TALLAHASSEE — Florida’s elections in 2020 and 2022 had been heralded as smooth-sailing affairs, however that isn’t preventing lawmakers from going again to the planning stage and taking a look at revamping elections rules.
As lawmakers crossed the halfway level of the 2023 legislative consultation this week, a invoice started shifting in the Florida Senate that may make wide-ranging adjustments in elections rules, together with placing new restrictions on voter-registration organizations, growing a brand new crime for harassing elections employees and enjoyable campaign-finance reporting laws.
The elections package deal (SPB 7050) were given a inexperienced mild Tuesday from the Republican-controlled Senate Ethics and Elections Committee in a party-line vote. The 98-page invoice was once launched an afternoon previous, which led Democrats on the committee to query what they referred to as a hurry in taking it up.
When requested why the invoice hadn’t been vetted previous, committee Chairman Danny Burgess, R-Zephyrhills, attributed the extend to “prudence,” including that lawmakers have quite a few time to scrutinize the measure all through the 2nd part of the 60-day consultation.
Calling the proposal “very technical and mechanical,” Burgess stated the invoice addresses adjustments in 43 sections of elections rules.
“Collectively, I think that enhanced our responsibility to try to get it right. … So making sure all those machinations are working is really important, and I think prudence is kind of the operating word,” Burgess stated.
But Sen. Tina Polsky, D-Boca Raton, driven again.
“This process was really pretty awful. If this bill was so benign, we would have seen it a lot earlier,” she stated.
The invoice offers with what Burgess described as “issues that arise” with third-party teams that check in electorate.
The teams lately have to check in with the state. But underneath the proposal, they might have to re-register after each normal election. The invoice additionally will require the teams to supply receipts to other people filling out voter-registration packages and would shorten a time frame from 14 days to 10 days for the teams to ship voter-registration packages to elections officers.
The proposal may lead to third-degree criminal fees if other people gather voter-registration packages for the teams and stay private information about electorate.
Brad Ashwell, state director of All Voting is Local Action, advised the Senate panel that adjustments proposed in the invoice would have a “chilling effect” on registration organizations.
“These organizations are providing a service to the community. Instead of further penalizing and discouraging them, perhaps you could focus on creating more obligations for the state to register voters,” Ashwell stated.
The invoice additionally seeks to make it a criminal to harass supervisors of elections and their workers. Burgess stated such harassment has “dramatically increased” and transform a national factor.
The measure addresses myriad different problems, together with voter deal with adjustments, the authority of the state’s Office of Election Crimes and Security and requests for vote-by-mail ballots.
FOURTH TIME’S THE CHARM?
Proposed adjustments to Florida’s alimony rules had been vetoed 3 times by way of governors — however the Legislature is taking some other chew at the apple with a measure this is able for attention by way of the complete Senate.
The Senate Rules Committee licensed the proposal (SB 1416) on Wednesday after listening to issues from a number of participants of the “First Wives Advocacy Group.” The measure features a plan to get rid of “permanent” alimony — bills that the team of most commonly older ladies depend on.
Leisa Athey, an enduring alimony recipient, stated judges now and again agree to everlasting alimony when belongings had been dissipated by way of an ex-spouse.
“When people get divorced, there’s not always equitable distribution,” Athey stated. “So the way judges combat that is they award permanent alimony, so that each party just walks away with an equitable share.”
Supporters of the regulation stated it will codify into regulation a courtroom resolution in a 1992 divorce case that judges use as a guidepost when making selections about retirement.
Bill sponsor Joe Gruters, a Sarasota Republican who has shepherded an identical regulation in the previous, stated Wednesday that this 12 months’s model would no longer unconstitutionally impact present alimony settlements — addressing a priority raised by way of Gov. Ron DeSantis when he vetoed an alimony invoice closing 12 months.
“So what you can do right now, under case law, we now codify all those laws and make that the rule of law. So we basically just solidify that. So from a retroactivity standpoint, no, because if anything could be modifiable before, it’s still modifiable. If it’s a non-modifiable agreement, you still can’t modify that agreement,” Gruters stated.
ABORTION CHANGES MOVE FORWARD
In what can be a huge exchange, the Senate on Monday handed a suggestion geared toward fighting abortions after six weeks of being pregnant.
The Republican-controlled Senate voted 26-13 to approve the invoice (SB 300), which is able to move to the House, the place it’s anticipated to move. It comes after the U.S. Supreme Court closing 12 months overturned the landmark Roe v. Wade abortion-rights ruling and left abortion selections to the states.
The invoice spurred heavy debate on the Senate ground, whilst protesters in the Senate gallery interrupted the lawsuits a number of instances by way of shouting in opposition.
Bill sponsor Erin Grall, R-Vero Beach, stated the invoice helps a “culture of life” and that fetal heartbeats will also be detected at six weeks of being pregnant.
“We have to rely on science, and what we know is that there is a heartbeat, there is a human life that exists, and we are either going to stand for life or not,” Grall stated. “And this life deserves protecting.”
But Democrats stated the invoice would successfully ban abortion in Florida, partially as a result of many ladies don’t know they’re pregnant at six weeks.
Senate Minority Leader Lauren Book, D-Plantation, stated the Senate was once opting for to pressure an “extremist agenda” and described the factor as a battle.
“We must all take up the fight, because this was never about life,” Book stated. “It is and it always has been about control.”
STORY OF THE WEEK: Midway via the 2023 legislative consultation, Republican lawmakers Tuesday started advancing a sweeping elections package deal that may impose additional restrictions on voter-registration teams, create a brand new crime for harassing elections employees and chill out campaign-finance reporting laws.
QUOTE OF THE WEEK: “Every change I’ve seen in my five years in the Legislature has been intentional to hurt one party over the other, so there’s just not a lot of trust here.” — Sen. Tina Polsky, D-Boca Raton, on a brand new elections package deal.
