Your Weekly Legislative Update

February 24, 2020
Week Six Session Summary
February 17 - February 21, 2020
Legislative Session 2020

In This Issue...

1. NOTES FROM THE AFC CEO
2. BILL SUMMARY UPDATE
3. FROM THE NEWS SERVICE OF FLORIDA: WEEKLY ROUNDUP

NOTES FROM THE AFC CEO, MICHAEL BRAWER

The Florida College System Council of Presidents Announce the Patriot’s Path Program.

At a press conference last Thursday morning on the 4th Floor of the Capitol, the FCS Council of Presidents rolled out what is now dubbed the Florida Patriot’s Path.  The effort is designed to create accessible and affordable educational options for veterans and active-duty persons. Florida has the third largest veteran population in the nation, with more than 1.5 million veterans. The 20,000 veterans currently enrolled in Florida’s state and community colleges and those following in their footsteps could be helped through the new program introduced last week.

The Florida College System Council of Presidents, headed by Tallahassee Community College President Jim Murdaugh, and a dozen or so other state and community college presidents, teamed with Rep. Mel Ponder, R-Fort Walton Beach, to announce the Patriot’s Path program. It is designed to create accessible and affordable educational options for veterans and active-duty persons. Elements of the program include these and other elements in HB 171.

•Waiving out-of-state tuition fees for affordability.

•Allowing veterans to obtain college credit for skills and knowledge gained in military to accelerate entry into Florida’s workforce.

•Providing assistance to veterans in navigating their path through the process of obtaining education benefits.

•Providing career center access for employment information and workforce assistance.

"The Patriot’s Path provides a tremendous framework for active duty members and veterans,” Rep. Mel Ponder, R-Fort Walton Beach, said Thursday. “Making higher education more affordable for active duty members and our veterans is critical to help them transition back into society and to continue strengthening Florida’s workforce.”

LAST WEEK IN THE LEGISLATURE

This past week as reported by the Southern Group, heading toward the end of the 2020 Legislative Session om March 13, the House and the Senate both advanced legislation this week.  Big items included the Senate Committee on Appropriations passing bills to improve school safety and enhance Florida’s emergency preparedness and response. The House also moved a constitutional reviser bill to limit school board terms to 8-years that if passed will be on the ballot in November. 

Education

This week a strike-all amendment was filed and approved that modified the House's early learning package (HB 1013). The amendment removes the proposal which would have created a controversial A-F grading system for pre-kindergarten programs in the state. Another major education package, HB 7079, was approved by the House Education Committee and is now headed to the floor. The bill aligns our state's accountability system to new standards, reduces testing time, and requires 11th graders to take the ACT or SAT. Finally, on the topic of university mergers, Senate President Galvano came out publicly this week in support of a proposal that would merge New College with Florida State University.

Cannabis

Week 6 of the 2020 Legislative session and Senator Montford's State Hemp Program, SB 1876, continues to move through committee, unanimously passing Innovation, Industry and Technology with a committee substitute this week. It will now move towards Rules, where if passed will then head to the floor. The revisions the State Hemp Program have include revising the definition of the term “food” to include hemp extract for purposes of the Florida Food Safety Act and that the hemp extract must meet certain specifications or will be labeled as misbranded or adulterated. Similar in nature, HB 1063 is now in its last committee, in which if it also passes it will head to the floor. 

Environment

A major development this week in the Florida Legislature was the Governor’s priority environmental package clearing its final committee stop in the Senate.  SB 712, known as the Clean Waterways Act, was approved by the Appropriations Committee and will now head to the Senate floor. This piece of legislation brings multiple changes in the fight to improve water quality, including combating algae and red tide. The bill moves regulation of septic tanks from the Department of Health to the Department of Environmental Protection, ensuring that health side effects are not the only concern anymore and that the environment in being considered as well. The bill also revises Basin Management Action Plans as they actively combat pollution in water systems in Florida, as well as creates a State wastewater treatment matching grant program to assist local governments in establishing new infrastructure projects regarding wastewater and the conversion from septic to sewer systems. The House companion bill is waiting to be heard in its final committee of reference. For more information, click here for the article. 

Health Care

Week 6 saw the Florida Senate make its first move in positioning itself for negotiations with Speaker Oliva and the House over the Speaker’s top priority: independent practice for advanced practice registered nurses (APRNs) and physician assistants (PAs). The Senate did so by adding language to SB 1676 this week that, among other things, creates a 10-year “Patient Access to Primary Care Pilot Program”. The Senate also advanced a bill through its second of three committee stops to allow pharmacists to test for and treat the flu. The House bill, which also allows for the more controversial testing and treatment of strep throat, was temporarily postponed during its final committee hearing. With only three weeks to go in session, the legislation, along with many other controversial heath care bills, are rapidly running out of time.

Local Government

During week six of Florida’s Legislative Session, the House released their tax package, PCB WMC 20-01. The bill includes the expansion of the allowable uses for tourist development tax in all counties to include water quality improvement and parks and trails projects. Also included is a requirement that future levies of a regional transportation surtax in any eligible county be limited to 20 years in duration. A three day back-to-school sales tax holiday and a seven day disaster preparedness sales tax holiday were also included. Additionally, a 0.5% point reduction in the state communications services tax and a reduction in the tax rate for commercial property rentals from 5.5% to 5.4% were also included. Now HB 7097, the bill will be heard in the House Appropriations Committee next Tuesday, February 25, and will head to the House Floor for a full vote. All these items will be negotiated with the Senate during the budget conference process. 

We welcome you to track our progress weekly in Capitol Perceptions. Feel free to share it with a college friend who is not an AFC member. The online AFC Advocacy Toolkit is filling up with valuable and informative resources for you including a link to each week’s most recent 2020 AFC/FCS Bill Tracking Matrix. 

 BILL SUMMARY/UPDATE

For a complete summary spreadsheet of all bills being tracked download each week’s: 2020 AFC/FCS Bill Tracking Matrix.

To review the Council of Presidents Legislative Budget Request CLICK HERE.

Priority Bills the AFC is tracking:

HB 3231: The Florida College Risk Management Consortium (Rep. Ponder/Sen. Hutson)
• APPROPRIATION Request: $18,668,823
• The Florida College System Risk Management Consortium;
• Provides an appropriation to offset extensive reserve payouts due to storms for deductibles.

HB 3231 Reported out of Higher Education Appropriations Subcommittee   12/10/2019. Now in Appropriations Committee. 1st Reading on Tuesday, January 14, 2020.

HB 171/SB 372: Postsecondary Education for Certain Military Personnel (Rep. Ponder/Sen. Lee). 

• Postsecondary Education for Certain Military Personnel BOG and SBE, in consultation with the Department of Veterans’ Affairs, to create a uniform process for the awarding of postsecondary credit to certain service members and veterans of the United States Armed Forces

HB 171 Bill added to Special Order Calendar (2/19/2020) on Thursday, February 13, 2020 4:07 PM.

SB 372  Retained on Calendar on Thursday, February 13, 2020 4:05 PM.

HB 725/SB 418: Workforce Education (Rep. Robinson/Sen. Diaz) 

• Authorizes school district career centers to offer an AAS or ASN degree program in nursing, but only to graduates of a licensed practical nursing program offered at that same career center.

HB 725 added to Special Order Calendar (2/19/2020) on Thursday, February 13, 2020 4:07 PM.

SB 418 passed 6-1 in Education Committee, now in Appropriations Education Subcommittee.

HB 953: Charter Schools (Rep. McClain )

• Authorizes state universities & Florida College System institutions to sponsor charter schools;
• Revises reporting & accountability requirements; provides for funding;
• Authorizes career & professional academy to be offered by charter school.

HB 953 added to Second Reading Calendar on Monday, February 17.

HB 187: Postsecondary Education for Secondary Students (Rep. Zika) 

• Provides reporting requirements for postsecondary institutions;
• Revises provisions relating to dual enrollment programs;
• Renames collegiate high school programs as early college acceleration programs;
• Revises requirements for such programs, provides free instructional materials to certain DE students

HB 187 favorable with CS by Education Committee on Tuesday, February 18, 2020.

SB 1246: Dual Enrollment (Sen. Stargel)

• Students eligible for dual enrollment programs include students who are enrolled in home education programs;
• Prohibiting district school boards and Florida College System institutions from denying students who have met eligibility requirements from participating in dual enrollment except under specified circumstances;
• Providing that certain independent colleges and universities are eligible for inclusion in the dual enrollment and early admission programs;
• Establishing the Dual Enrollment Scholarship Program, etc.

SB 1246 passed out of Appropriations Subcommittee on Education on 02/18/2020, now in Appropriations.

SB 132/HB 55: Sunshine Scholarship Program Establishing the Sunshine Scholarship Program (Sen. Braynon/Rep. Jones

HB 55 favorable from  Higher Education & Career Readiness Subcommittee on 01/22/20.  Now in Higher Education Appropriations Subcommittee.

SB 774/HB 7081: Public Records and Meetings/Applicant for President/State University or Florida College System Institution
(Sen. Diaz/Rep. Latvala)

• Providing an exemption from public records requirements for any personal identifying information of an applicant for president of a state university or Florida College System institution;
• Providing an exemption from public meeting requirements for any meeting held for the purpose of identifying or vetting applicants for president of a state university or Florida College System institution and for any portion of a meeting held for the purpose of establishing qualifications of, or any compensation framework to be offered to, such potential applicants which would disclose personal identifying information of an applicant or potential applicant; providing for future legislative review and repeal of the exemptions; providing a statement of public necessity, etc.

SB 774 on Committee agenda-- Rules, 02/26/20.

HB 7081 (formerly SAC4) 2/18/2020 House - Placed on Calendar -HJ 606.

HB 1113/SB1270: Fiduciary Duty of Care for Appointed Public Officials and Executive Officers
(Rep. Beltran/Sen. Lee)

Establishes standards for fiduciary duty of care for appointed public officials & executive officers of specified governmental entities; requires training on board governance; requires DBPR to contract for or approve such training programs or publish list of approved training providers; specifies requirements for such training; authorizes training to be provided by in-house counsel for certain governmental entities; requires appointed public officials & executive officers to certify their completion of annual training; requires department to adopt rules; provides exception to training requirement; specifies requirements for appointment of executive officers & general counsels of governmental entities; specifies standards for legal counsel.

HB 1113 now in Government Operations & Technology Appropriations Subcommittee.

SB 1270 now in Rules on Thursday, February 20, 2020.

CS/HB 393/SB738: Jury Service
(Judiciary Committee; Rep. Stone; Sen. Harrell)

Jury Service; Requires certain full-time students who meet specified criteria to be excused from jury service upon request.

CS/HB 393 2/14/2020 House - Placed on Calendar.

SB 738 now in Rules.

HB 595/SB 962: Medical Marijuana Employee Protection
(Rep. Polsky; Sen. Berman)

FROM THE NEWS SERVICE OF FLORIDA….

WEEKLY ROUNDUP: KNOCKING DOWN A 'WEALTH BARRIER'
By Dara Kam
Recap and analysis of the week in state government and politics

TALLAHASSEE --- The right to vote “is the basic right without which all others are meaningless,” President Lyndon B. Johnson proclaimed when signing the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

“It gives people, people as individuals, control over their own destinies,” he said.

More than a half-century later, a battle over voting rights in Florida could be headed to the U.S. Supreme Court.

An appellate court this week upheld a federal judge’s decision that the state cannot bar voting by felons who can’t afford to pay court-ordered fees and fines.

Gov. Ron DeSantis intends to continue fighting the decision, which came in a challenge to a state law aimed at implementing a constitutional amendment that restored voting rights to felons who have completed terms of their sentences.

A three-judge panel of the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals called the constitutional amendment one of the largest acts of re-enfranchisement in the last century.

Wednesday’s ruling reinforced a decision by U.S. District Judge Robert Hinkle, who found that a state law passed last year by Republican lawmakers and signed by DeSantis was unconstitutional. The law required felons to pay court-ordered fees, fines and restitution to be eligible to vote.

But DeSantis, a Harvard Law School graduate, told reporters this week that the state law “is more liberal” than the constitutional amendment, which makes no mention of finances. DeSantis wants the full 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to revisit this week’s ruling, a request known as seeking an “en banc” hearing.

“I’m assuming that they’re going to accept it. And because this is the first time any court has held something like this, that you could not condition re-enfranchisement of a felon on, say, payment of restitution for the victim, that would be something that, if the 11th Circuit concurred with the panel, clearly would be accepted by the U.S. Supreme Court,” DeSantis said. “So, we’ll see how it goes … But I’m not sure that the folks that are driving the litigation have really thought this through. It may not work the way they think it will.”

The court decision came amid a flurry of legislative activity in the Capitol, culminating Thursday with the House’s passage of a controversial measure that would require parental consent before minors could have abortions. The proposal is headed to DeSantis, who has pledged to sign it.

IT’S NOT OVER UNTIL IT’S OVER

After voters approved what appeared as Amendment 4 on the 2018 ballot, the Legislature passed a law that required felons to pay “legal financial obligations” to be eligible to vote.

But in October, Hinkle ruled that it is unconstitutional to deny the right to vote to felons who are “genuinely unable” to pay financial obligations. In a preliminary injunction, Hinkle said state officials needed to come up with an administrative process in which felons could try to prove they are unable to pay the obligations and should be able to vote. The state appealed the ruling.

A three-judge panel of the Atlanta-based appeals court Wednesday unanimously upheld Hinkle’s ruling.

“The long and short of it is that once a state provides an avenue to ending the punishment of disenfranchisement --- as the voters of Florida plainly did --- it must do so consonant with the principles of equal protection and it may not erect a wealth barrier absent a justification sufficient to overcome heightened scrutiny,” judges Lanier Anderson III, Stanley Marcus and Barbara Rothstein decided.

The state law “unconstitutionally punishes a class of felons based only on their wealth,” the ruling said.

Voting-rights groups applauded the decision. But Desmond Meade --- a felon who garnered international acclaim for his advocacy for the constitutional amendment --- warned “there’s many more steps in this journey” and that the appeals-court ruling and Hinkle’s preliminary injunction applied only to the 17 plaintiffs in the case.

“We are cautiously optimistic … because we don’t want to create an environment to where people are thinking that this thing applies to them and that it’s all smooth sailing from now, for them to only get disappointed again,” Meade, executive director of the Florida Rights Restoration Coalition, said.

ABORTION FOES GET BIG WIN

The House’s passage Thursday of a measure that would require minors to obtain parental consent or convince judges to waive the requirement was a victory for abortion opponents --- and DeSantis.

On the opening day of this year’s legislative session, the Republican governor said that he hoped the proposal “will make its way to my desk during this session.”

The House’s 75-43 vote in favor of the bill Thursday followed a 23-17 vote by the Senate earlier this month.

Before the vote Thursday, DeSantis said Florida’s current abortion laws involving minors are an “outlier” among other states. Regardless of the “underlying issue,” he said, parents “want to be involved with what’s going on with their kids.”

But Laura Goodhue, Planned Parenthood of Florida PAC campaign manager, issued a statement following the vote accusing Republicans of playing politics in an election year and vowing to mobilize what she called an “unprecedented campaign to register, educate and turn out Floridians who will vote to hold these politicians accountable.”

“So, legislators, if you voted for this assault on our rights and our health, we have a message for you --- we’ll see you at the polls,” Goodhue said.

The bill passed on a near party-line vote in the House, with two Republicans --- Rep. Heather Fitzenhagen of Fort Myers and Rep. Holly Raschein of Key Largo --- joining Democrats in opposition. Five Democrats voted with Republicans to support the bill.

The Legislature also passed a parental-consent requirement in 1988. But the Florida Supreme Court struck down the law a year later, finding that it violated privacy rights in the state Constitution.

This year’s bill was drafted to address the concerns in the court’s 1989 opinion, according to House sponsor Erin Grall, R-Vero Beach. Also, with the retirement last year of three longtime liberal justices, the court is more conservative than in the past.

NONPROFIT UNDER THE MICROSCOPE

The House on Thursday voted to repeal a law that requires the state to contract with a nonprofit domestic-violence organization, amid a bipartisan outcry from lawmakers and investigations into compensation paid to the organization’s former leader.

Rep. Juan Alfonso Fernandez-Barquin, a Miami-Dade County Republican who is sponsoring the legislation (HB 7087), said the multimillion-dollar compensation package given to Tiffany Carr, the former CEO at the taxpayer-backed Florida Coalition Against Domestic Violence, “shocks the conscience.”

The House and Senate have fast-tracked the proposal to repeal a law that requires the Department of Children and Families to contract with the nonprofit to manage state and federal domestic-violence funds.

The urgency to pass the measure comes after a House investigation found that Carr was able to receive $6.9 million in paid time off and “other compensation” from July 2013 through her resignation in October 2019.

DeSantis late Thursday issued an executive order in which he told state agencies to turn over information about other organizations that have sole-source agreements with the state.

STORY OF THE WEEK: Florida lawmakers passed a measure that would require minors to seek parental consent or judicial waivers before having abortions, a measure Gov. Ron DeSantis has pledged to sign.

QUOTE OF THE WEEK: “This needs to be a wake-up call for everybody that when you have entities embedded in statute that are single-sourced entities, there needs to be an extra layer of oversight that obviously wasn’t present in this case.” Senate Appropriations Chairman Rob Bradley, R-Fleming Island, referring to revelations about spending at the taxpayer-backed Florida Coalition Against Domestic Violence.

Capitol Perceptions is compiled weekly during the Florida Legislative Session and distributed to AFC members.  

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