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Two dozen advocates sang, and prayed, while suggesting their is a war against the poor being waged at the State Capitol. Similar events were held in 31 other State Capitols today. The Rev. Ron Rawls says families cannot make ends meet because of

A low minimum wage and lack of affordable housing.

“In St. Augustine Florida and many places in our state, a person working a full time job earning minimum wage, has to dedicated one hundred percent of their paycheck to secure shelter, and find another job to eat, pay for emergency room visits, and god forbid they have a school aged child” says Rawls.

The group also took aim at legislation that would require labor unions to represent at least half of those employed or face decertification. The so called union busting bill has cleared the state House.

The Legislation has cleared one committee in the House and one in the Senate.

During an emergency situation, Floridian’s rely on broadcasts from the Division of Emergency Management to receive important information and updates. For Florida’s estimated 200,000 adults living with hearing impairments, the televised updates can be crucial.

On a broadcast by Manatee County Emergency Management during Hurricane Irma, an unqualified American Sign Language interpreter butchered important evacuation orders. He stopped frequently throughout the broadcast, signing words like “pizza”, “monster” and “bear”.

“Even if it’s one incident, I mean that could be thousands of people that get the wrong information,” said Representative Richard Stark.

The incident sparked outrage among the deaf community and interpreters.

“Everyone was shocked and asking the leaders in the deaf community to do something about it,” said former President of the National Association of the Deaf, Chris Wagner.

In light of the blunder, Stark filed new Legislation gaining traction in the Legislature would require the Division of Emergency Management to higher State or Nationally certified ASL interpreters to translate during weather emergencies.

The Legislation has the support of deaf organizations who say they’re often overlooked by the state.

“They feel the state doesn’t take serious enough concerns of the hearing impaired,” said Stark.

The Devision of Emergency Management says they already include ASL interpreters during their broadcasts. But it says the legislation would ensure accountability on a state and local level so only qualified interpreters are used.

In Florida, there are 564 ASL interpreters certified by the Registry of Interpreters for the Deaf.

The Legislation has cleared one committee in the House and one in the Senate.

A federal Judge has ruled Florida’s clemency process unconstitutional.

 

 

Florida changed its rights restoration process after Rick Scott took office in 2011.  It now requires felons to wait at least five years before applying. Then most must appear in person before the Board of Executive Clemency for approval.

Only 400 or so cases are heard each year. The backlog of applicants is now more than 10,000.

1.5 million felons in the state are eligible to apply.

 

“And that number increases by 50 plus thousand every year,” said Human Rights Attorney Mark Schlakman.

Now, a federal judge says Florida’s clemency process is unconstitutional, violating the 14th amendment.

In his ruling Judge Mark Walker said felon’s rights have been locked away by the state, and the state has swallowed the key.

 

“It’s a recognition that the numbers of people that have been able to regain their civil rights over the course of the past several years is so startlingly small that it prompted the court to act,” said Schlakman.

The judge didn’t recommend how to fix the system, instead he asked the State and the nine ex-convicts who brought the lawsuit to come up with recommendations by the middle of the month.

The Governor’s Office issued a statement, saying in part, “The Governor believes that convicted felons should show that they can lead a life free of crime and be accountable to their victims and our communities.”

If approved, a constitutional amendment appearing on the November ballot will automatically restore felon’s right to vote and end any legal fight.

Desmond Meade heads the group Floridians for Fair Democracy, which pushed the amendment.

“95% of the country agrees with this, but Florida is the outlier,” said Meade.

It would restore the rights of an estimated 1.3 million felons in the state.

The Governor is expected to appeal the courts ruling.

State lawmakers are trying to plug a loophole that is letting potential sex offenders destroy evidence before it can be seized, and as Mike Vasilinda tells us, the bad guys are getting help from the very people who tipped off police in the first place.

When web services like Gmail, Facebook and others find child porn in a subscribers account, they notify the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. It in turn calls local police. They get a subpoena for the material, and send it to the provider. State Representative Chris Latvala says what happens next will stun you.

“So the Facebook, Google, some of the other social media sites will immediately let that account holder know there is a subpoena for their account, and that law enforcement has subpoenaed them” says Latvala.

But what happens after the perp is notified is predictable says Agent Michael Spadaforafrom the Brevard Sheriff’s Office “Evidence could  be destroyed. Children can be coerced. We did one case where we had to force entry into a house, and the individual is running CD’s through a shredder.”

Legislation moving at the State Capitol would tell providers they can’t tell the perp about the subpoena for at least 6 months.

None of the most familiar, big  internet names have publicly opposed this legislation, but we’re told they are working behind the scenes to make changes.

Through three committee hearings, only one independent data firm has suggested the bill goes too far. John Sawicki is with Forensic Data Corp.

“A doctor, a lawyer, a families accountant could have their emails seized” says Sawicki.

Sponsor Chris Latvala says the loophole exists for just one reason.

“These companies are more concerned with their trade secrets or their products than doing the right thing.”

Police say they need at least six months before suspects are told about the investigation.  That;’s because these cases often involve a dozen or more young victims.

Current law already allows the collection of stored material for web services without a warrant as long as its 180 days old. The current legislation only changes the time the companies must wait before telling subscribers lawmakers are looking at their account.

Over 20,000 patients qualified to receive medical marijuana have yet to be issued ID cards.

Lawmakers say until the Department of Health clears the backlog, top brass won’t get paid.

 

“The Legislature has done everything in their power to get them access to this and it’s the agency who’s supposed to implement it that’s been dragging their feet,” said Representative Jason Brodeur.

An amendment added on the the House’s appropriations package would hold $1.9 million in salaries and benefits in next year’s budget.

 

“I think it will get their attention that this is the law,” said Brodeur.

The Senate may do the same.

 

“It’s certainly something we should consider along with other measures to make sure that DOH does the job,” said Senate Appropriations Chair Senator Rob Bradley.

Along with clearing the backlog, the department also would have to issue five new growers licenses to get the funds back.

The Department of Health cited one particular lawsuit for delaying the issuance of new grow licenses, but that lawsuit was settled a month ago.

The department says an court ordered injunction is preventing them from issuing grow licenses.

However, it only applies to one license.

Advocates say the department is still  preventing other companies from applying for licenses that should have been issued in October.

 

“Here we are four months later and there’s no clear indication of when that’s going to happen,” said Jeff Sharkey with the Medical Marijuana Business Association.

The department also disputes, via email, the existence of a backlog saying, “At any given time, there are 3,500 or so applications in processing. We would not characterize that as a backlog.”

The DOH also noted in its response that not all patients in the registry apply for a card.

DOH is being called before legislative committee next week.

Lawmakers hope the department will have answers by then.

The Florida Cannabis Action Network says it rejects lawmaker’s decision to point the finger at the Department of Health.

The organization says unrealistic deadlines set in the law set the Department up for failure.

Multiple organizations representing Latina and Caribbean women in the State rallied in the Capitol Thursday.

They’re advocating against bills making their way through the Legislature they say would hurt ethnic women in the state.

The Legislation includes a ban on sanctuary cities, state funding for pregnancy centers that don’t provide abortions and a proposal that would ban certain types of abortion procedures.

Charo Valero is with the Florida Latina Advocacy Network.

 

“We are hurt and we are extremely disappointed that politicians are further restricting already limited access to care, further stigmatizing and criminalizing us and our families,” said Valero.

Advocates say the proposals would make it harder for undocumented Latina women to report sexual assault and limit their access to reproductive care.

A team of 16 lawmakers have reestablished a Veteran’s Caucus in the state Legislature.

The group made up of former military men and women turned politicians announced its creation Thursday afternoon. The caucus also announced a list of 22 bills it’s supporting. All of the proposals seek to benefit veterans in the state. Vice chair of the caucus, Representative Danny Burgess says the group of lawmakers will work to create bi-partisan support for the Legislation.

 

“The Legislative process can be challenging for the best of initiates, but I think the best way to sum up what we’re going to fight for as veterans in the Veteran’s Caucus is we’re going to fight to raise awareness on the these important issues,” said Burgess.

All five branches of the military are represented in the newly formed caucus.

Florida’s prison population has grown 373 percent over the last 40 years, while the state population has only doubled over the same time period. Taxpayers are now spending more than 2 billion dollars to house 96 thousand prisoners. A study commissioned by the State Senate is recommending a handful of ways to reduce the population without risking safety. Len Engel is with the Crime and Justice Institute.

“Sending low level offenders to prison is more likely to increase their criminal behavior. Secondly, longer prison terms for low level offenders do not reduce recidivism more than shorter terms of incarceration. Third, treatment programs delivered in the community are more effective than programs delivered in prison” Engle told reporters at a news conference.

Lawmakers are looking to raise the threshold for felony theft, and to require low level non violent drug offenders spend any time in local jails.

Democrats in the state House say a trust with taxpayers has been broken. A percentage of documentary stamp revenue generated by every real estate transaction is supposed to be dedicated to affordable housing, but in reality lawmakers have been using the money for other things. State Rep Sean Shaw says teachers, nursers and first responders often can’t afford to live in the areas they serve.

“The money’s not going to the dedicated affordable housing program. You know, we’ve swept a billion dollars, thats a billion dollars that was specifically dedicated to the affordable housing, that we’ve used to plug general revenue holes over the last yen years. That’s not fiscally responsible. That’s not a trust. That’s not what we are up here to do.”

Legislation to require the money to be used as intended has yet to get a committee hearing.

Florida is one step closer to ending child marriages at any age. A ban on marriage cleared the Florida Senate today with a unanimous vote, and as Mike Vasilinda tells us, the state is one step closer to having the strictest child marriage law in the country.

Sherry Johnson as raped at 8, married at eleven, and couldn’t legally divorce until she was 18.

“She is the voice for this bill” says State Senator Lizbeth Benacquisto.

Johnson has spent the last six years fighting for legislation that bans all marriages for anyone under 18.

“Her parents did the unthinkable” Benacquisto told Senators. “They forced her to marry the man who impregnated her as a child.”

One by one, state senators praised Johnson’s efforts.

“Thank you from the bottom of my heart for you being able to turn such a negative part of your life into a positive for so many children” said Sen. Rene Garcia.

Sen. Daphne Campbell added  “Florida gonna be the first state ever to pass this bill.”

“37 yeas, zero nays, Mr President.”

And when it came time for a vote, Johnson was all smiles.

“What drove you to make these changes?”

“My passion for children. To not ant them to have to experience the negative things, the negative life I had to experience. And its not necessary. We should always look out for our children.”

Right now, there are no exceptions for anyone under 18 to get married. But that could be changing.

Johnson is worried any changes to the legislation will only put more girls at risk of being sex slaves.
“So you worry if there’s any kind of loophole, that could be you?”

“Exactly, any type of loophole, who knows?”

A House committee is expected to add exceptions on Thursday. After that, the negotiations begin.

The House committee is expected to add language tomorrow allowing 17 and 18 year olds to marry if pregnancy is involved.

House Speaker and likely Gubernatorial candidate Richard Corcoran is standing by a hard hitting TV spot depicting a young woman being killed by an illegal immigrant. The spot prompted Tallahassee Mayor Andrew to criticize the speaker. Now the two have agreed to a debate on sanctuary cities, even though they are from different party’s and neither has won their party’s nomination.
“In that commercial, we say this: was a illegal immigrant allowed back into America and given hide out status in a city? The answer is unenviably yes. As a result of that, was a young, beautiful girl killed? The answer is inequitably yes. If that’s true, than what Andrew gillum ought to do is say if those two things are yes which are unenviably true , than how do we fix it? Lets fix it so it never happens again” Corcoran told us.

Both Corcoran and Gillum are considered underdogs, if Corcoran runs for governor. A debate would likely boost both among their party’s primary electorate.

The Legislation has cleared one committee in the House and one in the Senate.

During an emergency situation, Floridian’s rely on broadcasts from the Division of Emergency Management to receive important information and updates. For Florida’s estimated 200,000 adults living with hearing impairments, the televised updates can be crucial.

On a broadcast by Manatee County Emergency Management during Hurricane Irma, an unqualified American Sign Language interpreter butchered important evacuation orders. He stopped frequently throughout the broadcast, signing words like “pizza”, “monster” and “bear”.

“Even if it’s one incident, I mean that could be thousands of people that get the wrong information,” said Representative Richard Stark.

The incident sparked outrage among the deaf community and interpreters.

“Everyone was shocked and asking the leaders in the deaf community to do something about it,” said former President of the National Association of the Deaf, Chris Wagner.

In light of the blunder, Stark filed new Legislation gaining traction in the Legislature would require the Division of Emergency Management to higher State or Nationally certified ASL interpreters to translate during weather emergencies.

The Legislation has the support of deaf organizations who say they’re often overlooked by the state.

“They feel the state doesn’t take serious enough concerns of the hearing impaired,” said Stark.

The Devision of Emergency Management says they already include ASL interpreters during their broadcasts. But it says the legislation would ensure accountability on a state and local level so only qualified interpreters are used.

In Florida, there are 564 ASL interpreters certified by the Registry of Interpreters for the Deaf.

The Legislation has cleared one committee in the House and one in the Senate.

Florida lawmakers have unveiled new legislation aimed at better collecting crime statistics throughout the state.

Currently lawmakers say information is hard to consolidate from agency to agency and even country to county. The new legislation would require law enforcement agencies, clerks of court, state attorneys, public defenders, county jail operators, and the Department of Corrections to issue weekly statistics to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement.

FDLE will be required to organize the data and make it available to the public.

Representative Chris Sprowls says the data will help lawmakers draft better informed criminal justice policies.

“Right now we have very very little information. Even basic things like recidivism,” said Sprowls. “What we have in the way of data is woefully insufficient and in order to have a full picture of what the criminal justice system looks like and how we can improve it we need as much information as possible and right now we don’t have it.”

If passed the Legislation would cost the state $1.75 million dollars to implement.

Environmental advocates held a rally on the State Capitol steps in support of Legislation to ban fracking.

Bills in both the House and Senate have been filed with bi-partisan support to ban the practice in the state, but neither have been scheduled for a committee hearing.

Supporters of the ban cite more than 900 health studies that point to fracking’s negative effect on the quality of drinking water.

Representative Sean Shaw is cosponsoring the House bill.

“Listen, I don’t understand why we have to do these every year, why we can’t get a hearing to ban fracking. I just don’t get it. It’s dangerous, the science proves that it’s dangerous, it’s not even particularly efficient,” said Shaw.

To date, 90 municipalities in the state have passed local bans on fracking.

A highly contentious plan to ease regulations on vacation rentals drew a packed house in the State Capitol today. As Mike Vasilinda tells us, angry hotel owners who feel their future is on the line had to be escorted from the hearing.

A standing room only crowd gathered outside the committee room a half hour before the hearing on vacation rentals.  Before the committee, two competing proposals. One to give all regulation to the state.

 

Lori Killinger represents the Florida Vacation Management Assn.“This all started because of the morass of local ordinances that have been adopted since 32014 that have caused a significant unpredictability around the state” she told the Committee.
The other to let local governments regulate safety. Cari Roth represents the City of Holmes Beach.

“Fire safety. Pool safety. Those aren’t getting caught unless local government inspects the property” cautioned Roth.

Of the 100 plus in the room, only one resident, a Tallahassee realtor, Nga Nguyen,

spoke about her Air BnB rentals.

“It gives us a little bit extra money to go visit grandchildren.”

 

Hotel owners from one end of the state to the other complained they were being slowly pushed out of business. Henry Patel cautioned “Do not start a fire you can not put out.”

When the time came for a vote, Patel had to be escorted from the hearing.

“I just want finish up”.

“Mr. Patel, you’re not in charge here. I’ll have you escorted out of here.”

The chastising came from Chairman Tom Lee. He is in the middle, trying to find a compromise

 

“Most of these people are doing a good job regulating the renters in their properties. It’s the bad apples that spoil the bunch and that’s what we’re here trying to fix” Lee said afterward.

As the legislation is written, the state would only audit one percent of the homes that are being rented.

But everything and anything is subject to change as both sides fight for a bigger piece of the tourist rental cash cow.

The hotel owners vowed to come back to the next committee to make sure their concerns are heard.