Florida Legislature roundup: 'Sanctuary Cities' to smokable marijuana

These new Florida laws could have serious impact on your family.

'Sanctuary Cities' bill speeds through Senate

A Republican lawmaker’s effort to deport more undocumented immigrants detained by Florida law-enforcement agencies is quickly moving through the Senate. The Senate Infrastructure and Security Committee on a party-line vote Tuesday approved the bill (SB 168) without being able to finish hearing testimony from members of the public, who for the most part came to protest the proposal. Sen. Joe Gruters, who doubles as chairman of the Republican Party of Florida, is sponsoring the bill with the help of Sen. Aaron Bean, R-Fernandina Beach, and Sen. Debbie Mayfield, R-Rockledge. Under the proposal, which is backed by Gov. Ron DeSantis and Attorney General Ashley Moody, both of them Republicans, the state would ban local governments from passing ordinances that limit cooperation with federal immigration authorities.

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Lawmakers chip away at land preservation money

Lawmakers are pushing forward with plans to continue carving up millions of dollars voters more than four years ago directed to be spent on land and water protection, despite environmentalists’ concerns about the way the money is being used to help the Indian River Lagoon and Apalachicola Bay.

Backers of the 2014 Florida Water and Land Conservation Initiative, who continue to challenge how lawmakers have used the money in the past, contend that some of the projects outlined in bills advanced by the Senate Environmental and Natural Resources Committee on Tuesday “chip away” at the intent of the constitutional amendment.

Aliki Moncrief, executive director of Florida Conservation Voters, said the septic-to-sewer conversion outlined in a measure to protect the Indian River Lagoon (SB 368) is needed. But the proposal goes beyond what voters approved, she argued.

“There are natural solutions and there are engineered solutions,” Moncrief said. “And the Water and Land Conservation amendment, absolutely voters who stood up for that expected the natural solutions, like buying buffer lands to protect water bodies, that those natural solutions take priority when it comes to this specific pot of money.”

Advanced nurses, physician assistants get boost

Saying the need for health care outpaces Florida’s physician workforce, Rep. Cary Pigman on Tuesday swayed members of a House panel to approve a bill that would give advanced practice registered nurses --- and physician assistants --- the ability to work independently of doctors.

The House Health Quality Subcommittee voted 10-3 to support the measure (HB 821), which drew opposition from physicians.

Patients currently can get care from advanced practice registered nurses and physician assistants, who work alongside doctors and under contractual agreements with supervisory physicians. Initially, Pigman’s bill would have given the nurses the ability to work independently of physicians.

Pigman, an emergency room physician, offered a 153-page amendment to the measure that added physician assistants to the bill, a move that made doctors, and some lawmakers, more uncomfortable with the measure.

Senators back renaming FSU Law School

A Senate panel on Tuesday pushed forward a measure that would allow Florida State University to strip the name of former Florida Supreme Court Justice B.K. Roberts from a law-school building because of pro-segregation opinions written by Roberts.

While the move by the Senate Education Committee received overwhelming support from the public and lawmakers, Sen. Dennis Baxley, the lone no vote, said the measure was a "dangerous path" toward erasing the state's history.

“We are being politically correct erasers to try and make it say something different," Baxley, R-Ocala, said. "It is what it is, and there is plenty of repentance that has been done and will be done and should be done for things that were wrong in our country."

DeSantis drug importation plan gets House support

Gov. Ron DeSantis was criticized last year for not having a health care platform while he campaigned for the state’s top job.

But DeSantis’ recent announcement that he wants the state to begin importing drugs from Canada is getting praise from Florida lawmakers.

Members of the House Health Quality Subcommittee on Tuesday voted 15-2 to approve a bill (HB 19) that would help carry out DeSantis’ plan.

“I just have to say, out loud, that I am stunned that this proposal is here. So thank you,” Rep. Carlos Guillermo Smith, D-Orlando, told bill sponsor Tom Leek, R-Ormond Beach. “I say that in a good way.”

House panel gives go-ahead to gun bills

A House panel Tuesday advanced two gun bills, backed by the National Rifle Association, that are reopening a debate about whether people with concealed-weapons licenses should be able to carry guns on school campuses used by churches and store firearms in vehicles on school property.

The proposals are being considered a year after gun restrictions, opposed by the NRA, were passed by the Legislature in the wake of the mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland.

This year, as lawmakers continue to address school security, including the possibility of allowing armed classroom teachers as “guardians,” two proposals that would partially open the door to possession of concealed guns on school property moved forward in the House Criminal Justice Subcommittee.

Rep. Cord Byrd, a Neptune Beach Republican who is sponsoring one of the proposals (HB 6005), said his bill would help teachers who are trained to be armed school guardians. The bill would allow them to store weapons in their vehicles when parked on school grounds.

Faculty, student personal viewpoints survey on table

A proposal that would require Florida public universities to survey faculty members and students about their personal viewpoints was approved Wednesday by a House panel, with Democrats concerned about what lawmakers would do with the results.

House Higher Education & Career Readiness Chairman Cord Byrd, R-Neptune Beach, said the survey is necessary because of concerns about indoctrination in the university system. Byrd said a number of students have shared with him experiences in which they did not feel comfortable expressing political views in the classroom out of fear that their grades would go down.

While Democrats said they liked a lot of issues in the bill, they all voted no largely because of the provision that would create the survey.

Smokable medical pot gets legislative green light

 In their first full action of the 2019 legislative session, Florida lawmakers - many of them grudgingly - ceded to a demand by Gov. Ron DeSantis and overwhelmingly approved a proposal doing away with the state’s ban on smokable medical marijuana.

DeSantis issued an ultimatum to the Legislature shortly after the Republican governor took office in January, threatening to drop the state’s appeal of a court decision that found the smoking ban ran afoul of a 2016 constitutional amendment that broadly legalized medical marijuana.

The House passed the proposal (SB 182) in a 101-11 vote Wednesday, sending the bill to the governor two days before a March 15 deadline he had set. The Senate passed the bill last week.…