A Leon County circuit judge late Friday struck down a state law that threatened tough penalties if city and county officials approve gun regulations.
Florida since 1987 has barred cities and counties from passing regulations that are stricter than state firearms laws. But in 2011, lawmakers went further by approving a series of penalties that local governments and officials could face if they violated the prohibition.
A federal appeals court Monday ruled that the Brevard County Commission has violated the U.S. Constitution by using a discriminatory procedure to select the people who give invocations at commission meetings.
Gov. Ron DeSantis on Friday signed 38 bills, including a controversial measure that will make it harder for groups and citizens to put proposed constitutional amendments on the ballot.
Lawmakers passed the measure (HB 5) amid petition drives designed to place a series of issues on the November 2020 ballot, including proposed amendments to increase the minimum wage, expand Medicaid, overhaul the electric-utility industry, ban assault-style weapons and revamp primary elections.
Florida Power & Light and the state advocate for utility customers have reached agreement on about $1.3 billion in costs to restore electricity after Hurricane Irma --- and on a system to better track expenses when major storms hit in the future.
Attorney General Ashley Moody’s office is urging the Florida Supreme Court to reverse course on decisions that allowed dozens of convicted murderers to have their death sentences reconsidered.
Moody’s office late Monday filed a 59-page brief in a case in which the Supreme Court is delving into whether changes in Florida’s death-penalty sentencing system should continue to be applied retroactively to cases dating to 2002.
Nearly 15 years after Florida voters approved a constitutional amendment about access to records in medical-malpractice cases, a Jacksonville hospital has launched a federal lawsuit arguing it should be shielded from being required to turn over documents to a patient.
In the first execution since Gov. Ron DeSantis took office, serial killer Bobby Joe Long was put to death by lethal injection Thursday evening at Florida State Prison.
Long, 65, died at 6:55 p.m., becoming the 98th inmate executed since the death penalty was reinstated in Florida in 1976 --- and the first since Jose A. Jimenez was executed Dec. 13. Michelle Glady, a Department of Corrections spokeswoman, said the execution “took place without incident.”
Describing it as a “top priority,” Gov. Ron DeSantis on Wednesday directed Secretary of State Laurel Lee to immediately start a review of the security of state and county elections systems after disclosures about Russian hacking during the 2016 campaign.
In a one-page letter to Lee, the state’s top elections official, DeSantis indicated the review will focus on cybersecurity and involve all 67 counties.
Florida lawmakers this month approved a controversial bill that is expected to make it harder to put citizens’ initiatives on the ballot.
The bill (HB 5) would place additional restrictions on gathering the hundreds of thousands of petition signatures needed to reach the ballot. For 2020 ballot proposals, supporters need to submit 76,632 valid signatures to trigger a review by the Florida Supreme Court. If justices sign off on the proposed ballot wording, supporters then would need to submit 766,200 signatures for the measures to go before voters.
More than a year after the Florida Legislature passed gun restrictions, a Leon County circuit judge has dismissed a lawsuit that alleged a ban on “bump stocks” was an unconstitutional taking of property.
Judge Ronald Flury last week issued a 12-page ruling that sided with the state in the dispute stemming from a law passed after the February 2018 mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland.
