Excerpts from News Service Florida published April 30, 2021
by Dara Kam
Recap and analysis of the week in state government and politics
TALLAHASSEE --- Lawmakers picked up the pace as the clock wound down on the 2021 legislative session, with Republicans calmly slipping in last-minute changes and Democrats frenziedly --- and futilely --- trying to stave them off.
Eleventh-hour amendments addressed some of this year’s most contentious issues, such as a proposal to ban transgender female athletes from competing on girls’ high-school and women’s college teams.
The issue was believed to be out of the running less than two weeks ago, when the Senate bill sponsor pulled the plug on a bill.
But as Tallahassee insiders know, nothing was kaput until the white hanky dropped in the fourth-floor rotunda Friday afternoon to mark the end of the legislative session.
House Republicans attached the transgender athlete ban to an education bill late Wednesday afternoon, passed it and sent it back to the Senate. The Senate then gave final approval.
While this year’s 60-day session was a stark departure from previous years --- the Capitol halls were hollowed out in an effort to curb the spread of COVID-19 --- some things never change.
In the flurry of the session’s final week, GOP lawmakers offered what are known as “strike-all” floor amendments to revamp bills. Democrats unleashed a barrage of questions as they scurried to analyze the last-minute alterations.
A Republican amendment to a measure focused on making it harder for Floridians to vote by mail prompted Rep. Tracie Davis, D-Jacksonville, to erupt on the House floor Thursday night.
“You have allowed a (Democratic) caucus less than three hours to prepare for something that will change Florida’s election law for millions of voters, and you look at me as if I am talking a different language,” Davis, a former deputy supervisor of elections in Duval County, heatedly said, pointing out that the amendment was 48 pages.
In another late move, Republicans delivered a blow to fishing guides and environmentalists who thought they had beaten back a legislative effort to overturn a 2020 vote by Key West residents restricting cruise ship operations. 
A day after the plan appeared dead, the Senate resuscitated the issue by slipping it into a sweeping transportation bill. The House then passed the measure, which is on its way to the governor.
Republican lawmakers backed away from more-stringent proposals contained in earlier versions of an elections overhaul, but the bill en route to Gov. Ron DeSantis continued to draw fierce opposition from Democrats who said it would put up barriers to voting.
The measure (SB 90) focuses largely on vote-by-mail processes, mirroring in some aspects proposals being considered or passed by other GOP-led legislatures throughout the country. The efforts have come after a huge increase in the November elections of vote-by-mail ballots cast by Democrats nationwide, including in Florida.
DeSantis and other Republican leaders boasted about Florida’s smooth handling of the 2020 elections amid the coronavirus pandemic. But many of the changes included in the bill are rooted in problems that arose in other states, including states that lacked Florida’s decades-long history of voting by mail.
The Senate voted 23-17 to pass the revamped version of the legislation on Thursday, with one Republican --- Jeff Brandes of St. Petersburg --- crossing party lines to join Democrats in opposition. The House followed Thursday night by passing the bill in a 77-40 vote along party lines.
With Democrats decrying the “eleventh-hour” move, the Florida House and Senate on Wednesday revived and passed a controversial plan that would ban transgender female athletes from competing on high-school girls’ and college women’s sports teams.
The House tucked the transgender athlete proposal into an education measure and sent the revamped bill to the Senate. The Senate signed off on the proposal in a 23-16 vote late Wednesday, with one Republican --- Gayle Harrell of Stuart --- crossing party lines to join Democrats in opposition.
Under the measure awaiting DeSantis’ signature, female students’ eligibility for sports teams would be based on the sex indicated on their birth certificates issued “at or near the time of the student’s birth.”
A stand-alone Senate bill aimed at preventing transgender athletes from competing on girls’ and women’s teams stalled April 20. But the issue re-emerged Wednesday as an amendment to the education bill (SB 1028) and quickly passed.
The transgender athlete issue sparked some of the most-fierce debates of the session, with critics arguing that a ban would target youths who are already at risk for ostracizing and bullying.
“We don’t need to destroy the lives of those children and their futures. If they want to play, let them play,” he said. “We don’t need this. We thought it was dead. But obviously, some don’t care. And we have to care.”
But Senator Kelli Stargel, a Lakeland Republican who sponsored the stand-alone bill that stalled, defended the plan.

The state legislature was able to pass all these horrible bills (see below) by April 30th but couldn’t bother to pass a bill (SB 772) that simply required the charter and voucher funded private schools to teach a course on tolerance, a course which is required by Florida Statute 1003.42 (2)(g) to be taught by the district run schools.

UU Justice-Florida is urging the Governor to VETO several bills because they contain one or more serious flaws that:

diminish health outcomes and the quality of life of all Floridians,
threaten civil liberties and rights to free speech,
suppress citizens’ rights to vote,
preempt home rule to the state,
threaten Florida’s fragile environment,
marginalize and demonize members of the LGBTQI community,
expand proliferation of weapons and threaten public safety,
require religious practices in public schools,
and/or discourage executives of corporations and sports organizations from expanding operations or sponsoring events in Florida

Governor DeSantis will soon receive the following bills for his signature. To see if you agree with UU Justice’s opposition to these bills, you can find the details at this link:

Bill #       Title of bill which might be misleading
SB 64     Reclaimed Water
SB 76     Property Insurance Claims and Reimbursement
SB 88     Farming Operations
SB 90     Vote-by-mail Ballots
SB 100    Highway Projects
HB 233    Intellectual Freedom in Postsecondary Education
HB 259    Safety of Religious Institutions
HB 487    Growth Management
HB 529    Moments of Silence in Public Schools
HB 545     Materials Harmful to Minors
HB 839    Express Preemption of Fuel Retailers and Related Transportation Infrastructure
SB 896    Renewable Energy
HB 919    Preemption Over Restriction of Utility Services
SB 1028   Charter Schools (banning transgender girls from participating in sports was added at the 11th hour)
SB 1194   Transportation
SB 1890   Campaign Financing
SB 2006    Emergency Management
HB 7045    Educational Scholarship Programs
SB 7072    Technology Transparency

Here’s the link to the bill I mention below that I had hoped could still be considered:
https://www.flsenate.gov/Session/Bill/2021/772
SB 772 would have required this valuable course that is “an examination of what it means to be a responsible and respectful person, for the purposes of encouraging tolerance of diversity in a pluralistic society” to be taught in charter schools and voucher supported private schools in addition to the district-run schools, i.e. in all publicly funded schools.  Many of the standards for the curriculum are to drive home the point “What You Do Matters” 

I applaud the passing of the bill in 1994 that created F.S. 1003.42(g). The course is important and it shouldn’t be diluted by other agendas. There was an uproar when parents opted for their kids to be exempt from this very important course because the parents were Holocaust deniers. It’s astounding that there exist Holocaust deniers in Florida. Here is the link to the Education Commissioner’s letter talking about the Holocaust deniers:
http://www.fldoe.org/core/fileparse.php/35/urlt/HolocaustLetter-July2019.pdf

When the FLDOE changes the standards for this course, I hope they keep in mind that the more odd stuff they put in this class, the more fuel they give to parents to request their child be exempt from taking this class. The goal of Florida Statute 1003.42(g) is an important one:  

(g) The history of the Holocaust … [must be taught in the district run schools] in a manner that leads to an investigation of human behavior, an understanding of the ramifications of prejudice, racism, and stereotyping, and an examination of what it means to be a responsible and respectful person, for the purposes of encouraging tolerance of diversity in a pluralistic society …  

I think it should be required of all publicly funded schools including charter schools and voucher funded private schools. I was sad 2020 bill SB 184–which would have required f.s. 1003.42(g) to apply to charter schools and voucher funded private schools in addition to the district run schools–didn’t pass. And now 2021 SB 772 wasn’t even heard in one of its assigned committees.

The rest of the blog post is about the suggested new standards for the course required by Florida Statute 1003.42 (g). You can read the suggested standards at this link: 

There might still be time to write the FLDOE if you don’t like any of the suggested new standards which they call “benchmarks.” Link to letter from the FLDOE where they say they would  like the community’s feedback: 
https://info.fldoe.org/docushare/dsweb/Get/Document-9116/dps-2021-31.pdf

I heard that Holocaust education experts did the first draft but then a Christian evangelical group who are not Holocaust or Anti-Semitism experts changed it.  I wrote the FLDOE and asked if that was true but they didn’t respond.

Generally I don’ think the teaching of religion should be part of required courses in publicly funded schools. Religion should be taught in homes and churches/religious institutions. People in our country have many different religious beliefs. This “benchmark” would be more appropriate for an elective religious studies class instead of a course on the Holocaust:

SS.4.HE.1.2 Compare the similarities of Judaism to other major religions celebrated around the world, and in the United States and Florida, to see how they are similar and different.

Although I cannot claim to be an expert on the Holocaust, the connection between the Treaty of Versailles and the rise of Anti-semitism is problematic. This benchmark needs to be removed as I believe it to be inaccurate:

SS.912.HE.1.3 Analyze how the Treaty of Versailles led to the increasing spread of antisemitism in Germany … 

I like the following benchmarks and I hope they will be part of the curriculum required by f.s. 1003.42(g):

SS.K.HE.1.1 Provide examples of responsible and respectful actions.  

SS.1.HE.1.1 Examine how acting responsibly and respectfully in your school and community contributes to a more peaceful world and safeguards against intolerance.  

SS.2.HE.1.1 Discuss the benefits of acting responsibly and respectfully.

SS.4.HE.1.1 Identify people and events in your community that are memorialized for contributing to a more peaceful world and safeguarding against intolerance  

SS.68.HE.1.1 Define the Holocaust as the state-sponsored persecution and murder of European Jews by Nazi Germany and its collaborators between 1933 and 1945.

SS.912.HE.1.5 Describe how the Nazis utilized various forms of propaganda to indoctrinate the German population.  

SS.912.HE.2.5 Explain the effect Nazi policies had on other groups targeted by the government of Nazi Germany based on their ethnicity, religion, political beliefs, or sexual orientation; including Roma-Sinti, the physically and mentally disabled, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Slavs, and homosexuals.  

SS.912.HE.2.7 Examine the role that bystanders, collaborators, and perpetrators played in the implementation of Nazi policies against the Jews and other targeted groups, as well as the role of rescuers in opposing the Nazis and their policies.  

SS.912.HE.2.10 Explain the origins and purpose of ghettos in Eastern Europe

SS.912.HE.3.4 Explain the effects of Holocaust Denial on contemporary society

SS.912.HE.3.5 Explain why it is important for current and future generations to learn about the Holocaust.  Discuss human dignity, civic responsibility, cultural diversity, religious freedom and how “Never Again” is meant as a vow.