TALLAHASSEE, Fla. – Florida’s annual legislative session starts Tuesday. The session only lasts 60 days, and in that time lawmakers will consider over 1,600 bills, with no duty to pass any of them, save one — the budget.
As such, it’s tough to come up with a list of 10 issues to watch in the session, each with several bills to consider. But News 6 has pared down its list of hundreds of bills to follow to give viewers an idea of the big issues. These may not necessarily be the most important issues, but they are ones people should watch to see what happens — or doesn’t happen.
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Want to track bills in the legislature yourself? You can go to the Florida Senate or Florida House websites and set up an account to pin bills you want to follow.
[RELATED: How to contact your Florida lawmakers]
Property insurance
News 6 viewers and readers told us that property insurance should be the number one issue Florida lawmakers tackle during the legislative session. Indeed, lawmakers have filed several bills on the issue. There are bills to offer assistance, in the form of grants or rebates to help some people pay for insurance, bills to make changes to the way Citizens Property Insurance provides coverage, and requires new insurance companies to have more money coming into the Florida market than they currently need.
But it’s not known how many of these bills will get a hearing. Legislative leaders have said they want to see how reforms passed last year will affect insurance rates before making new changes. Lawmakers have said it could take time.
Auto insurance
Auto insurance has also seen large increases in Florida over the past year. There are bills to repeal Florida’s longstanding No-Fault law and require motorists to have more liability insurance coverage. It’s not known if it would make a difference, but it faces an uphill battle. Gov. Ron DeSantis has vetoed a no-fault repeal before.
Education
In the Florida Senate, a package of bills has been pushed through that would deregulate public schools in several areas, including how teachers are trained, hired and paid, how testing is done, and how schools are paid for. The bills are a priority for Senate President Kathleen Passidomo.
But there are other education bills too. There are bills to make sure school staff have training in using Epipens, as well as AEDs and other cardiovascular first aid techniques. There are bills authorizing universal free breakfast and lunch at school. There are several bills on the issue of promoting child safety around bodies of water. There is also a bill that would allow for voluntary school chaplains, and several regarding training and safety requirements for day care programs.
Health care
Health care is also a major priority for Passidomo this session, and there are several bills on the issue in the legislature. Bills focus on expanding residency programs to keep more health care professionals in the state and to increase patient access. There are also bills to increase health care innovation in the state. There are bills to require more coverage for several diseases, as well as for prosthetics and orthotics, and bills to increase assistance to educate health care workers.
The Florida House is also looking at bills to increase access to both physical and mental health care in the state.
One thing not on the agenda is expanding Medicaid to include more low-income people.
Social Media
In the Florida House, House Speaker Paul Renner has said social media will be one of his priorities in the session.
Bills would require social media platforms to ban minors from creating new accounts, provide better age verification techniques and report issues, make sure platforms make users aware of things like infinite scrolling and autoplay, and also ban schools from having social media accounts. Another bill would require companies that make mobile devices to have filters enabled upon activation.
Law enforcement
Several bills that would strengthen penalties for some crimes and create new offense categories for others. There are bills to create criminal penalties specifically for drive-by shootings, bills to increase criminal penalties for people who try to lure children places, bills to hold rape kits for several years, even if the victim does not want to prosecute initially, and a bill to make lewd or lascivious grooming (grooming people to perform a sex act), as an offense. Many of these bills were requested by law enforcement officials. Several bills would create or require training programs for law enforcement on people with conditions like autism or Alzheimer’s disease. Another bill would make it a crime to threaten or harass first responders.
Flood Disclosures
Flooding has become a major problem over the last two years, not just because of hurricanes but also because of storm systems that have dropped large amounts of rain in short periods of time. Several lawmakers have filed bills that would require landlords or sellers to disclose if a building was subject to flooding. There is also a bill to require that tenants are made aware if their home is in a flood zone.
Amendments
Lawmakers are hoping to put several issues on the November ballot to review the state constitution. The big one would change the way voters approve amendments. Currently, an amendment only passes if it gets at least 60% approval from the electorate. A new bill would increase that to 66%. Several bills would change the way taxes are levied for schools, and how assessments are conducted. Another proposal would ban the use of traffic infraction detectors like red light cameras. Another proposal would repeal the definition of marriage as being of one man and one woman.
Labor laws
Bills in the legislature would roll back some requirements for child labor, including how many hours they can work and how late they can work on a school night. Some bills would require standards for heat illness prevention in the workplace. One would ban local governments from creating those standards. There are also some bills regarding licensing for medical professionals and other businesses, like barbers. And a bill would prohibit businesses from requiring employees to recognize or use preferred gender pronouns.
Animals
Bears are specifically a big issue in the legislature this session. Bills would allow people to shoot bears on their property if a person feels the bear is a threat. Given the backlash over a statewide bear hunt a few years ago, and an increase in bear encounters, this issue will be highly talked about.
Bills would also restrict the sale of pet rabbits, hoping to stem the growth of unwanted rabbits which have become a problem in some neighborhoods.
There are some bills regarding adopting animals. One in particular would require research groups to offer to adopt out research animals instead of euthanizing them.
Finally, there could be another fight this session over a new state bird. There was a renewed effort to designate the scrub jay, but there is also an effort to designate the American flamingo as the state bird.