Sen. Geraldine F. Thompson of District 15

Thompson — a Democrat who represented northwestern Orange County including Oakland, Ocoee, Pine Hills, Gotha, part of Orlando and Apopka — passed away Feb. 13 after complications from knee surgery. Before her death, she introduced two bills. 

Senate Bill 208, co-sponsored with Sen. Kristen Arrington, would create an agreement among states to elect the president and vice president of the United States by national popular vote.

Senate Bill 246, co-sponsored with Sen. Ana Maria Rodriguez, would revise the criteria for a grandparent to petition the court for visitation if a minor child’s parents are divorced, or if one or both parents are deceased, missing or “in a persistent vegetative state.” (Rep. Doug Bankson’s HB 607 is a related bill.)

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Sen. Keith L. Truenow of District 13 

Republican Truenow was first elected to the Florida House in 2020 and re-elected in 2022, representing District 31 and then 26 after redistricting. In November, he was elected to the Senate, representing District 13, which largely comprises Lake County with a small part of southwest Orange County near Winter Garden and Ocoee. 

Senate Bill 700 reads like a wishlist on issues related to the Florida Department of Agriculture and Commerce. It makes sense since Truenow is an “agribusinessman” who chairs the Senate Agriculture Committee. The bill would: outlaw the operation of drones over agricultural land; require electric vehicle chargers to be registered with the department before they’re put into service; classify selling spores or mycelium capable of producing a controlled substance as a first-degree misdemeanor; prohibit the sale of plant-based food labeled as milk or meat; temporarily suspend concealed carry permits for individuals convicted of crimes until their final hearing; and ban any water quality additive from a public water system — including fluoride. 

In an Agriculture Department press release about the bill, Truenow said: “Nobody is thirsty for unnecessary additives. Safe, clean drinking water is our chief goal. Prohibiting fluoride in public water systems ensures that individuals and families have the final say over their health.”

Nationwide, public officials, including Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Florida Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo, have voiced opposition to fluoride, associating it with negative health effects. Critics contend that opposition is based on faulty science and there are no negative health outcomes associated with the fluoride levels recommended by the U.S. Public Health Service. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimates that fluoridated water reduces the lifetime risk of cavities for children and adults by 25 percent.  

‍Senate Bill 986 would see 37 out of 52 soil and water conservation districts — including Orange County’s — in the state abolished, among other actions. According to Florida law, soil and water conservation districts provide assistance and education to the general public and the agricultural industry in implementing land and water resource protection practices. Under the bill, all assets and liabilities of the districts would be transferred to the Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services. 

Senate Bill 458 would make it more difficult to gain access to public records of sealed bids, proposals and replies related to construction or maintenance contracts of any road or transportation facility in the Department of Transportation. Under current law, such records are only exempt from Florida’s Sunshine Law until a decision is announced or until 30 days after opening the bids, proposals or final replies.

Senate Bill 736 would declassify areas previously labeled as brownfields. A brownfield is a property where expansion, redevelopment or reuse may be complicated by the presence or potential presence of a hazardous substance, pollutant or contaminant, according to the United States Environmental Protection Agency. Containments, abandoned structures and improper waste dumping associated with brownfields all pose potential harm for the communities they surround.

Senate Bill 1672 would repeal the “Labor Pool Act,” which protects the rights of day laborers. According to Florida Politics, Truenow said the law is unnecessary because day labor centers are already regulated at the federal, state and local levels to ensure worker safety, fair wages and employer accountability. 

Senate Bill 98 would compensate Max Giannikos, who, as a 16-year-old in 2019 visiting from South Africa, sustained “traumatic” injuries as a result of being hit by a vehicle. The bill said the city of Clearwater was negligent in maintaining the pedestrian crosswalk signal and should pay $17.4 million as compensation.

Senate Bill 230 would address claims for extra-contractual damages, which are claims that go beyond standard policy limits. The bill’s sponsors said it is intended to provide more transparency for property insurance claims.

Senate Bill 282 would make technical changes to home and service warranty association financial requirements and revise circumstances under which certain warranty associations are not required to establish unearned premium reserves, among other things.

Senate Joint Resolution 318 would amend the state constitution to exempt certain tangible personal property on agricultural lands from ad valorem taxation. 

Senate Bill 374 would revise the definition of “farm product” to mean “plants and plant products … regardless of whether such plants and plant products are edible or non-edible.”

Senate Bill 456 would make changes related to bail bonds.

Senate Bill 472 would require that an education program at a correctional facility work with relevant professional boards to design and implement a plan so inmates who take such classes meet the necessary curriculum requirements and receive the appropriate credit toward professional licensure requirements.

Senate Bill 474 would allow for “modified sentences” — or those sentences less than the otherwise required minimum prison sentence — for defendants if they are veterans with a mental health condition related to their military service; don’t need the required minimum prison sentence to protect the public from them; and aren’t a registered sex offender.

Senate Bill 518 would authorize the Department of Transportation to enter into agreements with qualified contractors to construct, maintain and operate transportation facilities. 

Senate Bill 600 would create the Statewide Office of Manufacturing within the Department of Commerce to support manufacturing across the state. It would also create the Florida Manufacturers’ Workforce Development Grant Program to fund projects related to technology or cybersecurity infrastructure and related workforce training. It also creates the Florida Manufacturing Promotional Campaign, which would increase consumer awareness of the state’s manufacturing industry.

‍Senate Bill 602 would require the Department of Commerce to establish registration and renewal fees that will fund the Florida Manufacturing Promotional Campaign.

Senate Bill 658 would require the waiver or release of liens to include specific language, among other things.

Senate Bill 678 would allow pawnbroker transaction forms to be in digital or printed format.

Senate Bill 722 would prohibit counties and municipalities from enacting any policy, ordinance, regulation or other measure to monetarily charge an amusement business owner with equipment that is placed or stored on more than five acres of agricultural land, which is fenced along the perimeter, for six months or more.

Senate Bill 786 would exempt from assessment any agricultural improvements used for an agricultural purpose that are located on agricultural land.

Senate Bill 788 would define “veteran- and spouse-designated nursing home beds” and authorize the Department of Veterans Affairs to approve requests to create or modify such beds at a facility.

Senate Bill 834 would require a license to operate a freshwater fishing vessel under certain circumstances and establish associated fees. 

Senate Bill 988 would exempt certain securities transactions from registration requirements, among other things.

Senate Bill 990 would exempt sales taxes for disabled veterans who have a service-connected disability rating of 100 percent. They must apply for a tax-exemption certificate.

Senate Bill 1002 would prevent boards, agencies, commissions, county authorities, municipal corporations or political subdivisions from enacting or enforcing a resolution, ordinance, rule, code or policy that restricts the types of fuel sources or energy production used by a public utility or natural gas utility.

Senate Bill 1132, known as the “Portable Wireless Device Repair Act,” would require manufacturers of mobile devices to provide owners and independent repair shops access to tools and documents for repairs and diagnostics at in-house prices. 

Senate Bill 1196 would require the state auditor general to contact each local government to ensure compliance with s. 205.0535 that deals with business taxation.

Senate Bill 1208, known as the “Florida Service Lateral Assessment and Rehabilitation Act,” would require every utility system in the state to establish an assessment and repair program for all service laterals in its jurisdiction to prevent wastewater leakage into the environment. Service laterals are underground sewer pipelines that connect a property or building to a utility’s mainline sewer pipe.

Senate Bill 1392 would repeal the requirement that special districts publish an annual report detailing successes and failures related to their goals.

Senate Bill 1422 would reclassify operating a drone over a critical infrastructure facility and altering a drone to avoid detection as a third-degree felony. 

‍Senate Bill 1452 would rename multiple boards such as the Florida Board of Auctioneer’s, the Barbers’ Board, the Board of Cosmetology and the Board of Professional Geologists; remove the ethnic, gender and racial minority eligibility requirement for the Clay Ford Scholarship Program, which is designed to assist minority students entering their fifth year in accounting education program; and abolish the sensitivity review committee that examines questions on licensure exams for discriminatory language. 

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Rep. Doug Bankson of District 39 

Bankson, a Republican, first elected in 2022 and re-elected last year, represents a district that includes Apopka, Winter Garden, Zellwood and a portion of Seminole County. Founder and senior pastor of Victory Church World Outreach Center in Apopka, Bankson has filed multiple bills in the past related to his conservative religious beliefs. This session is no different.

House Bill 239 would establish the Executive Office of Faith and Community to “better serve the most vulnerable persons of this state “through more robust and connected” faith and community networks in coordination with state resources.” The office would advocate for faith-based and community-based organizations that seek access to the government, would establish a dedicated phone line between the governor and those organizations and would identify bureaucratic or regulatory burdens that “restrict, impede or otherwise burden” such organizations in providing services. 

‍House Bill 999 would establish gold and silver as legal tender. Last session, Bankson filed the similar House Bill 697, which died in committee. In a video to the Seminole Chamber of Commerce about last session’s bill, Bankson said it was needed to push back against the “centralized bank digital currency that is being developed.”

House Bill 6021 reads as a companion bill to HB 999. It exempts gold, silver, and platinum from all tax. The current statute only exempts the materials from tax if they are in a single transaction and exceed $500 in value. 

House Bill 57 would establish criminal penalties and mandatory minimum imprisonment for people who possess, manufacture or sell xylazine (also known as “tranq”), a veterinary tranquilizer that is increasingly being mixed with illegal drugs such as cocaine, heroin and fentanyl, according to the CDC.

House Bill 253 would reclassify driving a vehicle equipped with illegal lights and/or a device that obscures a license plate as a third-degree felony.

House Bill 607 would revise criteria for a grandparent of a minor — who may have at least one parent dead, missing or in a vegetative state — to request court-ordered visitation rights. The grandparent may request visitation if the child has lived with the grandparent for at least six months during the 12-month period immediately preceding the parent’s death, disappearance, or persistent vegetative state or if not seeing grandparent would cause significant harm, among other conditions. (Thompson’s SB 246 is a related bill.)

House Bill 779 would establish procedures for impounding any motor vehicle that was used to flee or attempt to flee a law enforcement officer for up to 30 business days. However, the impounding agency must release the motor vehicle if the owner can establish that they were not operating the vehicle during the offense because it was stolen, that the owner’s family or household members have no other means of transportation, or the vehicle was in the care or control of another person when the offense occurred.

House Bill 1247 would allow people under the age of 18 to be organ and tissue donors with parental consent. 

House Bill 1251  would require home inspector certification courses to spend at least eight hours covering the basics of the Florida Building Code, among other things.

House Bill 1397 would make big changes to the Florida Department of Transportation such as: defining the roles of the three department assistant secretaries as the Chief Operations Officer, the Chief Finance and Administration Operator and the Chief Strategic Development Officer; creating The Florida Transportation Research Center Institute to contribute research and technological development to the state's transportation system; requiring private airports of “public interest” to receive a license from the department before allowing aircraft operations; and creating the Florida Transportation Academy to work with state agencies such as The Department of Corrections and The Department of Juvenile Justice to provide employment opportunities in the transportation industry. 

House Bill 1539 public school boards would no longer be able to retain instructional material that depicts or describes sexual conduct on the basis of it having literary, political, artistic or scientific value. 

Rep. LaVon Bracy Davis of District 40

Re-elected last year, Bracy Davis is a Democrat, serving her second term in the House. She represents Ocoee, Pine Hills, Lockhart, Rosemont, Clarcona, College Park, Riverside Acres and parts of Fairview Shores. 

House Bill 171 would develop the Youth Conflict Resolution and Peer Mediation Pilot Program to encourage peaceful conflict resolution in middle and high schools with high rates of violence. Bracy Davis told Voxpopuli last year that she had Pine Hills in mind when developing the bill, which is modeled on the popular DARE program (Drug Abuse Resistance Education). Bracy Davis tried to pass this bill last year, but it died in committee. She ran for re-election on bringing it back. 

House Bill 169 would establish the Community Violence Task Force in the Florida Department of Law Enforcement. The 15-member task force would review system failures and the causes of high crime rates and violence in neighborhoods and communities. The governor, Senate president, House speaker, Florida Sheriffs Association, Florida Police Chiefs Association and the secretary of the Department of Children and Families each would appoint people to the task force, which must also include members of the Legislative Black Caucus.

House Bill 1409, known as the Harry T. and Harriette V. Moore Voting Rights Act, would: undo the voter suppression laws enacted since 2021 and allow for standing mail-in ballot requests; same-day registration and voting; Election Day as a paid holiday; a database for former felons to verify if they are eligible to vote; and the elimination of the Office of Election Crimes and Security. 

House Bill 331 would allow access to temporary cash assistance for individuals convicted of a felony drug trafficking conviction and would remove certain eligibility requirements for individuals convicted of a non-trafficking drug felony, 

House Bill 387, known as the “Creating a Respectful and Open World for Natural Hair” Act or CROWN Act, this bill would prevent discrimination against K-20 public school students and employees based on hairstyles historically associated with race. California State Sen. Holly J. Mitchell introduced the original CROWN Act several years ago and similar legislation has been enacted or executive orders passed in 27 states, according to the act’s official campaign site. The Florida Legislature has stymied CROWN bills three times, with the latest attempt to pass it in 2022. A federal version of the act was passed in the U.S. House in both 2019 and 2022, but was blocked in the U.S. Senate.

House Bill 573 would not automatically disqualify a person from certification and employment from any position that put them in contact with students if they pled no contest to or were not formally convicted of a typically disqualifying offense that occurred at least 20 years ago.

House Bill 167, co-sponsored with Democrats Christine Hunschofsky, Johanna Lopez and Marie Paule Woodson, would require public high schools to establish a Bright Futures Scholarship mentorship program with certified school counselors to engage in a comprehensive outreach program to inform students about the program’s eligibility requirements. The program, created nearly 30 years ago, provides scholarships to high-achieving high-school graduates to attend a Florida college or university. 

House Bill 177, co-sponsored with several fellow Democrats including Rep. Anna V. Eskamani, would rename a part of International Drive between S.R. 528 and Sand Lake Road in Orange County, as “Harris Rosen Way” after the late hotelier. 

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Rep. Bruce Antone of District 41

Antone, a Democrat, was re-elected last year to his eighth term in the Florida House. In his current district, he represents Ocoee and parts of Orlando. 

House Bill 865 would request that the Office of Program Policy Analysis and Government Accountability research and report on whether the legislature should be full-time, part-time or a hybrid of the two and whether salary increases are appropriate. Separately, the office would also analyze whether salary increases for cabinet members are appropriate. In the 2023 and 2024 session, Antone introduced similar bills, House Bill 1183 and House Bill 1121, which both died in committee. He told VoxPopuli in 2023 that he introduced the bill to highlight the need to raise the pay rate of legislators — $29,697 annually — to attract a more representative legislature. “You don’t have the teachers, you don’t have sole proprietor attorneys, you only have sole proprietor business folks. You just get a certain class of people,” he told VoxPopuli in a phone interview. An increase to $75,000 “would be an improvement,” he said. 

 House Bill 1413 would create the Florida Museum of History at the Town of Eatonville. In 2023, Antone introduced the legislation that created a task force to find a location for a Florida museum of Black history. The task force eventually narrowed its choice to three cities, ranking St. Augustine in St. Johns County first, followed by Eatonville in Orange County and then Opa-Locka in Miami-Dade. Dissatisfied with that outcome, Antone reworked his museum concept and introduced it in HB 1413 with the goal of bringing a “world class museum” to Orange County, which, he told VoxPopuli, sees far more tourist and convention traffic than St. Augustine. There are now two additional museum bills competing for state funds: The St. Augustine project and the project in Opa-Locka. Antone suggested that with a $115 billion dollar budget, “there’s room for all three.”

House Bill 1417 would establish the First in Your Family Florida Medical School Scholarship and Grant Program. Under the program, the Department of Education would provide scholarships to first-generation medical school students, with priority given to those enrolled at in-state accredited medical schools and who graduated from a state public or private college in the last five years. The scholarship was developed to help Black and Hispanic candidates for medical school who may have been put off by the high costs of attending medical school, Antone said.He added that the scholarship could help ease the looming physician shortages in the state. An Office of Program Policy Analysis and Government Accountability study predicts Florida will have a shortage of 17,924 physicians by 2035.

House Bill 1423 would require landlords to disclose to a tenant in writing if a property is in a Federal Emergency Management Agency-designated flood zone. 

House Bill 6525 would seek compensation for Eric Miles, Jr. and Jennifer Miles for injuries and damages sustained by their late son as a result of alleged negligence of South Broward Hospital District.

House Bill 863 would clarify when and how complaints are sent by the Florida Commission on Human Relations to the person who allegedly committed a violation and their response to the original complainant.

House Bill 1415 would require condominium and cooperative associations that oversee buildings that are six stories or higher to conduct structural inspections.

House Bill 1419 would define the term “final group of applicants” as “no fewer than two applicants” with regard to being considered for president of a state university or Florida College System institution. 

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Rep. Leonard Spencer of District 45

Spencer, a Democrat, who was elected to his first term last year after defeating Republican incumbent Carolina Amesty, represents Oakland, Winter Garden, Windermere, the area around Walt Disney World and part of Osceola County.

House Bill 459 would require those involved in a disputed property insurance claim to engage in mediation — in person or via teleconference — before litigation. The bill would appropriate $1 million from the Insurance Regulatory Trust Fund to the Department of Financial Services, which would administer the program.

House Bill 461 would establish the Insurance Solutions Advisory Council within the Office of Insurance Regulation to analyze data related to the state’s property and car insurance market. The 11-member council would be appointed by the House speaker, Senate president, governor, and state’s chief financial officer. The members must be a mix of property, casualty and surplus lines insurers, trial attorneys, public adjusters and insurance agents.

House Bill 463 would revise the definition of medical malpractice review committee.

‍House Bill 215, co-sponsored by Eskamani, is known as the Construction Disruption Act, and would establish a program to provide financial relief for small businesses affected by construction of state and local projects.

House Bill 827 would require the Bureau of Workforce Statistics and Economic Research in the Department of Commerce to study the economic impact of automation, artificial intelligence and robotics on employment in the state. It would specifically analyze the demographics of workers who are most affected, the impact on wages and job quality and the rate and scale of job displacement caused by AI. 

House Bill 829 would permit veteran-owned businesses to apply for a two-year pilot program that allows them to receive a 50-percent discount on business-related toll expenses. 

House Bill 1377 would raise the combined total amount of tax credits granted to business enterprises to $50 million, up from $9 million. 

House Bill 1379 would assess cybersecurity risks of drone use by state agencies.