Orlando Sentinel Editorial Board | Orlando Sentinel
Ten weeks ago, when we presented our top 10 priorities for the Florida Legislature’s 2018 session, we didn’t foresee that a single catastrophic event — the Feb. 14 mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland — would vault another issue to the top of the list. Today we grade lawmakers’ actions on that issue and the other 10 from our legislative preview.
Gun/school safety: Legislators devoted a significant share of their time and attention over the final three weeks of the session to passing legislation in response to the Parkland massacre. The bill imposed some restrictions on guns, and directed an additional $400 million to expanding mental health services and upgrading school security. The bill also created an ill-advised program to let school districts train staff volunteers, including some teachers, to carry concealed weapons on campus. And this legislation didn’t incorporate the priorities for most Parkland survivors, including a ban on assault-style rifles and ammunition like the suspected school shooter used. But for a Legislature that has only loosened gun restrictions for the past 20 years, the bill was an overdue step in a new direction. B.
Now, here’s how we grade the Legislature on our pre-session top 10:
Hurricane preparation: After Hurricane Irma beat a destructive path up the Florida Peninsula in September, and a dozen residents died from the heat in a South Florida nursing home that lost power, an interim legislative committee made 78 recommendations for improving the state’s response to future storms. Following Gov. Rick Scott’s lead, the Legislature passed rules requiring generators for air conditioning in nursing homes and assisted-living facilities. Legislators also budgeted hundreds of millions of dollars for recovery and renewed a tax break for storm supplies. But they didn’t address dozens of other needs identified by the committee, including hardening the electrical grid, accelerating evacuations and preventing storm-related fuel shortages. They’re not scheduled to get another chance until after the next hurricane season. Start praying we don’t get hit in 2018. C.
Affordable housing: Florida suffers from a chronic and deepening shortage of affordable places to live for low- and moderate-income families. It’s bad for them and bad for the state’s economy. Yet for years, legislators have raided trust funds containing taxes specifically levied to expand the supply of affordable housing. This year was supposed to be different: The Legislature’s very own task force on affordable housing urged lawmakers to leave the trust funds alone. Instead, they wound up diverting $185 million, leaving just $109 million behind. Legislative leaders blamed the sudden need to come up with $400 million for school safety. In an $88.7 billion budget, they had plenty of other, lower-priority places to look. F.
Puerto Rico diaspora: Since Hurricane Maria devastated Puerto Rico in late September, tens of thousands of people have left the island for Florida, with many coming to Metro Orlando. Scott has directed a comprehensive response from state agencies and wisely worked with legislators, including Republican Rep. Bob Cortes of Longwood, to alter state policies to respond to the educational and occupational needs of the evacuees. Legislators also heeded the pleas of school districts, including Orange and Osceola, that together have taken in 12,000 students from Puerto Rico since the storm and added $126 million to the current year’s budget. But raiding the affordable-housing trust funds again when evacuees will make the state’s shortage even more acute is simply inexcusable. B.
Higher education: Legislators permanently increased the first- and second-tier awards under the state’s merit-based Bright Futures scholarships to cover 100 percent and 75 percent of tuition and fees at public universities, a priority of Senate President Joe Negron to make higher education more affordable to Florida students and their families. They also expanded need-based aid, boosted funding for universities to attract top faculty and enhance their top programs, and increased pressure on schools to graduate more students within four years. Even a needless, controversial provision on campus free speech didn’t take the bloom of this rose. A.
Environmental protection: The budget legislators passed includes $100 million to protect land from development, with most of the money reserved for Florida Forever — a land-buying program they’ve starved for the past decade. In addition, the budget includes another $50 million to restore natural springs and $60 million to replenish beaches. But legislators also passed bills to speed up permitting to destroy wetlands and allow more dumping of treated sewage into the state’s underground drinking-water supply. A bill to ban oil and gas drilling by fracking died. C.
Texting while driving: It’s been a secondary offense under Florida law since 2013, but police can’t stop a driver they catch in the act unless he has also committed a primary offense, such as speeding. Accidents from distracted driving in Florida are surging, causing thousands of injuries and deaths a year and pushing insurance costs higher for everyone. A bill to make texting behind the wheel a primary offense passed easily in the House but stalled in the Senate. Critics in the upper chamber cited concerns about racial profiling and privacy. These concerns are valid but not insurmountable, considering 40 other states make texting while driving a primary offense. How high will the body count go before Florida legislators act? F.
Opioid epidemic: Some 5,300 Floridians died of overdoses from heroin and related legal and illegal painkillers in 2016, a 36 percent spike from the year before. At Scott’s urging, legislators passed a bill that includes three- or seven-day limits on opioid prescriptions to reduce the risk of addiction. The bill allows sensible exceptions for patients who are terminally ill, need palliative care or are victims of major trauma. Legislators also put in the state budget the $53 million the governor recommended to expand treatment and prevention, as well as another $25 million in other categories for emergency response and treatment. We agree with advocates that more money is needed, but at least legislators got started. B.
Schools without rules: Last year a Sentinel investigation found that Florida applies minimal oversight to almost 2,000 private schools paid nearly $1 billion a year through state scholarship programs to educate 140,000 lower-income and special-needs students. Sentinel reporters documented that some private schools in the programs had hired teachers with criminal records and without college degrees, and had falsified fire or health inspections. Legislators passed a massive education bill that launched another scholarship program for the victims of public-school bullies. The bill included provisions to make it harder for private schools to hide criminal convictions of school owners or forge inspections, but left out a proposal from Republican Sen. David Simmons of Altamonte Springs to require the schools to hire teachers with college degrees. C.
Criminal-justice reform: Florida wastes mountains of taxpayer dollars sentencing nonviolent criminals to lengthy terms in state prisons. Bills to raise the low monetary threshold for felony theft, relax mandatory minimum sentences and reform the bail system got serious consideration this year but fell short of passage; there is hope for each next year. Legislators did succeed in creating a new civil citation option for adults as an alternative to arrests for minor crimes, and required that each county adopt a pre-arrest diversion program for juveniles. And in response to documented racial disparities in the justice system, legislators authorized a landmark transparency initiative to reveal to the public the race, as well as the age, of every defendant at every step in the criminal-justice process. B.
Home rule: Legislators didn’t end up encroaching on the authority of county and city governments this year, but it wasn’t for lack of trying. Bills or amendments were introduced to pre-empt local vacation-rental regulations, dictate local election days, phase out community redevelopment agencies, preclude any local controls on tree trimming and removal, overrule local growth plans and bar a wide range of local business regulations. They all failed, which means there were enough sensible legislators pushing back. If this grade were strictly based on results, rather than intent, legislators would get an A. But that wouldn’t be telling the whole story. C.
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