Guest commentary: SCCF provides legislative update for Week 6
Environmental and local bill updates from the sixth week of Florida’s legislative session included:
– State Land Management (Parks Protection Bill)
– Initiative Petitions for Constitutional Amendments
– Lee County-Local Bill (Single Member Districts)
We are past the halfway point, and most subcommittees will no longer meet, which means that many of the bills that have not yet had a hearing are most likely dead for this session.
Some bills that have had only one hearing may be amended onto a bill that has already passed through its committee assignments. Both the House and Senate have passed their respective budgets, and we are expecting the budget conference committee members to be named very soon.
LAND MANAGEMENT (PARKS PROTECTION BILL)
HB 209 by Rep. John Snyder is a popular bi-partisan bill that passed unanimously last week in the House State Affairs committee. The bill was filed to counteract this summer’s proposal by the governor and Department of Environmental Protection to add large-scale construction projects, such as 350-room lodges and golf courses, onto some of our most environmentally sensitive state parks.
Thousands of Floridians, including many in the Sanibel-Captiva Conservation Foundation community, turned out in force to oppose the plans. The overwhelming response caused the administration to pull the proposal, but the ultimate outcome for a potential resurgence of those plans was unclear.
The Parks Protection bill provided a clear response to protect our stellar state parks from any plans that would threaten the parks’ natural resources. Until last week, however, language in the bill such as “avoid substantial harm” and “protect the resource to the maximum extent practicable” could have been open to subjective interpretation on the issue of resource protection.
Due to the continued strong input from a wide range of constituents, an amendment was adopted at last week’s meeting to remove the concerning language. The change to the bill was celebrated by a number of speakers during the committee hearing. The House bill has passed all of its assigned committees and is scheduled for a House floor vote on April 16.
The Senate companion, SB 80, was expected to progress through its committees but has unfortunately stalled before its next stop in its second of three committees, Appropriations on Agriculture, Environment and General Government.
The SCCF strongly supports the House bill and is advocating for the Senate bill to make the same clarifications passed in the House.
CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT BALLOT INITIATIVE
SB 7016 by Sens. Erin Grall and Don Gaetz passed its last committee, Fiscal Policy, last week by a vote of 14-5. The impetus of the bill came from the governor’s Election Crimes and Security Report, which claimed many petition irregularities occurred during the recent 2024 Constitutional amendment process. Bill proponents claim that the ballot initiative process is broken, while opponents claim that these bills will effectively end citizens’ constitutional ballot initiatives because of the obstructive demands placed on those collecting ballots.
Just a few of the newly proposed ballot initiative requirements include:
– Requiring petition sponsors to post a $1 million bond at a certain point of signatures collected
– Requires additional personal identifying information for voters signing petition forms and for applicants for petition circulators
– Prohibits non-Florida citizens and certain felons from acting as petition circulators and fines petition organizers up to $50,000 for violating this policy
– Increases fines for a person that collects more than two petitions
– Requires Supervisors of Elections to notify voters whose signatures are verified and provides for an opportunity for such persons to report their signatures were forged or misrepresented
– Revises petition form retention and guidelines — changing the time petitions must be turned in from 30 days to 10 days and increases fines for violating this provision
The comparable House bill, HB 1205 by Rep. Jenna Persons-Mulicka, passed the House after a two-hour floor debate by a vote of 76-31 on April 3, which clears the way for the bill to be reconciled with the Senate bill on the Senate floor. One big difference between the bills is that the House version allows the use of public funds to advocate for or against any issues that are the subject of a proposed constitutional amendment, while the Senate bill prohibits it. The state spent millions of taxpayer dollars advocating against citizens initiatives in 2024.
This creates an unbalanced process that makes it virtually impossible to pass initiatives such as the current SCCF-supported Right to Clean Water.
LEE COUNTY-LOCAL BILL (SINGLE MEMBER DISTRICTS)
CS/HB 4001 by Rep. Mike Giallombardo passed by a vote of 22-0 last week in the House State Affairs Committee. The content of the bill has had many iterations over the years and has failed to make it out of the local Charter committee process overseen by the elected officials it would impact. The bill would put the issue of single-member districts for Lee County commissioners on the ballot in 2026 and take effect in 2028.
Right now, county commissioners are elected countywide, and while some feel the system is fine as is, many feel as though their communities are not being represented by the system and are seeking either incorporation or support from an elected commissioner chosen by the citizens that live in that community. The bill will be up for a full debate on the House floor next.
Visit the 2025 SCCF Legislative Tracker at https://sccf.org/what-we-do/2025-legislative-session/.
Holly Schwartz is policy associate for the Sanibel-Captiva Conservation Foundation (SCCF). Founded in 1967, the SCCF’s mission is to protect and care for Southwest Florida’s coastal ecosystems. For more information, visit www.sccf.org.