Sanford, and HB 569 by Rep. Fiona McFarland, R-Sarasota, would double the ridiculously low caps for awards in negligence claims against the state and local governments. The limits are $200,000 for an individual and $300,000 for all victims of a single incident. Anything more requires the Legislature to pass a claims bill, an arbitrary process long tainted by favoritism. This legislation allows local governments to settle larger claims without legislative approval by barring insurance companies from hinging payouts on passage of a claims bill. Outright repeal of sovereign immunity would be better, but these bills are progress, and the new limits would be indexed to inflation.
Most of the good bills highlighted in this editorial run counter to the culture wars. Whether any of them gets a fair hearing is doubtful, and that’s bad for Floridians.
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