Florida could make elected officials' addresses and phone numbers secret
TALLAHASSEE — State lawmakers are preparing to make the addresses and phone numbers of elected officials secret in what would be a sweeping change to the state's broad public records laws.
Members of Congress, school board members, state legislators and other state and local officials — and their families — would have the option to have their personal information redacted from county and state records.
The bill, SB 268, passed the Senate Wednesday with two Democrats voting against it. Its bill sponsor, Sen. Shevrin Jones, D-Miami, said he expects it to pass the House, as well.
Lawmakers have pointed to the need for more protection amid a toxic political environment. Senators recounted in committees their experiences with death threats and instances of round-the-clock police protection at their homes.
But open government advocates say the bill could make it easier for local and state officials to live outside their districts — or redraw districts to favor one politician over another.
If the bill passes, elected officials would be granted rights approaching those of police, judges and prosecutors.
Once elected to office, mayors, property appraisers, city and county commissioners and other elected officials could have their primary house number and street name redacted from records.
So could their spouses and adult children. The names, addresses, phone numbers, dates of birth of their minor children and where they go to school would also be exempt from public records.
The exemption would expire when the elected official leaves office.
'No one needs to know where you and your family live,' Jones told senators Wednesday.
'It has nothing to do with government, nothing,' he added. 'All you need to know is where you can come to my office to see my staff, to see me.'
Jones said he received death threats following his impassioned 2022 speech against the Parental Rights in Education bill, also known as Don't Say Gay.
Other senators on both sides of the aisle recounted their own stories.
Former Sen. Randy Fine, R-Melbourne Beach, who was elected to Congress last week, said two people have been arrested and imprisoned for threatening him and his family.
'We had to have law enforcement pull up to our house with sirens blaring and everything else,' Fine said last month. 'I got the joy of understanding what it's like to be important for a few days, as I couldn't go anywhere without a ton of security with me.'
Sen. Jason Pizzo, D-Hollywood, said state police in 2020 pulled him out of a committee to alert him to the fact that 'someone had paid $47,000 to have me killed.'
Sen. Corey Simon, R-Tallahassee, said a man recently came to his home asking for him.
'It scared the heck out of my wife,' he said.
Sen. Barbara Sharief, D-Miramar, said her home address was placed on a Ku Klux Klan-affiliated website.
'I was on three months' worth of security protection,' she said.
Some of the heated political rhetoric was evident in Gov. Ron DeSantis's dispute with Republican legislative leaders over a special legislative session on immigration earlier this year. The state's agriculture commissioner, Wilton Simpson, who was on the other side of DeSantis, received death threats.
Opponents of the bill have noted that lawmakers haven't produced any data about the number of threats they've received or whether that number is going up. The Florida Department of Law Enforcement, which can pursue charges against people who threaten legislators, did not respond to a request for data on lawmaker threats.
Critics of the bill also note that there are numerous instances of politicians getting caught living outside their districts, making them ineligible to hold office.
'It undermines accountability in the sense that no longer would anyone be able to be sure that their legal representatives live in their districts,' said Bobby Block, executive director of the First Amendment Foundation. The organization advocates for open government.
Abdelilah Skhir, a senior strategist with the American Civil Liberties Union of Florida, said the organization feared that records custodians would interpret the statute to redact more information than allowed.
The organization asked senators to amend the bill to explicitly state that certain information in Florida's voter file, such as their precinct locations and the congressional districts they live in, must be public.
If that information were redacted, it would be impossible to determine whether state and local officials were redrawing districts to favor one politician over another, Skhir said.
'Totally understand where they're coming from with wanting privacy and security,' Skhir said. 'But there's a balance they have to walk.'
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