HB 7069.
In the state Capitol, you know legislation is big --- and usually controversial --- if it becomes known simply by the shorthand of its bill number. And when then-House Speaker Richard Corcoran pushed through HB 7069 during the 2017 legislative session, it was a bombshell for the education system.
After Florida voters last year approved a constitutional amendment restoring formerly incarcerated felons' voting rights, Republicans in both chambers passed a provision requiring they pay any outstanding court fees and fines before they can vote. The fate of the bill is in the hands of Gov. Ron DeSantis.
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.
U.S. Rep. Charlie Crist, D-Fla., has a new Republican opponent and it looks as if Crist can expect more of a fight to keep his seat in 2020 than he did last year.
Healthcare lobbyist Amanda Makki, a former aide to U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, last week launched her bid for the Republican nomination to challenge Crist .
“I am fighting to give Pinellas a voice in Washington and a stake in the future of our country. By working together, we can bring effective and principled leadership back to the 13th District,” the new candidate notes on her website.
Last week, U.S. Rep. Francis Rooney, R-Fla., and U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, brought back their bill “to stop foreign intelligence services from using college exchange programs to steal technology, recruit agents and spread propaganda."
Back in September, Rooney, who was the vice chairman of the U.S. House Foreign Affairs Committee when the GOP remained in charge of the House, unveiled the “Stop Higher Education Espionage and Theft (SHEET) Act” which Cruz was championing in the U.S. Senate.
U.S. Rep. Darren Soto, D-Fla., scored a win this week when his proposal to help the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and other government agencies at the state and local levels advanced to President Donald Trump’s desk.
Florida’s past two governors showcased the conflicting views about policy toward Cuba, after President Donald Trump’s administration this week banned a popular way to travel to the island nation.
U.S. Sen. Rick Scott, a Republican who left the governor’s office in January, gave full support to the decision. Scott, an ally of Trump, said money spent in Cuba goes directly to the Castro regime and helps keep President Nicholas Maduro in power in Venezuela.
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.
The U.S. gross domestic product (GDP) is more than $21 trillion, dwarfing the economies of most other countries in the world. China’s GDP hovers over $14 trillion; Japan’s over $5 trillion.
The U.S. is neither the largest country by land mass nor population (4.4 percent of the world’s population) yet its GDP represents 24.2 percent of the global GDP.
