Latest news with #SB1318
Yahoo
13-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
A look at some bills that are struggling in the Florida Legislature as Sine Die approaches
Legislation cracking down on distracted driving appears to be stalling in the Florida House during the 2025 session. (Stock photo by Getty Images) Shortly after the Senate passed her bill (SB 1318) to ban individuals from hands-on cellphone use while driving, Vero Beach Republican Erin Grall acknowledged that the measure's future was uncertain. Its House companion had yet to receive a single hearing in the lower chamber of the Legislature. 'If there is the will, there's always a way' Grall told the Phoenix after the measure passed the Senate 29-7 on Wednesday. 'At least it's going to be with [the House] now, and we'll see if any other solutions are proposed.' Grall's is one of several high-profile proposals in limbo at this point in the 2025 Florida legislative session, having passed through one chamber going nowhere in the other. And with two-thirds of the regular legislative session now in the books, the outcome of some for these bills look cloudy at best. Yet those involved in the legislative process don't dare say they are dead just yet. 'I would say there's a lot of time left in the session,' Senate President Ben Albritton said this week when asked about the timeline for such bills and whether he might jumpstart their passage through the Senate. 'You're asking me if I'm specifically open to the idea of referring a House bill that we receive it to say, Rules or Appropriations to have that bill heard and potentially move?' he said in repeating an inquiry with reporters on Wednesday. 'The answer is yes.' Among bills that the Senate President himself has been asked about on an almost weekly basis is HB 759, which would would lower the age for individuals in Florida to purchase shotguns and rifles from 21 to 18. Three measures in the Senate include that provision, but none of them have had a committee hearing. Albritton has refused to commit to whether he might consider it — unlike his predecessor, Kathleen Passidomo, who was explicit in rejecting that idea during the past two sessions, when she was presiding officer. 'We've heard through back channels that there might be a bill to use as a bargaining chip with the House. Possibly for the budget or something else,' said Luis Valdes, Florida state director of Gun Owners of America. 'If that's the case, Gun Owners of America aren't actually fond of that, because using Second Amendment rights as a bargaining chip for something else is wrong, especially when hundreds of thousands of Floridians have had their rights violated by this law.' Second Amendment enthusiasts were hyped before the session that their long-awaited hope that Florida would join the overwhelming number of states that allow for open carry would finally be realized, but Albritton shut down that thought in November. Then there's SB 166, the public school 'deregulation' bill sponsored in the Senate by North Florida Republican Corey Simon. Under this legislation, Florida high schoolers would not need to pass algebra or English final exams to graduate. The bill looks to 'level the playing field amid other school-choice options,' Albritton said in a news release. There is no House companion for the proposal. A year ago, Tallahassee Democratic Rep. Allison Tant's distracted-driving bill cleared all three of its committees before dying on the House floor. Its Senate companion, however, was blocked in committees and never received a hearing. Flash forward to 2025 and the exact opposite is happening: Sen. Grall's bill cleared all of its three committee assignments before passing in the Senate by a two-thirds majority this week, while its House equivalent has yet to be heard in either of its two assigned committees. Yet advocates aren't ready to throw in the towel just yet, noting that the bill has been sent to the House in messages, making it available for action there. 'We are extremely hopeful that Rep. Perez will bring this forth, since he represents Miami-Dade, one of 11 counties that have passed a hands-free resolution asking lawmakers to act,' said a spokesperson for the Anthony Phoenix Branca Foundation, a group led by Demetrius Branca, who visited lawmakers around the state earlier this year in hopes of getting them to pass the bill this year. A distracted driver killed Branca's son in 2014. The House has championed a number of scope-of-practice expansions this session but the Senate does not seem interested in doing the same. For instance, the House passed legislation allowing certified registered nurse anesthetists to work without having a written supervisory protocol with a physician. The bill (HB 649) passed the House on April 3 on a 77-30 vote. Conversely, the Senate companion (SB 718) has been referred to three committees but has been heard by none. Other bills that have soared through one chamber but are gaining no traction in the other, such as the 'right to repair' legislation sponsored by Central Florida Republican Keith Truenow in the Senate (SB 1132). The measure would require manufacturers to more freely provide access to tools, manuals, and parts needed to repair certain agriculture and portable wireless equipment. It's House companion, sponsored by Tampa Bay Democratic Rep. Michele Rayner (HB 235), hasn't received a single hearing in any of the committees it was assigned to. There's the E-Verify measure (HB 955), which would require all Florida businesses to use the system to check the legal status of employees, which has cleared both of the committees that it was assigned to in the House. If approved, it would change existing law, which requires only businesses with 25 employees or more to employ the program. However, E-Verify hasn't moved at all in the Senate. Sarasota County Republican Sen. Joe Gruters told the Phoenix late Friday that the proposal is still viable in that chamber. With additional reporting from Christine Sexton and Jay Waagmeester. SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE
CBS News
02-04-2025
- Automotive
- CBS News
Bill that would ban hands-free driving in Florida approved by House
A proposal that would put more restrictions on the use of cell phones while driving is heading to the Florida Senate. The Rules Committee on Tuesday approved a bill, SB 1318, that would bar the handheld use of wireless devices while behind the wheel. The proposal would expand Florida's current texting-while-driving prohibition. The bill would apply to any actions that involve holding cell phones – including using social media, looking at maps and watching videos. Bill sponsor Erin Grall, R-Vero Beach, said distracted driving in Florida is a major problem. "It takes us digging in and saying we are going to change our behavior, because we know this is as bad, if not worse, than drunk driving," she said. A similar House bill, HB 501, has not been heard halfway through the legislative session.
Yahoo
01-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Hands-free while driving bill goes to Senate, but advocates fear it won't make it to the finish line
Legislation cracking down on distracted driving appears to be stalling in the Florida House during the 2025 session. (Stock photo by Getty Images) Distracted driving incidents led to the deaths of more than 3,000 Americans in 2022, according to data collected by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. In hopes of reducing those corresponding statistics in Florida, individuals and families who have lost loved ones to distracted driving incidents have galvanized this year behind bipartisan legislation that would ban drivers from operating a motor vehicle while using a cellphone in a handheld manner. The Senate version (SB 1318), sponsored by Southeast Florida Republican Erin Grall, would expand the existing prohibition on texting while driving to include 'using, while driving, a wireless communications device in a handheld manner except to activate, deactivate, initiate, or terminate a feature or function of the device, including a hands-free accessory.' It passed in the Senate Rules Committee on Tuesday, and now will go the Senate floor for final passage. It's another story in the House, however. It's version (HB 501), sponsored by North Florida Democrat Allison Tant, has gone nowhere to date, and advocates are concerned that another year will go without doing anything to change driver behavior when it comes to our obsession with not being able to look at our phone for 10 minutes. 'The public wants and expects these common-sense laws to pass, and not even allowing it a hearing or the public a voice in this debate is not right,' said Jennifer Smith with a nonprofit group made up of families who have been harmed by distracted driving. So far, the legislation's trajectory has been the exact opposite of what occurred last session. That's when a version of Tant's bill won approval in three House committees before dying on the floor, while its Senate companion never was heard in committee. Other states continue to act. Last week, the Iowa Senate passed a bill expanding an existing ban on texting while driving to cover any handheld use of a cellphone, with the measure now headed to Gov. Kim Reynolds' desk. Once it is signed, Iowa will become the 32nd state to adopt such laws. It took years for Florida to pass a texting-while-driving law during the last decade, and it took Michigan five years to pass a hands-free law, said Steve Kiefer, whose son Mitchel was killed in 2016 at 18 by a driver who was on Snapchat when she rear-ended him. He now runs the Kiefer Foundation, dedicated to ending distracted driving, from his home in Naples. 'Police officers want laws that they can enforce, and hands-free laws are really the only law that we know that will make it very visual,' he said. That sentiment was shared by William B. Smith, a state trooper from Miami, when speaking at the Senate Appropriations Committee on Transportation, Tourism, and Economic Development last week. 'It is a problem. Distracted driving is a current problem and it will continue to be problem as long as we don't pay attention … to what we're doing when we're driving a 6,000 pound killing machine,' he said. Tant's bill has landed in two House committees, starting with the Government Operations Subcommittee, chaired by Pinellas County Republican Linda Chaney, as well State Affairs, chaired by Manatee County Republican Will Robinson. Neither returned requests for comment. The legislation would 'authorize law officers to stop motor vehicles and issue citations to persons who are using wireless communications devices in a handheld manner while driving.' That concerns GOP Sen. Tom Leek, who said while discussing Grall's bill last week in the committee hearing that while he voted to advance the measure, he struggled with 'giving the ability of a government actor to pull you over for doing something that is entirely legal, like holding a telephone.' But Kiefer blasts that take. 'He was basically saying, 'It's a primary offense to hold a phone. Something that is absolutely legal to do,'' said Kiefer. 'If I was in the room, I would have pointed it out to him that it's also legal to drink, and it's even legal to be drunk in your home, but it's not legal to drink and drive in a car where you're going to harm other people,' he said. 'So, I think it's just very uninformed politicians that don't really understand what the law would do and how effective it has been in every other state.' During Tuesday's meeting, GOP senators Jonathan Martin and Blaise Ingoglia were the only members of the committee to oppose the measure. Both said that they thought it was too incremental, and didn't go far enough in terms of attacking all distracted driving. 'If we were going to crackdown on distracted driving, we would be including things like shaving, which we've all seen,' Ingoglia said. 'Doing makeup in your vehicle. Eating while driving. Those are all distractions. Anything that takes somebody's attention off of the road into something else in the vehicle should be a form of distracted driving, and it should be dealt with as such.' Leon County resident Christopher Chapman, who testified earlier in the meeting to describe how life has been much tougher for him after he was injured by a distracted driver, shook his head while listening to Ingoglia's and Martin's quibbles. 'I will agree that this bill is imperfect, but it's the bill that we have in front of us,' he told the Phoenix following the meeting. 'And it does give us a platform to build upon where we can invoke more stringent requirements or more stringent penalties.' Demetrius Branca lost his son Anthony to a distracted driving accident in 2014, and has made it his mission in his life to get the state to enact tougher laws. That includes attending legislative delegation meetings throughout the state. In January, he publicly confronted Pinellas County Republican Sen. Nick DiCeglie for his failure to agenda the bill in a committee he chaired last year. The two had words after the meeting, and DiCeglie said he wasn't happy with Branca calling him out. But in Tuesday's committee, DiCeglie said his conversation with Branca changed his attitude on the issue. 'I tried to take the emotion out of it,' DiCeglie told Branca. 'I looked at the statistics. I looked at the data, and I looked at what 31 other states did. And I thought of you and I thought of your son Anthony.' 'I'm proud that you're standing here in front of us today telling your story,' DiCeglie added. 'That has translated into what I believe is good public policy, and I think that's going to translate into saving lives. And regardless of what happens this point forward, I think that you can look yourself in the mirror and know that you did what was right in your heart.' If Tant's bill doesn't get heard soon in the House, such legislation is likely dead for 2025, something Kiefer says will be an irresponsible decision by lawmakers. 'It took us five years to get it done in Michigan,' he acknowledged. 'We've got people playing politics in the House and they won't hear it in the subcommittees, which of course will block it.' Jacksonville Democratic Sen. Tracie Davis revealed during Tuesday's committee meeting that her sister was killed by a distracted driver while jogging in Tallahassee. Although the proposal doesn't address the entire problem, she said, it is a necessary first step. 'Colleagues, we need your help in ensuring that the House chamber understands how important this is as well,' she said. Grall ended her close on the bill Tuesday by getting intensely personal with her colleagues. 'If it's not your family who has someone taken from you, what if it's you who takes someone from someone else? How will you carry that with you? We must change our behavior. This is to me is not acceptable any longer. If we can't be examples from this chamber, with this legislature, then we have a problem.' SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE
