By JIM SAUNDERS
News Service of Florida
TALLAHASSEE – More than three years after Gov. Ron DeSantis and Republican lawmakers approved a plan to place restrictions on social-media platforms, a preliminary injunction continues to block major parts of the law.
But the court fight isn’t over.
In a highly anticipated ruling, the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday kept the preliminary injunction in place but directed the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to look again at the case. It also directed another appeals court to reconsider issues involving a similar Texas law.
The laws sought to limit the ability of social-media platforms such as Facebook and YouTube to moderate content on their sites. Tech-industry groups NetChoice and the Computer & Communications Industry Association filed challenges, alleging that the laws violated constitutional limits on government restrictions of speech.
In Monday’s main opinion, Justice Elena Kagan said that “to the extent that social-media platforms create expressive products, they receive the First Amendment’s protection.”
“The principle does not change because the curated compilation has gone from the physical to the virtual world. In the latter, as in the former, government efforts to alter an edited compilation of third-party expression are subject to judicial review for compliance with the First Amendment,” Kagan wrote in an opinion joined fully by Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Sonya Sotomayor, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett and partly by Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson.
But, Kagan added, appellate courts failed to properly consider the “facial nature” of the challenges to the laws, a critical element in deciding whether they met constitutional muster.
“To make that judgment, a court must determine a law’s full set of applications, evaluate which are constitutional and which are not, and compare the one to the other. Neither court performed that necessary inquiry,” she wrote.
DeSantis and the Republican-controlled Legislature passed the Florida law after Facebook and Twitter, now known as X, blocked former President Donald Trump from their platforms after Trump supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
The 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals kept in place most of a preliminary injunction that U.S. District Judge Robert Hinkle issued to block the Florida law in 2021. The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, however, rejected a challenge to Texas’ similar law.
NOT SO FAST
Saying Florida has “shown that it faces an imminent injury,” a federal judge Wednesday blocked a new Biden administration health-care rule that would clash with the state’s attempts to restrict treatments such as hormone therapy and puberty blockers for transgender people.
Tampa-based U.S. District Judge William Jung issued a 50-page decision granting a preliminary injunction to prevent the rule from taking effect in Florida.
The decision was one more chapter in the debates about attempts by Florida — and numerous other Republican-controlled states — to prevent or restrict treatments for transgender people diagnosed with gender dysphoria. That has included barring Medicaid coverage for treatments such as hormone therapy and puberty blockers and preventing the treatments for minors.
The Biden administration rule, which was scheduled to take effect Friday, is designed to help carry out a federal law that prevents discrimination in health-care programs that receive federal money. The law prevents discrimination based on “sex,” and the rule would apply that to include discrimination based on gender identity.
But Florida filed the lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the federal Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services on May 6, shortly after the rule was finalized. Plaintiffs include the state Agency for Health Care Administration, which runs the Medicaid program, and the state Department of Management Services, which manages the state-employee health insurance program.
Florida has contended in the lawsuit that the rule improperly seeks to override restrictions on the treatments and would threaten lost money for the state and managed-care plans that help operate state health-care programs.
While Wednesday’s ruling is not the final word in the case, Jung agreed the state would be harmed by the rule. For example, he wrote that the rule would require the Department of Management Services to “alter its policy against reimbursing managed care plan members for sex-change treatments.”
“This is not possible because DMS (the department) cannot amend its self-funded insurance plan without permission from the Florida Legislature, which is not in session and which has previously barred payment of tax dollars for gender transition treatment,” Jung wrote. “DMS will clearly suffer irreparable harm if the rule is not stayed.”
TIME TO CHILL OUT?
The long list of disagreements between the Biden administration and Florida Republican leaders continues to grow.
The federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration on Tuesday released a proposed rule that would require heat protections for workers across the country. That means requiring employers to provide such things as water and rest breaks when temperatures top certain thresholds.
But the proposal came after DeSantis in April signed a controversial law that includes preventing Florida local governments from requiring heat-exposure protections for workers. That part of the bill came after the Miami-Dade County Commission last year considered a proposal to require construction and agriculture companies to take steps such as ensuring that workers have access to water and giving them 10-minute breaks in the shade every two hours when the heat index is at least 95 degrees, according to a House staff analysis.
Supporters of the bill, including groups such as the Florida Chamber of Commerce and Associated Industries of Florida, said it would prevent a patchwork of regulations and that employers already face requirements to protect workers from heat-related injuries. But opponents said workers need additional protections as they earn livings in Florida’s sometimes-stifling heat.
Federal officials said this week more needs to be done to protect workers.
“Workers all over the country are passing out, suffering heat stroke and dying from heat exposure from just doing their jobs, and something must be done to protect them,” Douglas L. Parker, assistant secretary for occupational safety and health, said in a prepared statement Tuesday. “Today’s proposal is an important next step in the process to receive public input to craft a ‘win-win’ final rule that protects workers while being practical and workable for employers.”
STORY OF THE WEEK: The U.S. Supreme Court directed appeals courts to reconsider decisions in battles about Florida and Texas laws aimed at placing restrictions on social-media platforms.
QUOTE OF THE WEEK: “That will happen, times probably 10, with this amendment. There are multiple provisions that are undefined. … They will all be litigated. There are terms like viability that are not defined in the amendment, healthcare provider, health of the mother, these things are not defined. They will be litigated endlessly, and it will be of extraordinary cost to the state.” — Jason Gonzalez, an attorney for Protect Women Florida Action, comparing a proposed constitutional amendment on abortion rights to court fights that followed passage of a 2016 medical-marijuana amendment. Gonzalez spoke as a state panel weighed potential budget effects of the proposed abortion amendment, which Protect Florida Women Action opposes.
