Do you Support These Bills?
The End of Session is 3/8/24 and the push is on to get bills through, some quite harmful. Do you support these bills? We need your voices now Martin County.
SB 1238 Lewd and Lascivious Grooming and related HB1135 same name. While the House is moving forward positively with this Bill, Passidomo in the Senate has stalled it since 2/1/24 with NO explanation. This bill is to protect CHILDREN! It gives a statutory definition of "grooming" and has a punitive component, making "grooming" any child under the age of 16 a Class 3 Felony in the State of Florida. The Criminal Justice Committee is the only Committee to review this Bill. It Passed with 6 Y's and 2 N's. Why is Passidomo so against moving this Bill forward in the Senate and expeditiously? Contact Gayle Harrell and Passidomo and blow up their phones to demand they move this bill forward.
Update: Wanted to share with you HB757 & SB1780 are now DEAD thanks to conservative backlash! So happy about this one as it would have severely restricted free speech. HB757 - Defamation, False light and Unauthorized Publication of Name or Likeness and its related bill, same name SB1780 needed to be stopped in their track immediately. If passed, the legal standard for defamation would be dramatically lowered. Our Conservative Alternative News Stations, Influencers, Radio Podcasts would have been neutered. Leftist' plaintiff lawyers would spend the next generation bankrupting every prominent conservative based in Florida. It would have severely restricted free speech.
SB684 - Residential Building Permits, HB 665 and SB812 - Expedited Approval of Residential Building Permits. Is this a power grab by Tallahassee? Is it trying to take control away from our local Government? Why would we turn this right over to the State and expedite permits for properties even before a final plat is recorded? What type of properties is the State attempting to push into our County?
SB438 - Term Limits and related bill HB57 - County Commissioner Term Limits. I find it interesting for Charter Counties if a County Commissioner is in office at the effective start date of 11/3/2026, the period they have been in office does not count i.e., the clock starts over and they have 8 more years to serve in office. Also interesting is a county whose charter as of 7/1/24 expressly provides that county commissioners may serve longer than the imposed limits by this section shall hold a referendum election 11/5/24 to determine whether the limits imposed by this section shall apply. What is in place currently for Martin County? 8 years, 12 years? It's worth asking our County for clarification of its charter and how this Term Limit bill will work in Martin County.
A few bills were slammed thru and immediately certified in January. The two I will reference, and there are more, are currently on the House Special Order Calendar to be heard 2/27/24. Neither are in clear language and easily understood.
The first is SB7002 - Deregulation of Public Schools/School District Finance and Budgets, Facilities, Administration and Oversight. What immediately struck me with this was its name - Deregulation of Public Schools as we see a Marxist takeover of our schools currently. Upon reading more of this bills verbiage I question the lack of definition. Certain Rules, Certain Requirements, Certain Circumstances...what are those Certain issues? Then we come to providing personnel access to facilities for Emergency Management. What does this mean...opening our schools up too illegals as in New York? Requiring the Dept. of Education to annually inform school superintendents that they may petition to receive a specified declaratory statement? This is just a tip of the bill. So vague!
The second is SB7004 - Deregulation of Public Schools/Assessment and Accountability, Instruction and Education Choice. It appears we are weakening accountability and taking away liability and oversight. This bill deletes a requirement for the Commissioner of Education to provide for annual comparative evaluation of charter career centers vs public career centers, deletes requirements regarding assessment procedures for Dept. of Juvenile Justice education programs, provides additional options for a school that completes a plan cycle, but does not meet "certain" requirements, deletes a requirement for the Commissioner of Education to review "specified" feedback reports and submit findings to the State Board of Education, etc.
And finally, we've yet to see a bill for Constitutional Carry. Our legislators told us they were going to do it...where is it? We have Concealed Carry which is different. So many proposed bills restrict firearms and ammunition purchases at the same time we have millions of illegals in and coming to our State. Just food for thought and a something to push our legislators to move on.
Darci Braz
This is an editoral from one of our members and not the official position of the Martin County Republican Executive Committee.