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As Session Wanes, Florida Lawmakers Race to Complete Agenda

With just two weeks left before their scheduled adjournment, both chambers of the Republican-controlled Legislature are inching closer to a budget deal as they continue to work on a slate of bills central to the governor's legislative agenda.

In the coming week, lawmakers are contending with a contentious proposal that would rewrite rules on voting by mail, including imposing stricter ID requirements for changing voter registration information and submitting completed ballots.

Also still awaiting action is a slate of bills focused on the power of Big Tech — in how it controls the information on social media platforms and in how it collects and uses consumer data.

Education budgeters kick the can on federal relief, which could include teacher bonuses

Gov. Ron DeSantis requested lawmakers approve $1,000 bonus checks for teachers with the latest round of federal funding, but budget leaders in charge of education funding pushed back on the need for bonuses and federal aid.

The latest budget offer from the House PreK-12 Appropriations Subcommittee doesn’t include the Governor’s request because lawmakers are saving American Rescue Plan funding considerations for the next phase of budget talks. However, Chair Randy Fine on Sunday appeared to suggest the bonuses were unnecessary with the $500 million in pay raises the Legislature put forward last year and the additional $50 million DeSantis and the House proposed for the coming fiscal year.

“We just thought there were other things that could be done with that money other than giving teachers bonuses,” Fine said.

 Following spring break, Florida’s COVID variant cases explode

One month after the peak of Florida’s spring break, the number of residents infected with more infectious mutated strains of COVID-19 has exploded, rising six-fold since mid-March and leaving 122 people hospitalized.

The information, disclosed in response to a lawsuit by the Orlando Sentinel against the Florida Department of Health, shows the total as of Thursday reached 5,177 cases involving five “variants of concern” — a designation from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for mutations that make the virus more transmissible, deadly or resistant to treatment and current vaccines.

In 31 of those cases, the people infected died.

Florida still executes the mentally ill. This bill would stop that.

One man, convicted of killing two court bailiffs in Orange County, suffered from delusions that he was Jesus Christ. Another man with a long history of paranoid schizophrenia murdered eight people in South Florida. He believed he was the prince of God.

Both Thomas Provenzano and John Errol Ferguson were sentenced to death. As their execution dates approached, their attorneys sought reprieve through a state law that is supposed to bar executing those who can’t grasp what’s happening to them.

In the end, Florida executed both of them.

Years later, a bill now in the Legislature seeks to give more protections to defendants diagnosed with mental illness accused of capital crimes.