WEEKLY ROUNDUP
Back to the elections drawing board
TALLAHASSEE — Florida’s elections in 2020 and 2022 were heralded as smooth-sailing affairs, but that isn’t stopping lawmakers from going back to the drawing board and looking at revamping elections laws.
As lawmakers crossed the midway point of the 2023 legislative session this week, a bill began moving in the Florida Senate that would make wide-ranging changes in elections laws, including putting new restrictions on voter-registration organizations, creating a new crime for harassing elections workers and relaxing campaign-finance reporting rules.
The elections package (SPB 7050) got a green light Tuesday from the Republican-controlled Senate Ethics and Elections Committee in a party-line vote. The 98-page bill was released a day earlier, which led Democrats on the committee to question what they called a rush in taking it up.
When asked why the bill hadn’t been vetted earlier, committee Chairman Danny Burgess, R-Zephyrhills, attributed the delay to “prudence,” adding that lawmakers have plenty of time to scrutinize the measure during the second half of the 60-day session.Calling the proposal “very technical and mechanical,” Burgess said the bill addresses changes in 43 sections of elections laws.
“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 said.
But Sen. Tina Polsky, D-Boca Raton, pushed back.
“This process was really pretty awful. If this bill was so benign, we would have seen it a lot earlier,” she said.
The bill deals with what Burgess described as “issues that arise” with third-party groups that register voters.
The groups currently have to register with the state. But under the proposal, they would have to re-register after every general election. The bill also would require the groups to provide receipts to people filling out voter-registration applications and would shorten a timeframe from 14 days to 10 days for the groups to deliver voter-registration applications to elections officials.
The proposal could lead to third-degree felony charges if people collect voter-registration applications for the groups and keep personal information about voters.
Brad Ashwell, state director of All Voting is Local Action, told the Senate panel that changes proposed in the bill 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 said.
ABORTION CHANGES MOVE FORWARD
In what would be a monumental change, the Senate on Monday passed a proposal aimed at preventing abortions after six weeks of pregnancy.
The Republican-controlled Senate voted 26-13 to approve the bill (SB 300), which will go to the House, where it is expected to pass. It comes after the U.S. Supreme Court last year overturned the landmark Roe v. Wade abortion-rights ruling and left abortion decisions to the states.
The bill spurred heavy debate on the Senate floor, while protesters in the Senate gallery interrupted the proceedings several times by shouting in opposition.
Bill sponsor Erin Grall, R-Vero Beach, said the bill supports a “culture of life” and that fetal heartbeats can be detected at six weeks of pregnancy.
“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 said. “And this life deserves protecting.”
But Democrats said the bill would effectively ban abortion in Florida, in part because many women don’t know they are pregnant at six weeks.
Senate Minority Leader Lauren Book, D-Plantation, said the Senate was choosing to force an “extremist agenda” and described the issue as a war.
“We must all take up the fight, because this was never about life,” Book said. “It is and it always has been about control.”
STORY OF THE WEEK: Midway through the 2023 legislative session, Republican lawmakers Tuesday began advancing a sweeping elections package that would impose further restrictions on voter-registration groups, create a new crime for harassing elections workers and relax campaign-finance reporting rules.
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 new elections package.