The Laboratory

SB 170 will have far-reaching impacts that will ultimately hurt everyday people and small businesses. It could be leveraged by developers, power companies, and retailers to defeat local attempts to lower real estate, utility, and food costs. It will also further advantage big businesses over small ones, as only large corporations will have the resources to litigate – and they now have a mechanism to derail any efforts to specifically assist locally owned companies.

HB 433 poses a significant threat to all working Floridians. It jeopardizes the livelihoods of thousands, including TSA workers, construction workers, janitors, and engineers, among others. This bill is part of a broader trend of undermining worker rights in Florida, favoring corporate interests over working families.

SB 2A has directly contributed to Florida’s affordability crisis. Florida’s already-skyrocketing insurance rates have continued to climb since Ron DeSantis signed this industry giveaway into law. And it does nothing to address any of the root causes of Florida’s property insurance problems – which sits at the intersection of both the housing and the climate emergencies. With little to no regulation of the real estate industry nor corporate landlords, and annual disasters (including but not limited to hurricanes) that are made worse by hotter temperatures and higher sea levels, Florida was ranked the least affordable state in the US in 2023.

With so many new restrictions, bureaucratic hoops, and the threat of large fines, many nonprofits that assist people in registering to vote or accessing their ballot were intimidated to continue their voter registration and get-out-the-vote efforts. Many returning citizens, unable to verify their eligibility to vote, decided not to vote for fear of arrest by the Office of Elections Crimes. This intimidation was intentional- and racially motivated-since 1 out of every 10 Black voters and 1 out of every 10 Latino voters are registered by third-party voter registration organizations. Only 2% of white voters are registered this way.

HB 1467 is directly responsible for the plague of book banning that has taken place across Florida public schools. It has censored educators and limited their power to provide materials that students would find relevant and reflective of their lived experience. The majority of books that were banned based on this legislation were written by LGBTQ+ authors and authors of color. This was a clear attempt to whitewash literature that students have access to, and remove diverse representation from libraries. Queer students and Black students will struggle to find themselves represented in the majority of books that are now available through their school.

SB 300 had to wait to go into effect while a 15-week abortion ban was litigated in the Florida Supreme Court. Once Florida’s right-wing, DeSantis-appointed court denied that Florida’s state constitution protected abortion based on the right to privacy, the six-week ban was triggered, and shortly thereafter went into effect. Since May of 2024, approximately 40,000 women have lost the life-saving healthcare that is abortion access. In an effort to stave off the health crisis, voters will have the opportunity to protect legal abortion by voting on Amendment 4 on the November 2024 ballot.

While sponsors of HB 1557 claimed this was narrow and limited in scope, opponents knew that the outcome would be far-reaching. The bill has not only limited topics of lesson plans, but has resulted in policies that prohibit teachers talking about their spouses and families or displaying pictures of them. Pride flags have been removed. Students are discouraged from expressing themselves. Plus, a subsequent bill expanded this to not only elementary schools, but up through high school, and other bills have attacked sexual identity and gender expression even at universities. Due to this clear attempt at erasure of LGBTQ+ identity, Williams Institute of Law found in a study that 16% of LGBTQ+ parents had left the state of Florida out of fear for themselves and their children’s safety.

Rather than passing widely popular common-sense gun-safety reforms, the state of Florida caved to NRA and special interests and opened up firearm possession to almost anyone. The exception is anyone convicted of a felony, since they are prohibited from possessing firearms by Federal law. Due to racial bias and assumptions about criminal record, Black men are more frequently targeted by law enforcement if they are suspected of conceal carry. This legislation came after gun deaths were already extremely high in Florida, having risen 20% under Governor DeSantis’ leadership. According to Giffords Law Center, states that pass a permitless carry law such as Florida’s will see an increase in gun violence of 13-15%, and a CDC study concluded that “states that passed a permitless carry law suffered from a 22% increase in gun homicide for the three years after the law’s passage.”

Although Amendment 4 in 2018 passed with over 65% of the vote, showing that Floridians broadly favored voting rights restoration for people released from prison, state legislators immediately sought to undermine the impact of this with SB 7066. By providing people with prior convictions no way to verify what fines and fees they may still owe and in what counties, by providing no mechanism for any Floridian to verify their voting eligibility, and by later arresting 20 people who voted in good faith (thinking their right to vote was restored because they received a voter ID card), state lawmakers effectively took away a right that had been democratically restored. Afraid of re-arrest and re-criminalization, many returning citizens have opted not to vote. This has undermined not just the rights of people who have a conviction record, but of the majority of Floridian voters who passed a ballot initiative to ensure those rights were restored.

In its most egregious attack on Floridians who are immigrants, the Florida Legislature sought to criminalize all Floridians born in different countries. The result is wide-reaching legislation that affects all Floridians, not just immigrants, and not just those without a regulated immigration status. SB 1718 has already separated families, driven hard-working, honest people away from our state causing labor shortages and lost revenue, and forced Floridians to live in fear. Additionally, it provided $12 million taxpayer dollars for Governor DeSantis to deceive and traffic migrants across state lines to Martha’s Vineyard just to make a political statement. From that stunt, there is now a shell company, called My Bright Horizons, that in cahoots with the administration is continuing to traffic unsuspecting migrants away from our state in an attempt to purge Florida from those who are deemed “other”.

HB 7 was one of the biggest in a multi-prong effort to limit efforts to raise awareness of and combat systemic racism and sexism. It punished workplaces that want to create a diverse, welcoming, and well-informed group of employees, and censored teachers who wanted to provide instruction about America’s real history. It forces a view of American history that denies historical realities of slavery, racism, and pervasive discrimination against women and LGBTQ+ people. Rather than teaching students nuance and the nature of structural inequality, it denies that such realities exist.

Rather than addressing the climate crisis that is obvious and urgent, this Project 2025 brain child doubled down on the use of fossil fuels and funneled more money into dirty and dying industries. It engages in complete denialism and even puts highly flammable liquid natural gas facilities above ground – which makes them susceptible to explosion. This has already happened in other parts of the country and led most states to restrict these types of facilities to below ground. HB 1645 is a regressive law that moves Florida backwards by decades in the fight for our freedom to clean energy, clean air, clean water, and fewer natural disasters.