We are about halfway through the session and it has been a busy one for Florida Citizens Alliance so far. Since the start of the session, we have traveled to Tallahassee 5 times. Our Policy and Advocacy Manager, Ryan Kennedy, has testified in numerous committees for the bills we both opposed and supported.
Our successful advocacy efforts so far have included:
- A much needed amendment to HB 1403 (School Choice) which saved the Hope Scholarship by keeping the protections the scholarship offered in place.
- An amendment to HB 7004 (The Government School Deregulation) that mandated each school district must have a policy in place to retain students for reading deficiencies at K-2 grade based on performance data.
- The passage of HB 1 (Social Media Age Verification) in the House which required age verification for social media platforms and would ban children 16 and under from creating an account on their websites.
- The Passage of HB 3 (Age Verification for Obscene Websites) in the House which would ban children under 18 from accessing obscene websites by age verification.
- Numerous bills that have successfully passed through committees.
This week came with one loss, SB 1120 (Display of Flags by Governmental Entities), which did not make it through the first committee in the Senate. This will be an area that we will revisit next session.
Even with all the successes we have had so far this session, we still have more work to accomplish. We have a number of bills that we are working on in the Senate and a couple of bills which we are waiting on passage in the House. Check back later on our website for updates.
